ALWAYS IS FOREVER

By Margaret Hawley

We cannot get into this world without the help of a mother and a father.
Most of us also had a first love. Who we are, how we interact with others, the person we become, are impacted by these entities. Each contributes to the creation of a permanent mark on the indescribable place deep inside us, a place referred to in poetry and song as our heart and soul. From birth to death, the warmth of love and the ache of loss emanate from that illusive place.
My goal for readers of my book is that they internalize the characters' joys and heartaches as though they personally lived them, that their illusive place becomes alive with emotion as they turn the pages.
The book begins with the main character as a young child when home and family are her whole world. The reader is then led through the ensuing years with the highs and lows of life, with emphasis on a first love and the effects this love created, the heartaches encountered, the babies born, the life lived, until the final breath is drawn.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tablo Publishing
• Release date: Dec 13, 2019
• ISBN: 9781922355898

Book preview

We cannot get into this world without the help of a mother and a father.

Most of us also had a first love. Who we are, how we interact with others, the person we become, are impacted by these entities. Each contributes to the creation of a permanent mark on the indescribable place deep inside us, a place referred to in poetry and song as our heart and soul. From birth to death, the warmth of love and the ache of loss emanate from that illusive place.

My goal for readers of my book is that they internalize the characters’ joys and heartaches as though they personally lived them, that their illusive place becomes alive with emotion as they turn the pages.

The book begins with the main character as a young child when home and family are her whole world. The reader is then led through the ensuing years with the highs and lows of life, with emphasis on a first love and the effects this love created, the heartaches encountered, the babies born, the life lived, until the final breath is drawn.

Margaret Hawley

PART I

IN THE BEGINNING

PROLOGUE

One final push then I heard a baby wail. Is that my baby? Let me see my baby. I struggled to sit up, but I could not see around the nurse. Oh, please let me see my baby, please, I pleaded. No one spoke; they went about their business of cleaning the newborn baby. Then a nurse carrying the crying infant swaddled in a blanket rushed out the door without me getting a glimpse of what was in the tiny bundle.

I know I can’t keep the baby, but surely I can have one look at it. Please let me follow that nurse and see my baby. I began crying hysterically. I don’t even know if it’s a boy or girl. Someone please tell me.

The doctor came over to me and took my hand. Your baby was a boy, Marcie. You agreed to give the baby up for adoption, and it’s best that you don’t see him. You will only feel worse and possibly doubt your decision. I’m going to give you something to calm you down now. He put a needle in my arm, and I drifted off into a peaceful blankness.

When I heard my baby’s first cry, for an instant my heart was filed with joy, knowing my baby had entered the world. However, that joy quickly turned to heartache when I was not allowed to see him. I realized when he was whisked from the room that, although he had entered the world, he had not entered my world, that I would never see him nor know anything about him, that his adoptive parents would nurture and love him in my place. Little did I know that one day in the future this baby would be an instrument of great sorrow for me and my family.

Growing up in a secure and loving home, I was totally unaware of the crucibles I would have to face in the years ahead. My childhood years with my parents and the responsibilities that were often placed upon me for the care of my younger sister and brother helped to develop the resilience I would need to endure those crucibles.

CHAPTER 1

I was born in a small town in Missouri, and this is where I begin my story because those early years helped mold me into the person I became. In later years when adversities were forced upon me, I would long for the peaceful, secure and carefree days of my youth. However, because of the experiences of those early years, I was able to put such longings aside and trudge forward.

The environment where I lived during my childhood years was a life at the end of an era.

In our home as well as many others, indoor plumbing was unavailable; kerosene lamps were used for lighting; children walked to school on dirt roads. In spite of what might have appeared to be a deprived life, with my parents’ love surrounding me making my life safe and

secure, I felt I had everything I needed. At this tender age the future was only tomorrow filled with happy times with my family.

