Joy, Sorrow and Abiding Hope (A Family History)

By Mary Parker

Some families, it appears, cruise serenely through life with very little turmoil and tragedy while some others experience a host of disasters and catastrophes as their story unfolds. It is for these that the author has written. She and her family have lived through many tragedies; it seems that they are either just getting over some upheaval, or they are heading into one, but there have been some very joyous times for her as well. Perhaps the mountaintops have been higher because of the valleys. Even now, as these words are written, there is illness and worry going on, but with faith in God and hope always in her heart, the joy of living remains. Thanks be to God.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
• Release date: Sep 16, 2019
• ISBN: 9781645590491

Book preview

David

Thou wilt show me the path of life: in thy presence is fullness of joy.

—Psalm 16:11 (KJV)

And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with everlasting joy upon their heads:

they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

—Isaiah 35:10 (KJV)

December 1954. My uncle Lloyd needed help again. This uncle, one of my mother’s four brothers, had given our family problems on numerous occasions before that had sometimes involved me. Only a couple of years ago, he had bounced a large check and everyone in the family was asked to contribute toward covering the check and getting him out of jail. A little money from babysitting was all I had, but it was expected that I would give what I had, so I did. I felt rather resentful about it though. If he was so stupid as to write a check that would bounce, why should we all have to bail him out? I did not feel any sympathy for him. However, his problems may not have been entirely his fault. My mother told me that when she and her six siblings were children, Lloyd had been playing in the hayloft of their barn and he had fallen onto the floor below, landing on his head. Seizures had commenced soon after that and may have been a result of the fall. His personality quirks and faults could likewise be attributed to it as well. The other three brothers and the three sisters lived relatively normal lives.

The problem this time though would have a more tangible effect on my life than the loss of a bit of babysitting money. Actually, my whole life.

Uncle Lloyd had not been a visible part of my life until the summer I was eleven when he brought a young wife and their baby boy to my family’s country home. They stayed for most of that summer but eventually left and returned to California. Not unexpectedly, the marriage soon dissolved and the ex-wife, along with two-year-old Billy, went to live with her mother who would care for Billy while she herself would go out to work. Tragically, one day, while the mother was away at work, Billy and a little friend decided to go into the backyard pool. One of them had decided anyway, as one boy had taken off his shoes and the other still had his shoes on. The grandmother must have been distracted for some time; it was a lineman working on wires at the top of a pole who, on looking down, saw the two little boys at the bottom of the pool. Unspeakable horror! It was conjectured that the boy with his shoes still on had probably gone into the water to try to save the other, whose shoes were off, and so they were both lost.

We were heartbroken when we heard the news. My grandmother cried and cried at the loss of her sweet little grandson whom we had all loved the summer he was with us.

Now, five years later, Uncle Lloyd had met and married another young woman, again in California, and a baby boy was born to them on the first of August. This young woman’s mother had been against the marriage, understandably, so when her daughter had an emotional breakdown and was hospitalized, she had the marriage annulled. I don’t know how she managed that since the marriage had obviously been consummated, but she did; perhaps because her daughter was so young and ill.

So, there was my uncle Lloyd with no wife, no job, and a newborn baby to care for. Uncle Lloyd always had trouble keeping a job, partly because of his epilepsy, and partly because he was a born drifter, so he was clearly unable to care for a baby on his own. Still, he didn’t want to lose another son, having already lost little Billy, so when the authorities threatened to intervene, he got on a plane with the baby and headed east. I think he intended to come to us in Maine, but by the time the plane landed in New Jersey, the baby was wet, hungry, and crying, and Uncle Lloyd was at the end of his rope; he got off the plane and went to one of his other sister’s home in Long Branch. I don’t know how he got there, taxi probably, but he did get there, and my aunt and her husband took him and the baby in. They felt they couldn’t let them stay indefinitely though. They had a small house and three young children of their own, and they were afraid of taking on the support of another child and probably my uncle Lloyd as well.

They had been caring for the baby for almost a month when my aunt called my mother to ask for help. Could we possibly drive down and get the baby and take him into our family? Uncle Lloyd had found a place to live somewhere else and intended to help with support, but they just couldn’t keep the baby. The prospect of having a baby in the house sounded pretty appealing to me. Having a baby brother might be fun. I enjoyed babies and looked forward to having one of my own. Someday.

So, the day after Christmas, my parents, my eleven-year-old brother, and I got in our old Chevrolet and headed for New Jersey. At my aunt’s house, we were introduced to five-month-old David. Wow, he was so cute! It was almost like having little Baby Billy back again. We stayed several days getting acquainted with him before making the return trip to Maine.

My aunt was very sad to say good-bye to him. While in the grocery store earlier in the day to pick up a few things, she had to hurry past the baby food isle trying not to look or think about not needing any now. And her oldest daughter was also heartbroken. She was around twelve and as maternally inclined as I was. (When she grew up, she had five of her own, four girls and finally a boy, who she named David, and at this writing, I believe she has thirteen grands.)

