The Sadness of a Little Girl

I was all tucked away under the warm covers lying tightly against my mother. She had been sick for most of my eight years. We were visiting my Aunt Shirley in Chicago and waiting for my father and older sister to arrive from our home in California. Just that afternoon the sun had been warm in the back yard, and we lay on the grass together watching the clouds and feeling a gentle breeze on our faces. Mother would spend hours telling me stories, brushing my hair, and laughing at my silly knock-knock jokes. I knew when she did not feel well, but on this special day she had been outside with me, playing and laughing. I always tried to make her happy and did everything I was told, so she did not get mad. As we lay together, we talked about going to the beach at Bodega Bay How she loved watching my sister and me climb the rocks for hours. Every Fourth of July, we would go camping at Clear Lake. We threw sparklers to see their reflections in the lake after it was dark.

She loved sewing our clothes and curling our hair to look pretty for Sunday school. We went to the Methodist Church in Santa Rosa, California each Sunday as a family. For my first eight years I felt secure in our home. Living in a happy family with my older sister, father, and my mother was a wonderful beginning for a little girl.

Now as my mother held me in her arms lying in the bed, she quietly died of heart failure. I remember screaming for my aunt to come and help. I begged her not to leave me, and her last words were, “Be a good little girl.” God had given me a gift that day of a happy last time with my mother. My father arrived a few days later and our lives had changed forever. My sister screamed with anger and my father stood in shock. My aunt begged him to leave me with her, but dad insisted we stay together. We took my mother’s body to be buried in Chillicothe, Ohio where most of her family was, and then we journeyed onto Columbus, Ohio where dad grew up. He had ten brothers and sisters that could help him raise my older sister and me. Poor Daddy tried so hard to care for us and to keep up his butcher shop job. I tried to be good while my sister became very rebellious. I had wonderful teachers that would send goodies home for us and would make me costumes for programs and Halloween outfits. I don’t ever remember a time when I did not feel love around me. Dad would punish me when I deserved it, but would always say, “This is going to hurt me worse than it will hurt you,” and I believed it did. He always cried right along with me. He told me every night when he put me to bed how much he loved me. Then came a time when I was sent to my Aunt Coral’s to be safe. My sister was quite physical and Dad needed my aunt to watch over me while he worked. She was still angry about losing Mom and took it out on me. I loved being at my aunt’s during the week and cried when I had to go home. I felt like part of a family and secure when I was there.

I went to many different schools and made friends quickly, but my reading skills fell behind. I was held back in third grade to try to catch up.

My life at my aunt’s house was happy until I turned 12. Once again, someone I loved died. My uncle had a heart attack during the night. My dear aunt went into shock and could no longer take care of me, so I moved back to my father’s house.

Not long after I returned, he married a woman with one daughter. My new stepmother let me know right away that she only had one daughter and was quite cold and unloving. Her daughter, Jackie, was the same age as my sister, and we grew very close. I think she liked having a little sister, and my other sister became very jealous of our relationship. Soon, my father was making plans to move us all back to California. He got a butcher job in Millbrae, and we lived in an apartment over his work. I remember the first Christmas, Jackie and I put on our bathing suits, went up to the roof of the apartment and laid in the sun. We both wrote letters to our friends in Ohio telling them about our suntans. I went to Taylor Junior High in Millbrae and made some good friends. My best friend’s name was Loretta and her mom and dad liked me so they had me over a lot. I always loved children so I ventured out one day to get some babysitting jobs. I made up flyers with my name and phone number on it and put them in doors in my neighborhood. Before I knew it, I had a lot of jobs and was able to buy some of my own clothes instead of having everything handmade by my stepmother. I think I was the only girl in the locker room with a homemade bra. Just when I was getting settled in our new surrounding, dad got a job in Sonoma, California.

I started high school there. Once again, I needed to make new friends. I found some babysitting jobs with some of my teachers. My favorite one was Bob Bergman who had an adorable little boy named Robin. Mr. Bergman also had a friend from college named Rusty who dated my sister a few times. He was pretty nice and worked at Palms Inn Resort during the summer. I worked there too, babysitting for the guests that stayed there. By the time I was 17 and in my junior year, Rusty and I had become good friends. My stepsister, Jackie, was going to be married that June and we were all excited. Dad and my stepmom were not getting along very well, and Jackie and I were talking about me coming to live with her. She and Bob had fixed up a little house. We were not sure if our parent’s marriage would end in a divorce. I did not want to be in the house without her there. She protected me when the fights began.

I remember the Sunday a week before the wedding. Jackie was going to church with Bob, and I was going to another church in town. We kissed goodbye and laughed about something. She told me they were going on a motorcycle ride to Napa after church. Later that afternoon, the phone rang and I heard my stepmother scream. The next thing I knew, they were going to identify Jackie’s body. A drunk driver had hit them and Jackie died instantly. Bob was in serious condition at the hospital. I immediately went into shock as I stood alone in that empty house. I wondered over and over, “How can this happen again, I’m only 17 and everyone I love dies?”

A few days later as I stood in the funeral parlor being forced to look at the body of my sister, I screamed in disbelief. She was so broken! They tried to make her look like her picture but to me it did not look like her at all. My friend, Janet, was with me, and I kept saying, “It is not my sister, she is not dead, where is she?” I fainted over and over trying to make this nightmare end. Rusty arrived from San Jose University, and I was inconsolable. My real sister was married and lived overseas. Within one month my stepmother decided to move back to Ohio. My father, who had experienced too much loss in his life, was put into a mental institution. I knew I needed to stay close to my father so a family in town kept me until my dad was able to come home again.

During my senior year, 1965, Rusty and I decided to get married, I know it was not for the right reasons but we had been talking about it. By March, I was pregnant and married. I wanted to finish high school. Rusty was working and living in a town 30 minutes away. We saw each other on the weekends. I chose to live at home with Dad until I graduated. I hated to leave Dad by himself; he was not right in the head after Jackie was killed. Not long after I left he became homeless, jobless, and a lost soul.

As I think back at the beginning of my life I try to remember the good times. I chose happy instead of sad no matter what the circumstances were. My mother had told me to be a good little girl, and I learned that if I did what she said, I was wanted and loved by most everyone. Except for the one I really wanted, and that was my real sister, Sharon. We were never close again after our mother died. My sister was always jealous of me and I believe never got over the loss. She committed suicide when I was twenty-six and she was only twenty-nine. Someone was dying in my life every four to five years between the ages of eight and twenty-six. That included my mother, my uncle, my stepsister, one miscarriage, two stillborn births, my sister to suicide, and my father-in-law.

I had my father’s love, and a great beginning with a wonderful mother. I was blessed with parents that taught me to be positive, and also, more importantly taught me about the love of God. He was someone that will never leave nor forsake me.

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