The town in which I lived the first years of my life was a safe little hamlet tucked in among rolling hills dotted with small ponds where grazing cattle stopped to quench their thirst. The population was only one hundred ninety townspeople, but farm families came there to shop, go to church or to the picture show, as movies were called back then. In the small towns of the 1940s children could stay out long after dark without fear, playing tag, catching fire flies or wading in puddles in the summer and playing the snow or sledding in the winter. Life was good, especially for the children.

Saturday night was when the farm families came to town and intermingled with the town folks. The women purchased a week’s supply of groceries and then spent the rest of their time sitting on benches along the walls of the grocery store visiting and swapping stories and recipes.

The men met in the Café sharing tales of the past week, some drinking beer and many smoking, which caused the air to be thick with smoke. When I would go into the Café to ask my father for a nickel to buy some candy, which he always gave me, he would hurry me outside where the air was clean.

Almost every Saturday night most of the children through high school age went to the picture show. When we entered the movie house, the smell of fresh popcorn dripping with

butter greeted us. Inside was an isle down the middle with seats on either side. There were bleacher-like seats in the back near the entrance, and that is where high school couples sat and watched very little of the show. We younger ones would steal an occasional peak and giggle at what we saw going on back there.

Besides the movie of the week, there was always an exciting serial that continued week after week with the hero going over a cliff, getting hit by a train or some other tragedy but miraculously always surviving in the next episode, although I left the show thinking he or she had perished.

After the show everyone went to the drugstore. Near the back of the room where people gathered were several ice cream tables and chairs. Usually a ceiling fan was slowly turning to help keep the room cool. In the center of the room was a soda fountain where sodas and ice cream cones could be purchased. Near the front was a glass candy case that contained many

different candies. A favorite candy of children was what was called a Penny Grabber. It was wrapped in brown paper, cost one penny and had a piece of candy inside as well as a little toy or paper game.

Once I came to the store with a play penny. I told the druggist what I wanted and gave him the fake penny, knowing it wasn’t real. Without a word he smiled and handed me the Penny Grabber. I was amazed as I expected him to tell me my penny was not a real penny.

When the show was over, we young girls would run all around the town with the young boys chasing after us but never catching us. This was not true of the high school boys and girls. They usually ended up together, either in a car or some secluded spot in the park, which sat on the east side of the business district.

Every Saturday night in the summer there would be a dance above the Feed Store with a piano player and some violin players. Everyone gathered there at ten o’clock for square and round dancing. Often my father would ask me to dance with him. How proud I was waltzing around the floor with my father while my friends watched.

When the night came to a close and we piled into the car to go home, totally exhausted from out night on the town, we would unbutton our clothes so we could instantly shed them and climb into bed, going to sleep almost immediately.

For such a small town there were quite a few businesses. On one street was a bank, the

grocery store, the Café, the picture show building and a gas station, whose attendant pumped gas, fixed flat tires and did auto repair work. Situated on the other side of the street was a

bowling alley, hardware store, clothing store, drugstore, pool hall, Post Office and a leather shoestring factory, albeit a small one. On down the street was the Feed Store, where chicken feed was sold in sacks made of material which could be used to make clothes. My mother would buy several sacks of matching material in order to have enough to make something for either her or us children. Across the street from the Feed Store was a large two-story building that was the Village Inn. A little farther down the street was a train depot where big black train engines pulled into town, puffing black smoke and loudly blowing their whistles, a sight and sound that never failed to frighten me. A small train, the Doodlebug, carried passengers from town to town, stopping at all of them as it made its way toward Kansas City and back each day. Many residents of the small towns did not own an automobile but easily were able

to travel to all the small towns in the area on the Doodlebug.

A three story brick building that sat on the east side of the park was the school where all twelve grades were located. Many school and community events were held in the gymnasium, which was attached to the school. It was there that I began my formal education in the First Grade.

Churches played an important part in the lives of small town residents, and mine had two - a Methodist Church on the north end of town and a Catholic Church on the south end, the one to which my family belonged. On Thanksgiving all the parishioners of the Catholic Church enjoyed a turkey dinner cooked and served in the church basement by the women of the parish. Hosted in the church basement at the same time as the dinner was a bazaar where many items made by parishioners were for sale, along with all kinds of delicious baked goods. In the evening following entertainment provided by local talent, a light meal of ground turkey sandwiches plus pie or cake was served. No one in the parish cooked Thanksgiving dinner at home when they could enjoy the camaraderie of fellow parishioners and the good food produced by their joint efforts.

