I Should Have Worn Heels: Why I Chose to Die so I Could Live

By Christine Renae Charles

Imagine the Panic and trauma when accepting you must choose to die in order to truly live.
I Should Have Worn Heels is a story of death and new life- from Charles to Christine. It is my story of placing trust and faith in God as I sought comfort while confronting my death--a spiritual death God was calling me to accept and a loving wife, family, and home I was being asked to relinquish.

My journey was one of hopes and promises that seemed uncompleted and unfulfilled, an unknown journey I initially struggled to comprehend, though a journey I always felt safe abd secure experiencing. I felt a constant spiritual presence that was there, To Watch Over Me.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 29, 2013
• ISBN: 9781479744114

Christine Renae Charles

“I can see you are doing well. . . . Christine, keep living the hand you’re dealt!” —Dr. Marci L. Bowers, MD “I smiled, laughed, and cried. I hated every time something came up that made me put it (your manuscript) down . . . Your faith brings tears to my eyes . . . I am a Sunday school teacher at the Faith Lutheran Church in HL. . . . While reading about your faith I honestly got chills and tears. It is amazing!!!” —Nikki Swanson, Elementary School Teacher, Wife, and Mother of five “I sensed that you have been and are a great communicator, mostly I suspect, with other women; by showing everyone the benefits of being yourself and believing in what you can do. This is very stimulating and encouraging. Don’t forget that there are a lot of men out there that need to hear you as well . . .” —Herb Baldwin, Landscape Architect “You don’t know how much I wish I would have met you sooner.” —Mike James, Marine Recon, Iraq and Afghanistan War Veteran “You will still always be Christine Charles, the wonderful woman I met unexpectedly on the plane ride home, who has opened many doors and emotions for me to see and experience. I wish you a bright and sunny day tomorrow.” With love, —Olivia Jonasen, Nursing Student, Mayo Clinic “I think the Spirit is instructing and guiding all the way. You’re doing a fabulous job of giving birth to something that will help change the paradigm for many. Wow, I am so proud to know you!” Love, —Jody Peterson Lodge, Special Properties, Coldwell Banker Burnet “Christine, I had to call. I feel like I spent my weekend with you. I believe I should get a sitter for my children, take you to lunch, order a bottle of wine and just talk.” —Kristy Heer, College-educated stay-at-home mother of three

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Copyright © 2013 by Christine Renae Charles.

Library of Congress Control Number:       2012920661

ISBN:         Hardcover                               978-1-4797-4410-7

                   Softcover                                 978-1-4797-4409-1

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4797-4411-4

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.

Xlibris Corporation

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Contents

FOREWORD

REFLECTION: ONE JOURNEY, TWO LIVES

TO WATCH OVER ME

BEGINNING A JOURNEY UNKNOWN

FATHER COSSETTE

MISFIT KIDS

CLASSES, GIRLS, AND QUESTIONS

MAKE ME LIKE THEM

A LADY OF THE EVENING

FINDINGMY VOICE

YOU HAD SO MUCH PROMISE

ACCEPTANCE AND INCLUSION

BETRAYAL

A LONG WINDING ROAD

HOME ALONE

ROSEMARY

A HUG AND A TACO

SUZANN

LORETTA

DIFFICULT MOMENTS

WONDERLAND

UNEXPECTED BLESSINGS

FOLLOW YOUR HEART

NIKKI

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

ENDNOTES

DEDICATION

My memoir is dedicated to anyone who has ever been unable

to find their voice. If no one will listen, please contact me.

And in memory of Katherine Darmer.

May thoughts of her inspire many more people to

summon the courage to continue speaking

for those Without Voice.

Difficult moments we endure in silence can often smother

God’s love and grace within us.

And to my family, for loving me.

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Blessed by just the grace of You

I’ll stand strong and hold my head up high

For with every step and every breath I breathe

You’ll be watching over me

You’ll be watching over me

—From Three Graces, Label: Decca,

Released March 4, 2008

Track 7: You’ll Be Watching

FOREWORD

THE best stories always illustrate the plainest truths, and that is the case with Christine Charles. Her story, on the pages following, goes to the plain truth that there can be great joy in revealing our true selves.

