Life in the Body God Gave Me: Living with Cerebral Palsy

By Wayne C. Long

Life in the Body God Gave Me allows you to experience the intimate thoughts and secrets of Neil H. Tasker, a spastic, who reveals through this writing, his life experiences and devout faith in the God he loved. The deep feelings portrayed unveil life from his boyhood, when he first heard the words of an innocent child: My mother told me not to laugh at you, but I can't help it, through his adult years. The journey climaxes many years later as Neil makes a final plea to the Virgin Mary to answer his prayers, in the city of Lourdes, for a miracle that would set him free and cure him of cerebral palsy. This story shows us we cannot ignore that with Gods love and mercy all things are possible. In His eyes we are created equal, and anyone who puts his trust in God and follows his heart will be truly rewarded.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 14, 2008
• ISBN: 9781462808335

Wayne C. Long

Wayne C. Long is an unusually gifted electronic short story teller. His love for and mastery of this delicious and powerful art form puts him right up there with the best! Having written all his life, whether as a copy writer in the business world or as a writer of edgy short fiction in the digital world, he does one thing particularly well: he mines the edges of human experience for those powerful ideas that no one is tapping into. He visualizes onto the page what other writers overlook, using his cinematically-trained mind’s eye. He distills down the creative essence of the short story, to where less is more. Wayne’s work has appeared in QST magazine where its international readership voted to honor him with the coveted QST Cover Plaque Award two years in a row. He has also written for the Wisconsin Writers’ Journal and is known throughout the blogosphere. For over six years now, his website LongShortStories has been his writing home. There, he offers two free sample stories. On the pages of his blog at www.LongShortStories.com/wayne/, he teaches and engages readers in the art of short story writing. Wayne C. Long is a graduate of Northern Illinois University and his wife, Diane is also an N.I.U. graduate. They recently built a home on a hill overlooking the headwaters of the Milwaukee River as it meanders into a charming century-old millpond occupied by hundreds of Canada geese. Wayne and Diane are proud of their two married children (a daughter and a son), one very special granddaughter and a brand-new grandson.

Book preview

LIFE IN THE BODY

GOD GAVE ME

Living with Cerebral Palsy

The life story of

Neil H. Tasker

Wayne C. Long

Copyright © 2008 by Wayne C. Long.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

[e-mail]

44437

Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

FOREWORD

PART ONE For this I was born

CHAPTER 1 Shamokin August 28, 1910

CHAPTER 2 Something’s wrong

CHAPTER 3 First miracle

CHAPTER 4 Incomplete happiness

CHAPTER 5 Eating and dressing

CHAPTER 6 Starting school

CHAPTER 7 Unpleasant encounters

CHAPTER 8 Third grade

CHAPTER 9 Irish Scooter

CHAPTER 10 Religion

CHAPTER 11 Sixth grade

CHAPTER 12 Pen and pencil

PART TWO My thorn in the flesh

CHAPTER 13 St. Edwards Catholic Church

CHAPTER 14 High school

CHAPTER 15 Philadelphia

CHAPTER 16 First job

CHAPTER 17 Dating and romance

CHAPTER 18 Nescopeck 1940

CHAPTER 19 Awakening of sexual desires

CHAPTER 20 First business enterprise

CHAPTER 21 Desire to serve country 1944

CHAPTER 22 Accepting job at Pentagon

PART THREE Life’s awakening

CHAPTER 23 Washington DC, March 14, 1945

CHAPTER 24 Typewriter shop

CHAPTER 25 Pleasures of Washington DC

CHAPTER 26 First love

CHAPTER 27 Happiness with Doris

CHAPTER 28 Transfer to Hawaii

CHAPTER 29 Breakup

CHAPTER 30 Work in Hawaii

CHAPTER 31 Return to Washington DC

CHAPTER 32 Mrs. Ada Craig

CHAPTER 33 Interest in Lourdes

CHAPTER 34 Meeting Helen

CHAPTER 35 First years of marriage

CHAPTER 36 Mail order business

PART FOUR Shamokin to Lourdes

CHAPTER 37 Returning to Shamokin

CHAPTER 38 Determination to visit Lourdes

CHAPTER 39 Trip to Lourdes

CHAPTER 40 Lourdes

CHAPTER 41 Experiences at Lourdes

CHAPTER 42 Hoping beyond hope

CHAPTER 43 Trying again

CHAPTER 44 Grotto

CHAPTER 45 Searching for answers

CHAPTER 46 Reflection of God’s love

CHAPTER 47 Trip to Lourdes is over

EPILOGUE

Neil H. Tasker

Dedicated to

my wife and family

SCRIPTURE:

In the desert he gave you manna to eat, food that your ancestors had never eaten. He sent hardships on you to test you, so that in the end he could bless you with good things.