When I was four years old, I occasionally was allowed to walk uptown during the day to the Post Office where my father was Postmaster and which was just a few blocks away. My father always made me feel he was glad to see me and would sit me on a stool he kept under a counter for just such visits. In a drawer near the stool he kept some coloring books and

crayons that were for me to use to occupy my time while my father continued his duties. When it came time to go home, we would walk hand in hand as we strolled the few blocks

toward our house. I felt very special having him all to myself during our walk home.

On one trip to the Post Office to show my father my new pinafore, after he gave me his usual hug, his face suddenly had a surprised look on it. He discovered I wasn’t wearing panties and my bare bottom was quite evident because the back of the pinafore was open.

Marcie, where are your panties? Your little bottom is bare. Did your mother see you go out of the house like this? My father tried to pull the back of my pinafore together.

She saw me go out, but she was busy. I thought I had everything on right. In my excitement to get on my way to show him my new outfit, I had forgotten to put on panties.

We can’t have you walking around like this. Did you walk past the men who usually sit whittling out in front of the store across the street?

I did, but they didn’t say anything. I thought back to my jaunt past where those men sat.

None of them had even looked up and seemed to be busy with their sticks and knives when I passed.

I’m sure they noticed this little bare bottom, but we aren’t going to let them have a second look. Come with me and we’ll see what we can use to cover you.

He very patiently took me into a back room, laid me down on a table and made some make-shift panties with a rag, which he pinned on me with a clothespin. There, you are all covered. I want you to walk home a different way so you won’t be walking past those fellows again. He thought they probably had seen my bare bottom and did not want them to see me in my makeshift underwear. I did as he said and walked home another way, all the while tugging on the rag that wanted to fall down my legs.

When I finally made it home and changed from the rag to panties, I spent the afternoon playing with my little sister, Barbara, who was two years younger than I, keeping an eye out for my father who would soon be coming home. I liked to run and meet him and walk the last part with my hand securely tucked in his.

My life to this point was carefree, surrounded by loving parents who met my every need, and a little sister for companionship. When I was five years old, my mother told me we were going to be getting a new baby. She rubbed her abdomen and said the baby was inside her and would be coming out soon. I was totally confused by that information because I knew nothing

about how babies arrived. I kept a close eye on my mother after that announcement, expecting

her to somehow open her stomach and let the baby out. Then one day she told me she was leaving for the hospital and would be back with the baby in a few days. I then assumed babies must be sold at the hospital and she was going to go buy one. I wondered why it would take several days, but I never asked nor was I ever told how people got babies. Whatever way my mother got her baby, I thought she made a very good choice when she picked out my baby brother, whom we named Joey. Now we were a happy family of five.

When it came time for me to enter first grade, I was apprehensive about leaving my sister and new baby brother to venture into unfamiliar surroundings. However, my mother walked to school with me the first day and helped me find the desk with my name on it. Sitting in the freshly cleaned room with the colorful bulletin boards and seeing Marcie Edwards on my

name tag, I was feeling comfortable by the time my mother left. Gradually I made friends with several girls and began to enjoy all the new experiences I was having, which made the year pass quickly.

The following summer, right before I was to begin second grade, my family moved to a small farm two miles outside of the town where I was born. The house had no electricity, and the plaster was falling off the walls, but it appeared to have potential with some work, which my parents began immediately. My mother mixed flour and water to make paste, soaked rags in the paste to which an insecticide was added to rid the house of bedbugs that we found joining us in our beds the first night in the house. The walls were wallpapered in cheery patterns, and soon the home was clean and comfortable, although a bathroom was never added in the four years we lived on the farm.

Water was brought into the house by a small hand pump that pumped water from a cistern which sat outside near the house and caught rain water from the roof. Our drinking water was brought inside in a bucket from a well. There was an outside toilet set out away from the house, and inside was always a catalog used for looking at and other things.