Christine has made the gracious choice to dedicate her book in part to Katherine Darmer, who convinced me of the truth described above, and that this truth applies to the lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgendered people among us. Katherine wasn’t especially famous, though she easily could have been, but she was both influential and important. A straight, white, affluent, and married mother of two, Katherine was a brilliant legal scholar and a beloved teacher. Though it in no way benefited her directly (and no doubt caused her some problems politically), Katherine took up the cause of same-sex marriage in her home state of California.

She did this because she thought that gay men and lesbians had the basic right to be married to one another—to be the couples that they wanted to be. She did so passionately, selflessly, and with conviction. There is a video of her at a street rally, urging change, and it is mesmerizing because she is saying something not only heartfelt, but transformative. With her death, a great advocate was lost.

Katherine did change me, and part of that change was seeing the value of a story like Christine’s. It is a story that is sometimes funny, sometimes tragic, but always human. It’s not hard to empathize with her struggles and victories when she tells the story in such a whole and real way. Many people would say that Christine’s story isn’t normal, but in the most important way it is the most normal story I have ever heard. She struggles to reconcile the person she knows herself to be with the person that others expect her to be. This is a universal dilemma, one that we all face at multiple points of our lives. Her example urges us to resolve that dilemma with honesty.

Christine, because of that plain honesty, was Katherine’s kind of person, and it is a shame that they never met. Yet, their stories intersect now in a way that is just as real, and for that I am grateful.

Mark W. Osler

Professor of Law

University of St. Thomas

School of Law, Minnesota

REFLECTION:

ONE

JOURNEY,

TWO

LIVES

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C hristine,

This time for you is good too. Meadows and clouds and sun make beautiful pictures. Dreamy. Reality can have hard edges; don’t think of that as bad. It takes many years, even for a person born female, to become a woman. Let femininity unfold. The procedures will help you because you won’t have to try so hard. Relax. Let her be.—Hillary

Reality’s reach snares us all. From the moment of birth, the illumination from the light of day, the salty scent from breath, the warmth of parental embrace, to the voices of joy and thanksgiving, our gift of life, the clay of our life, is being shaped, transformed, hardened, and fixed. The unlimited potential, possibilities, dreams, and opportunities destiny calls us to seek, discover, and nurture are being culled, categorized, limited, and established.

Painfully pushed, forced, and thrust into the unknown and then severed from the safety and nourishment of shared existence, new life begins to shroud us from our awakening before our eyes can see, before our heart can love, before our mind can discern, and before richness of soul defines. Before discovery of self begins to unfold, our perception, our image, our visual appearance is being chronicled for us. A name is given, announcements are proclaimed, clothing covers our innocence, and our presentation for acceptance precedes our arrival and our arrival of self. Imagine the trauma, the guilt, the shame, and the horror when the hard edges of reality, our existence, and our body do not match our gender, our mind, or our soul. Consider the fear of being trapped in the cultural snare of reality that proclaims our existence is proof positive of the most heinous of sins.

During a September afternoon, Oprah was discussing the transgender condition. She was discussing my personal issue, my problem, and my secret which I had lived with for most of my life. She had devoted an entire week to that struggle, and at the end of her last program, Oprah challenged everyone to be themselves. Not everybody watching here is going to believe it, relate to it, or understand it, but at some point in your life, I’m sure, you will have to stand up and say who you are, in one form or another. She challenged her audience to be more accepting of everyone. I feel like all of us who are living in this lifetime have to do our part to create a greater understanding… where people accept you just for being who you are.¹ During her program, Oprah asked Dr. Marci Bowers, a transgender woman herself and one of the most preeminent SRS surgeons in the world, how one could struggle with being transgender for most of a lifetime. Marci surprisingly answered, You play the cards you’re dealt.

It was difficult positions to be in if you were born when we were. We had no resources to gain understanding to our endless fears and questions, and most of us kept our little secrets to ourselves while living our lives quietly, seemingly unnoticed. Who could we have told? Who would have understood? We were alone and playing the cards we were dealt.

Throughout much of my life, I pleaded with God to answer my questions and make my condition disappear. Many of us, when feeling hopeless and full of despair, eventually turn to God, to faith, or to spirit for an answer. We often believe we must die to self to be saved, to receive our reward, or to achieve our full potential.

I had seldom strayed from the spiritual path that has been the focus of my life. However, I was unable to avoid the path of womanhood that continually called to me. In my heart, I believed I had already died to self and placed my life in God’s hands. What more could I have done to make my transgender feelings disappear? My questions and pleas were endless.