Deuteronomy 8:16

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

There were many people who supported me during this adventure. I would like to thank Neil H. Tasker for telling me about his beliefs and dreams when I was a young man. I also want to thank him for his courage to write down his thoughts and life experiences, which are the basis of this book. I am also grateful to my parents, Louise and Carl Long who were a great strength to Neil and brought his story into my life.

Many thanks to Rev. Dr. Barry Downing for his spiritual critique and Linda Rohlfs for her encouragement that gave me the impetus to publish this story. I would also like to remember all those who face struggles every day with courage and conviction seeking God by living an ordinary and upright life.

FOREWORD

Life in the Body God Gave Me is based on the writings and story of Neil H. Tasker, a spastic, who reveals through this writing, his life experiences and devout faith in the God he loved. The deep feelings portrayed unveil life from his boyhood, when he first heard the words of an innocent child: My mother told me not to laugh at you, but I can’t help it, through his adult years. The journey climaxes many years later as Neil makes a final plea to the Virgin Mary to answer his prayers, in the city of Lourdes, for a miracle that would set him free and cure him of cerebral palsy.

The circumstances surrounding his birth and early childhood reflect stories, as revealed to him over the years, by his father and mother. The difficulties he experienced as a victim of cerebral palsy, first as a young man and later as a mature adult, are based on his own narratives. All characters were at one time, or are still today, living men and women. In some cases, their real names are given. In others they are not. Conversations are not verbatim because of the lapse in time, but they are structured to accurately reflect their meanings in the context given. Names of towns and cities are correct, as are dates given.

This story is written so all who read it can appreciate the true meaning of living within one’s abilities. These writings began in the early 1980’s and although Neil H. Tasker lived a full life, from 1910 to 1995, his story lives on as a symbol of hope and fulfillment. As you follow his life’s journey you will understand the pain, joy, love and compassion felt by someone born with a handicap. When you have finished this story, whether you are Catholic, Protestant, or of any other conviction, you will find an awakening from within that will give you a new outlook on your faith, life, and dreams.

Wayne C. Long

Endwell, NY

January 2008

PART ONE

For this I was born

CHAPTER 1

It is the morning of August 28, 1910. There is a haze outside hiding the sun while inside the air is stiflingly hot and humid. In one corner of the room a massive wardrobe stands in masculine majesty. In the opposite corner, made of the same wood but somewhat smaller in its feminine daintiness is an intricately carved chest of drawers. Between the room’s two front windows is a beautiful dressing table with a large oval plate glass mirror. A chair stands in front of it. This furniture was a wedding gift from the parents of the young woman now beginning to breathe hard and moan softly. The huge brass bed was a wedding gift from her husband’s widowed father. The husband and soon to be father, despite the oppressive heat, is downstairs in the kitchen nervously heating some water in a shiny tea kettle on top of a brightly polished black coal stove. In the parlor the hands of a valuable Seth Thomas wall clock move slowly toward the midday hour as its mechanism ticks off the seconds.

It is Sunday morning and most people are at church. The two upstairs bedroom windows open to their fullest, look down upon a quiet scene. It is one that with minor variations can be duplicated in many other neighborhoods in Shamokin, at this time, a prosperous anthracite coal-mining town in Pennsylvania. The pavements are made of hard red bricks neatly arranged in mosaics to benefit from the contrasting whiteness of cut mountain stone used for curbing. The street is simply the blackest dirt imaginable. When the spring rains come, the streets are a sea of mud. However, now near the end of a parched summer, the street is baked so hard that when the wheels of a common delivery wagon or a stately carriage roll into its ruts, there is nothing for the hapless driver to do but continue moving on in them.