Our baths were taken in a large metal tub behind a coal-burning stove in the living room with water that had been heated in pans on the stove. I, being the oldest, got my bath first with the other two having to bathe after me in the same water, which meant that Joey’s water was usually cool and cloudy. During the summer we would take a pan of warm water to the outside toilet and bathe individually. Our neighbors down the road had a more modern method

of bathing, at least in the summer, and they allowed us kids to occasionally use their "modern

facility." It consisted of a bucket of water with a lid in which holes had been punched. This bucket was placed on a high shelf in a little shed that stood in the yard. Water that had been heated on a stove was poured into the bucket. It was anchored in such a way that, after our bodies were lathered with soap, when a rope that was attached to it was pulled, the bucket would tip upside down causing the water to pour out the holes in the lid –a shower was created. What a luxury it was to stand under that clean, warm water as it cascaded down over a soapy body. It didn’t last long, but it successfully did the task for which it was intended.

Since there was no electricity, kerosene lamps were used for light. We didn’t mind; it was cozy sitting around the cook stove in the kitchen or the coal burner in the living room with the flame from the lamps casting dancing shadows on the walls and ceilings.

Above the stove in the living room was an open register where heat entered the upstairs bedrooms. When the coal in the stove below burned down near morning, it became quite chilly upstairs. My sister and I would snuggle together as closely as we could under the heavy quilt our mother had made the winter before when we had been homebound by snow and cold weather.

A few months after moving to the farm, electricity was brought down our road and into the house. What an exciting moment it was when the lights came on for the first time! I and Barbara ran from room to room checking out every light, flicking the light switches on and off.

When I moved to the country with my family, I no longer could attend the school to which I had gone for my first year. My new school was a one-room school house that was built at the top of a steep hill. At that time there were one-room schools all over the country and the maximum distance a student had to walk was two miles to get to school. It was almost a mile walk from our house, a long walk for a child. Occasionally I was driven to school if the weather was extreme. At first my mother walked with me, but eventually I walked alone until Barbara was old enough to go to school. My mother could see me from a window almost all the way.

Once a month my parents met with other parents at the school house for a potluck supper and a meeting to discuss school needs and affairs, the equivalent of a modern-day School Board Meeting. There was no electricity in the school when we first moved to the country,

just kerosene lamps like we had at home. The flames from the lamps created a golden glow in the school room.

If there was no moon, it was pitch black outside where we children played tag and hide-and-seek as best we could. Being together with friends outside of a school day was a special time because many of us only saw each other at school. It was in that dark outdoors where I felt the first twangs on my heartstrings. A boy in my class, whom I secretly considered as my boyfriend, would sneak a quick kiss on my cheek, if he could catch me standing still long enough. Those kisses opened a tiny crack in the place where love is experienced, and only years later would that door be fully opened, only to be violently slammed shut again.

CHAPTER 2

Life on the farm was a big change, but a good one. We children had only each other with whom to play, which resulted in our being very close. My family would often take a picnic lunch out to a pond that was nestled in a valley near the house, and we would sometimes spend the whole afternoon paddling around in the water, enjoying the warmth of the sunshine and our leisure time together. My father patiently taught me and Barbara to dog paddle, and soon we were swimming all over, while our little brother watched from the edge, often trying to venture deeper, but being carefully watched by our mother. Our father would let us take turns riding around in the water on his back. Sometimes we would stay at the pond and watch the sun go down. However, we were vehemently told to never go in the water without our parents being with us. Unfortunately, my sister and I disobeyed this order and caused a near tragedy.

One hot, lazy summer day Barbara and I decided we wanted to go out to the pond by ourselves, so I went in the house to ask permission to do this, Mom, may Barbara and I go to the pond to see if there are any ducks swimming around in the water? We know you don’t want us to go swimming, and we won’t. Please, may we go?

My mother considered my request for a minute then answered, I guess you may go, but remember to obey the no-swimming rule. Don’t stay too long.

We went skipping