It was an answer to one of those endless questions that focused my frustrations. I am asking you to respond to what is in your heart. That whispered response stunned my senses.

No! I exclaimed.

Responding to what was in my heart, my soul, and my mind would have required my embracing being a woman. How could anyone born a man have embraced that reality, the reality they were intended to be a woman?

No! I repeatedly exclaimed.

I feared how much more difficult my life would have become if I accepted and fully embraced that thought. How would I have been able to support myself? No one would have accepted me, ever accepted me. No one was like me. I would have been alone. Anxiety was my constant companion, anxiety of my family, my loved ones, and my friends discovering my secret. Also, the anxiety and fear of where my life would have led me if I did not confront my struggle and reveal my secret. Who could I have turned to, who could have helped me?

God? I continually pleaded.

Whenever I came closer to accepting and embracing womanhood, I feared forfeiting the presence of spirit that had always watched over me. If I had found the courage to accept being a woman, would I have been alone in the physical world as well as the spiritual world?

There is no promise that our lives will be more peaceful and happy if we avoid difficult moments instead of willingly confronting them, and there is no guarantee we will be more fulfilled if we seek to limit our experiences and our encounters. If our focus is too self-centered, we can become locked in our safe and secure places and isolated from the fullness of life’s blessings. We can harden our hearts, unwilling to embrace our new encounters and share all that is offered to us, including the sweet serenity we are promised.

Not until a conversation with the Holy Spirit, when I recalled the eulogy I had given years earlier for my uncle, did I understand the path my life had taken. In our family’s parish church, full of loved ones and friends, I remembered sharing that the most precious gift we will ever receive is our gift of life. Our life is a gift from God. It is a precious gift that we do not have to earn or save for, a gift that we do not have to study and pass a test to receive, a gift that is not a prize we must win, and a gift that does not come as a reward for emeritus service or performance. Our precious gift of life is a gift that is given freely and with one request; a request that we reverence, nurture, and share our gift with everyone, share our gift with all of creation. It is a simple request that we often have difficulty sharing easily and openly. I closed by challenging everyone to accept their gifts, and to share them with everyone they would encounter during their life’s journey.

If I could ask others to accept their gifts, why was I unable to accept all of mine? After all those years, I understood what was in my heart. I believed I was being asked to die to self. I was being asked to accept the death of myself, as Charles, and to embrace new life, my new life, my rebirth as Christine.

My rebirth became a blessing, a blessing I have been fortunate to share with God, my family, my loved ones, and my friends. My life has been most revealing and has allowed first Charles’s and now Christine’s heart to remain open to love and creation. A life of wonder and opportunity that once unfolded for Charles has become my new today that is now unfolding for Christine, unfolding for me. My new tomorrows I can now face with more confidence and faith intact, willingly and thankfully embracing each new experience.

I Should Have Worn Heels is Charles’s and Christine’s story, it is our story. It is a story of overcoming seemingly insurmountable problems and, in the process, understanding the purpose of life. It is a story of understanding why more often seems to be asked of us no matter what we have already accomplished or achieved. My journey was one of hopes and promises that seemed uncompleted and unfulfilled, an unknown journey I initially struggled to comprehend, though a journey I always felt safe and secure experiencing. I felt a constant spiritual presence that was there To Watch Over Me.

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TO

WATCH

OVER

ME

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EXPRESSIONS were absent, movements became fixed and frozen when the nurse pried my motionless body from my mother’s arms. My parent’s world had been filled with celebration and anticipation only days before. Hours before, my smile brightened every second of their day. In an instant, I was taken from them, grasped by the nurse, thrust into the doctor’s care, and cradled in God’s embrace. Would my parents hold me again? Would I enjoy their loving caress once more? Was Heaven destined to be my new home?

I was born to a Canadian father and an American mother, born with dual citizenship, intrinsically part of two nationalities, two cultures and unknowingly, two genders. Birth proclaimed my existence, the obvious and my yet-to-be-discovered duality.

Destination was my first transition. I was born in Canada and during spring of the following year, we moved to Minnesota. I celebrated my first birthday in that Midwestern state, though not in my mother’s hometown of Hibbing. We celebrated in tiny Crosby, at the home of my mother’s youngest sister Lois, her husband John, and their nine-month-old daughter Bronwyn.