On each front lawn of the comfortable, but by no means elaborate, homes that line both sides of the street stands a towering tree. Some trees are elms and maples while others are horse chestnuts and oaks. They provide some shade for those brave souls who, on a sweltering day such as this, dare to venture forth from the coolness of their shuttered parlors. Behind the houses on one side of the street are long, pleasant yards with fruit trees, melon vines and blackberry bushes. Some of the homes have grape arbors, heavy now with their purple clusters. This very afternoon some of these lucky homeowners will play croquet on their well-manicured grass. On the other side of the street where the laboring mother to be and her sweltering husband live, it is a different story. Not a single house has a back yard and the foundations rise starkly upward out of an evil smelling creek of sulfur water into which pours all the raw sewage of the neighborhood. On a Sunday such as this, the water is brown but during the rest of the week when the mines are working, it is black with coal dirt. The stench is at times almost unbearable, but it is a fact of life, and the people now in the upstairs bedroom stoically ignore it.

A distinguished looking man sits beside the bed. He is the family doctor. A little black satchel is open at his feet. He has been sitting there for more than an hour. Yet he has done nothing and apparently intends to do nothing to relieve the suffering of the woman on the bed. He honestly believes a mother who suffers during childbirth will love her baby more than if the birth were an easy one. At intervals he takes a gold watch from his pocket, opens it slowly and looks at its face. Then he puts it back in his pocket. He seems perfectly satisfied with the way things are progressing. On the other side of the bed, his wife sits in a rocking chair, a matronly and capable looking woman. She is ready to assist in bringing another baby into the world as she has many times before. At times she strokes the young woman’s hair or holds her hand and in other ways tries to comfort her. Meanwhile, the pains of the mother to be have become more severe and are at noticeably shorter intervals. All at once, throwing her brave resolutions to the winds, she slightly raises her body, tosses her head back and screams loudly and unashamedly. The doctor sharply rebukes her. His wife looks across the bed at him with reproachful eyes because of his thoughtless and unprofessional behavior. As she strokes the young woman’s forehead with one calming hand, she signals with a finger of the other hand to her lips that he says no more. The body on the bed stiffens and the mother to be brushes aside the hand stroking her forehead. She opens her eyes and in their azure blue depths is the startled look of a mental hurt deeper than physical pain. Her eyes close as if in peace at last and her body goes limp in a welcome respite of blessed unconsciousness. The doctor, somewhat taken aback by these unexpected reactions, stares at her with grudging admiration, then sensing that delivery time is close at hand raises the top sheet and goes to work.

A few minutes past the stroke of twelve by the chiming clock in the downstairs parlor the miracle of birth occurs. A high piercing cry rends the air and the doctor brings forth from beneath the sheet a small pink wriggling body. He holds it triumphantly aloft with one hand and vigorously slaps its buttocks with the other. A baby boy has been born. The nervous father has already brought a basin of hot water upstairs. The doctor’s wife tenderly washes the little body and then carefully places it beside its mother where it lies peacefully in her cradled arm. The mother, now fully conscious and all pain forgotten, looks at her newborn son rapturously. The doctor congratulates both parents and then adds with the trace of a smile, He must have been in a hurry to get here. He’s about two months early. He looks down at the little head with its eyes closed and its mouth wide open, then speaks reassuringly, Don’t worry, he’ll be all right.

He puts his forceps in his bag with a few other items and snaps it shut. His wife joins him beside the bed, both happy because of another trouble free birth. The father is overjoyed that he now has a son and heir. The mother is happy too and smiles, although a bit wanly because of her ordeal. Her baby has added a new and wonderful meaning to her life. Suddenly she exclaims, He came before we could decide on a name. What shall we call him? There are a few moments of silence. The doctor’s wife speaks firmly. Call him ‘Neil.’ It’s a nice name. The others seemed pleased. The mother continues, My maiden name was ‘Haupt’ so we’ll make his middle initial ‘H’. Then turning to the father, she explains, This custom is traditional in my family. He immediately signals his approval. He looks at his son. Neil H. Tasker, he intones slowly and reflectively. It has a good ring to it. It has been a most happy occasion. Yet, there is a chilling factor present of which all are blissfully unaware.

The parents do not know it.

The doctor has no reason to suspect it.

The child has been born with cerebral palsy.

He is a spastic.

CHAPTER 2

Neil seemed to be doing fairly well. Although he was definitely premature, he was well formed, fairly strong, and had no immediate problems. There was no cause for any anxiety by his parents. Their only difficulty was in handling him since he was exceptionally small. However, this problem was soon corrected. Neil’s mother’s milk was in plentiful supply and it seemed he could not get enough of it. Neil gained weight rapidly. By the end of two months he weighed ten pounds and by the end of nine he weighed close to twenty.