The time came to pack up and head home. We loaded the trunk with our bags plus Davy’s clothes and diapers and got in the car, my parents in the front, of course, and my brother and I climbed into the back seat; and my aunt handed me the baby! Wait, I thought he was going to be my mother’s baby, how come she handed him to me? Funny thing though, I didn’t mind in the least. I enjoyed the long trip home with Davy cuddled in my arms. It seems that he was mine from the start, and I adored him.

We had set out very early, but it is a long trip from New Jersey to Maine. Davy had been pretty good through the day, but he got fussy toward the end of the journey. As we drove through the city of Lewiston late that night, I held him up to the car window so he could look at the lights and that soothed him.

Finally home, we installed him in the crib we had borrowed from a neighbor. My mother had decided the crib should be in my room. We lived in a big old brick farm house, drafty and cold in the winter, especially the upstairs bedrooms. My room was on the ground floor with only one sheltered outside wall and definitely the warmest bedroom in the house. It was also a very pretty room. It was large with a fireplace in it, as there were in all the rooms in the main section of the house, and although I was never allowed to use it, I liked having it there. There were three doors in the room; one led to a wooden ell containing a separate apartment that we rented out (that one was kept locked), another led into our living room, and the door that I used to enter my room led in from a small room at the rear of the downstairs hall. This little room had my father’s desk in it and a heating register where we kept a clothes rack for drying Davy’s diapers. My bedroom furniture was all made of maple with a three-quarter size bed, a dresser with a swing mirror, and a drop leaf desk with cubby compartments in it that I loved. There was also a chair with a flowered chintz skirt and cushions that stood by the fireplace; that was my favorite place for reading. The only window in my room was large and looked out on a courtyard that was filled with rhubarb in the summertime. The courtyard was three-sided, formed by the house and two wooden sheds built at right angles from the backs of sheds that were built onto the main house and the ell. Rhubarb grew abundantly there and filled most of the space, but to the right of the rhubarb, there was a little path leading from one shed to the other and to the right of that, a bit of lawn and a long section of clothesline where we hung the wash out in the summertime. To the right of that was my mother’s little kitchen garden and beyond that was a tangle of Concord grapevines and raspberry bushes. It was a wonderful place in the summertime; very secluded and sweet with the smells of summer and things growing and clean wash drying in the sun. In the spring, the pile of snow that formed in a shadowy corner of the rhubarb patch was the very last bit of snow to finally melt. We used to place bets as to the day it would be completely gone. I don’t remember if the winner ever received anything or if I ever won.

So, Davy’s crib was placed at the foot of my bed where there was plenty of room for it. Guess who got to get up in the night to give Davy his bottle; not my mother who slept at the other side of the house far from my room. Davy was five months old, but he still did not sleep through the night.

A couple of days after we got home, my aunt called in a frenzy to tell us that her four-year-old son had come down with whooping cough. It would be dangerous for a baby to have whooping cough, she said, so we should have Davy immunized immediately. I was wild. My mother had gone grocery shopping, so I was home alone with Davy and I was totally panicked. I think I expected Davy to come down with whooping cough and die before my eyes before my mother even got home. Remember, I was only seventeen and with very little (none) experience with babies. I was a senior in high school at this point and had done some babysitting but with older children, never with actual babies.

When my mother finally got home and I told her the awful news, she didn’t seem concerned at all. I don’t think she was even worried enough to take him to the doctor if I hadn’t bullied her into it. She quite possibly was worried about the cost. Even though we lived in a large and somewhat pretentious looking house, we really were quite poor. Also, we usually nursed ourselves through our accidents and illnesses. I don’t think my sister had ever seen a doctor, my brother either, and I only once when I had sliced my knee open wide enough to require stitches.

Unfortunately, the doctor said it was too late to immunize him since he had already been exposed. What he could do, though, was give him a shot that would induce a lighter case of the disease. We decided that would be the thing to do, so Davy had the shot and, in a few days, became very, very ill indeed. We have since wondered if he would have survived if he hadn’t had the shot. Perhaps though, he was so extremely sick because of his thus far undetected medical problem. In any case, it was bad, and I was up in the night with him a lot. I was also still going to school, of course, finishing my senior year and dating my future husband, so my life was very full.

During the day, while I was at school, Davy was cared for in turns by my mother, a neighbor, my sister, and sometimes, my grandmother who was having another of her frequent visits with us. I enjoyed this grandmother, my mother’s mother. She was quite short and round, with white hair and a personality that was full of fun. I remember one day as she was blowing up a balloon for me, she blew out her false teeth and they went sailing across the room. We both collapsed laughing. She particularly enjoyed her morning coffee with a huge dollop of whipped cream on it. Our bottles of milk, which came from a neighbor at fifteen cents a bottle, had several inches of rich cream at the top of each bottle, which we would spoon off and use for whipping. Consequently, we always had a bowl of it whipped up with sugar and vanilla in the refrigerator. My grandmother would smack her lips in pleasure as she sipped her morning concoction, and I would smile thinking to myself that it was no doubt contributing to her roundness, but she didn’t seem to mind that. She never complained about her size or made any attempt at dieting.