A couple of days after my birthday, I unexpectedly arrived in Hibbing. During our visit, I came down with flu-like symptoms and became lethargic. After a morning of concern and worried about a fever that continued to rise, their doctor was summoned and arrived the moment I went into convulsions. Within a matter of minutes, he knew the situation had escalated and how serious it had become. There had been an outbreak of infantile gastroenteritis, and he feared that I had contracted the disease. The epidemic had already claimed many children’s lives and his hospital was not equipped to treat the outbreak. Panic set in. I was wrapped in ice and rushed 110 miles to the Hibbing General Hospital.

My mother’s family doctor met us upon our arrival. I was immediately quarantined and a new ordeal had begun; a race to save my life. The medical staff worked frantically all afternoon and throughout the night in their attempt to save me. Soon, plastic tubing connected to saline bottles and clear bags of electrolyte solutions protruded from my body. The tubing appeared to grow out of me while life withered, repeatedly squeezed from me. I was unable to retain any fluids. The doctors and hospital staff could not keep pace. Liquids of life flowed, gushed, and escaped with each bodily discharge.

Fear gripped my parents, and my mother juggled her fear with hope. She had known their doctor for most of her lifetime and clung to confidence in him. Her confidence and faith were tested that afternoon, though never more severely than when she was asked to obey his instructions. That evening, he told my parents they should go home, get some rest and pray; they were not allowed to stay in the hospital through the night. He told them the chance was only 50/50 that I would live until the following morning. My parents were frantic, they had no home. They stayed the night with her brother Jerry and his wife Joyce, and the four of them got little, if any, sleep. They spent most of the night in prayer.

Their prayers were answered and after more than a week, I was healthy enough to leave the hospital and proudly introduced to my extended family. My relatives were happy to meet me, my parent’s son. Though many of my parent’s friends, those who had only seen me, and not been properly introduced, agreed I was the most beautiful baby girl.

Baby girl! My father and I paid a visit to the barber shop the following week. During the next few years, my father and I made numerous trips to that little shop to keep my blond curls a modest length.

I should have known my first neighborhood playmate would be a girl; she was the girl next door. Susan was a year older, an only child and lived in the big brown, two-story house next to our two-bedroom rental. A row of tiny bushes separated our concrete playground of a front yard from the lush, green grass of her backyard. She came from a more affluent family, knew it, and did not seem the least interested in getting to know or play with my younger sister and me.

If not for her dog Inky getting loose one day and bounding between the bushes to introduce himself to his new neighbors, I am not sure how I or my sister Carolyn would have met Susan. Inky was a frisky little dog and immediately made new friends. Our first encounter with a puppy was enjoyable, and we rewarded his playful jumps and licks with numerous pats on the head and many kind words. Susan had other words to share with each of us.

Inky and I both received a stern scolding. He also received a swift swat. I was fortunate; it was a few weeks before I was the recipient of such a blow. She let her dog, my sister, and me know who was in charge that day. My protest was timid at best and only increased her confidence as a neighborhood leader. It was her dog, I whispered, though my sympathy was for her pet. She seemed kind of mean. I am sure Inky had known for a while that she could be. I quickly realized she had made another conquest and soon learned there were two more neighborhood children she would have influence over. She became a playmate to be reckoned with.

Susan and her friends were in kindergarten and often played in her backyard after school. The five of them, two girls and three boys, seemed to be having fun, fun that is as long as she let them. It was her yard, and in her yard, she was in charge. I sensed she was in charge no matter where they played.

During weekends and especially once school was out, my sister and I noticed we lived in a neighborhood full of children, some the same age as ourselves. The older ones had been attending school all day and were no longer little kindergarteners, they were big kids and played big kid’s games. It was during the weekend days of spring that we were introduced to many of them.

When the older children, the big ones, the big first and second graders wanted to play certain games, they often needed more playmates. On those occasions, age did not matter, it was all about numbers, follow instructions, pay attention, and you too could play with the big kids. Susan was not the leader all of the time, though she often exerted her control when the older kids tired of us younger ones.

When it mattered, Susan ruled. She was as big and strong, fast and smart as many of the boys and much more clever. She was a leader, though not always kind. However, there was something about her I was drawn to. I was attracted to her orbit.

That spring and summer were filled mostly with enjoyable memories, except for the May morning of the fishing opener. It was a Saturday that broke steely gray, damp and cold, and icy cold. Neither of our families owned or had access to a boat, and my Uncle Jerry assured them that they would not need one. He knew of a good fishing spot where he believed they would