Although Neil’s body was seemingly normal it became apparent by the end of the first year that something was wrong. He could not walk. He could not even stand. His parents had to carry him wherever they went. At first they were not unduly concerned. Both knew of babies who had been slow in learning to walk. However, as months passed and there was no improvement they became alarmed and consulted the doctor.

Unfortunately, Dr. Richard S. Simmons was of little help. He was married to Neil’s mother’s First Cousin, Cora Seiler. Consequently, he was a member of the family, a fact that was to become a major influence in Neil’s life. Dr. Simmons was an honor graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, and during World War I, had served with distinction in the Army Medical Corps. He was a family doctor and did not specialize in any particular branch of medicine. This was not unusual for doctors in these days. In towns the size of Shamokin, few doctors were specialists. Consequently, Dr. Simmons knew nothing about cerebral palsy. At this time, it had not been formally identified as a birth related affliction and was not to be found in medical lexicons of the day. In all cases of birth problems such as abnormalities or arrested development or injuries of one kind or another, he would simply tell the anxious parents the child will grow out of it. In actual fact, he could do no more.

Dr. Simmons started to practice medicine in the last year of the nineteenth century when there was little knowledge of birth defects and prenatal diseases. Even in large metropolitan cities there were few specialists in this field. In towns off the beaten track like Shamokin, help in this area was impossible. The average parent was even more ignorant about such matters than the doctors who brought their children into the world. Worse still, the general public was either a bit superstitious or deeply religious which by a peculiar paradox tended to bring about the same result in their thinking. If a baby was born deformed or handicapped in any way, it was generally believed to be a punishment meted out to the parents for some sin either they or some distant ancestor had committed.

A second birthday passed and Neil could neither stand nor walk, but he was showing, even at that early age, that he definitely had an unusual ability to improvise. Most babies learn to crawl on all fours. Neil could not do this because he could not hold his head up. He could get on his knees and his arms could easily support the weight of his body, but his head would always fall below his shoulders. Consequently his eyes would always be looking at the floor instead of straight ahead. As a result, Neil was constantly bumping into furniture when indoors and when outdoors could not watch where he was going even if he did crawl. Neil soon found he could get around fairly well by lying on his back or on his stomach and rolling either right or left until he got where he wanted to be. Then while lying face up, if he wanted to move backward, he would double up his arms and knees and push forward with his hands and feet. If he wanted to move forward he would stretch his arms and legs straight out and with hands and heels pressed firmly on the floor and pull backward. In a way, it was something like rowing a boat in still waters, except Neil was the boat. These movements were not pleasant to watch, impractical out of doors and certainly not very fast, but they were the best Neil could do. As it turned out, this strange method of moving about actually benefited Neil. Dr. Simmons always said that, as a baby, Neil got more exercise than many babies who had already learned to walk.

Fortunately, Neil’s arms and legs were strong and well proportioned. With a bit of help the day came when he could stand firmly on his own two feet, but he could not or would not take a single step. After a while his head would droop forward and his body would start to sway back and forth. His head would move strangely as if it were not resting properly on his neck. Then without warning, he would fall forward. The thought struck Dr. Simmons that Neil might have a faulty equilibrium mechanism in his ears. Neil’s parents were ready to grasp at any straw but no steps were taken to determine whether this was actually the case. The only hospital for miles around was for injured miners. New York City and Philadelphia were far away.

There was a complication that today, years later, seems ridiculous in one way and pathetic in another. Since Dr. Simmons had married into the family, Neil’s parents were reluctant to take any steps he did not recommend. To go to another doctor for a second opinion, popular as it is today, was unthinkable then. It would have signaled a breakdown in family confidence and would indicate a loss in family pride that had to be avoided at all costs. By today’s standards it seems almost criminal that Dr. Simmons did not take the lead in getting more facts about Neil’s condition. It also seems inexcusable that his parents did not seek whatever little help might be available to them.

Still, we must keep the matter in its proper prospective. In those days families were very closely knit. What affected one member affected all. In small towns particularly, any revelation raised questions and any rumors caused a comment. Neil’s parents were very secretive, but from bits of conversation overheard growing up when they did not know Neil was eavesdropping, he heard them stating they suspected he had been injured at birth. Since Neil had been delivered by forceps, they speculated Dr. Simmons had not been as adept as he might have been. As a result, Neil’s spinal column had been injured at birth. The possibility that some unknown factor had caused his affliction while Neil was still in his mother’s womb, which was more likely, apparently did not enter their minds. Neil on the other hand, always considered Dr. Simmons completely blameless.