She adored Davy. She would stand over his crib so he could wrap his little fingers around one of hers, and she would tell him what a precious, precious little baby he was. Sometimes, she would sing to him; Sweetest little feller, everybody knows, don’t know what to call him, but he’s mighty like a rose (a prophetic little song, it later turned out). Unfortunately, she moved to California soon after I was married to be near her four sons. She died there a few years later, so my three babies never got to hear her songs.

My life up to that point had been pretty dull compared to how it was now. Coming home from a date, I would be greeted at the door by my beautiful collie, Prince, who was around four at this time. There was a woman in West Gardiner, the town next to Litchfield, who sold collie pups, and I had mowed lawns the summer before eighth grade to buy him. He was the best of dogs.

Quietly, I would prepare for bed, but as soon as I was settled in, Davy would wake up coughing and needing to be changed, rocked and fed. Morning came early; I needed to be up, dressed, and at the end of our driveway by 6:30 a.m. to catch my seven-mile ride into Gardiner for the long day at school. The man I rode with worked at a garage down town. Even though my mother paid him for providing my transportation, he always went straight to the garage, so I had to walk from there up a steep hill to the school. It was probably no more than a quarter of a mile, but it seemed longer on freezing or rainy mornings. Even so, I arrived at school shortly after seven, along with half a dozen or so other country kids in the same sort of situation that I was in. The school day didn’t start until eight, but the doors were opened early for us. There was a little cluster of desks down by the girl’s locker room where we would gossip and sometimes, rarely, do a bit of homework. Or, when the weather permitted, we would go to the park that was next to the school and walk around and around the periphery path until the school bell rang for classes.

Sometime during that winter, as his sweet little personality emerged, we had begun to call our baby Davy. It seemed to suit him better than David, and we called him that until he began junior high school when he decided his given name of David was more dignified. One day after he had started high school, I slipped up and called him Davy. He was shocked, horrified, and appalled. Davy! he hollered. What are you doing calling me Davy? I never made that mistake again.

During that first winter, Davy’s birth father became despondent over his situation and made an attempt on his own life. He had come to Maine to be near Davy, so he was hospitalized in Lewiston for a time. When he was released, he came and stayed with us for a while before drifting off again in typical Uncle Lloyd fashion. He went back to California where he married again, but there were no more babies for him, which was no doubt a blessing. Except for an occasional telegram on Davy’s birthdays, he pretty much stayed out of our lives.

It was a long difficult winter, but spring finally arrived, and Davy’s health improved; he was thriving in fact and getting cuter by the day. My mother, who had a job working at the local post office in our little village, was tired of shuffling Davy about while she was at work, so after my graduation, it was agreed that I would stay home and take over his care full time for the summer. I was delighted at the prospect of spending the whole summer at home with Davy, and it’s one of the very favorite times of my life to remember. Summers in the country were so wonderful; the sweet smell of lilacs and honeysuckle permeated the air in the spring, then the roses and fresh mown grass and hay drying in the fields. I even enjoyed the smell of manure being spread on gardens in the fall. Equally poignant to remember was the soft sweet fur of my collie and the equally fragrant smell of baby Davy after his bath.

And the tastes of summer—oh my. Corn on the cob, picked and eaten on the same day dripping with butter and salt; so delicious. Fresh parsley eaten by the bunch, right out of my father’s garden in the morning when it was still wet with dew. There was a bank of blackberries at the edge of one of our fields that bore big sweet berries that could be eaten right off the bushes, warm and sweet in the August sun. And endless rhubarb all summer from our own abundant patch.

Davy and I shared a case of pink eye that summer that glued our four eyes tightly shut while we were sleeping. I had to bathe my own eyes open and then Davy’s before we could begin our day. It wasn’t a bad case, though, and we were soon over it. Otherwise, the summer passed pleasantly.

Davy turned one on the first of August, and I turned eighteen on the thirty-first of that month. Davy was beginning to toddle about on his sturdy little legs, and he was eating better. We had been in the habit of alternating spoonsful of vegetables with spoonsful of applesauce in order to get the veggies down, but now he would eat just about anything except carrots. He even liked lima beans, an enigma to me, but he hated carrots all his life.

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Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal upon your arm.

—Song of Songs 8:6

There was a dance hall about a mile from where I grew up called the Homestead. It was a large one-story building, rather like a roller rink, with a small balcony at one end where the band played. For a small country band, they were pretty good. Their music was very danceable and current with a few weekly specialties. I never dared join in for the Lady of the Lake, but I sure did love jitter bugging to Rock Around the Clock.

My parents had never allowed me to go there until I was a senior in high school, but finally, I was considered old enough, and my best girlfriend and I started going. Lots of single boys and girls and men and women went on their own. The ladies would sit on the benches on one side of the long room and the gents would gather on the other side.