Take These Broken Wings and Learn to Fly

By Brenda J Grodzicki

This is a story of neglect, abuse, loneliness, and ultimately redemption. It documents the life of Prudy Hopkins from her infancy, childhood, and teenage years in an orphanage where all her energy goes into merely surviving the best way that she can. There is no coddling or snuggling, just a handful of women taking care of her basic needs for food, shelter, and clothing. Due to a cleft palate and lip, Prudy is singled out and becomes the subject of sympathy from adults, curiosity and alienation from her peers, and abuse from misfit children who torture her because it makes them feel better about themselves. As a result, Prudy isolates herself from everyone and refuses to let anybody get close to her. After having been the subject of unspeakable violence as a teenager, she is forced to evaluate her life. Through the help of her high school English teacher and an incredible therapist, she finally learns to trust and let people penetrate the walls she has put up around herself. But after a heartbreaking, sudden, and shocking loss, she puts the fortifications back up and entrenches herself inside them. It isn't until she meets Tom, who refuses to be daunted by her defensiveness toward him, that she is finally able to let someone in again. The rest of the story is about her life as an adult—the trials and triumphs that are unique to her. It is a beautiful and tender account of one woman's journey through self-discovery, continued reevaluation, and the reinvention of herself.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Nov 23, 2020
• ISBN: 9781647012199

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Take These Broken Wings and Learn to Fly

Brenda J Grodzicki

Copyright © 2020 Brenda J Grodzicki

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING, INC.

Conneaut Lake, PA

First originally published by Page Publishing 2020

ISBN 978-1-64701-218-2 (pbk)

ISBN 978-1-64701-219-9 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

No Port in a Storm

I’ve got sunshine on a cloudy day

nothing but grAy skies

A Ray of Sunshine through the clouds

karma can be a bitch

the dark clouds return

I FOUND LOVE ON A TWO-WAY STREET

Climbing the Proverbial Staircase

the bells are ringing

Life Is a River Flowing So Deep

WHEN IT’S COLD OUTSIDE I’VE GOT THE MONTH OF MAY

Who Do You Think You Are?

GETTING TO KNOW ALL ABOUT YOU

Life Is Like a Mountain Railroad

lost it on a lonely highway

Where Is the Love?

Time Keeps Charging Like a Moose on Steroids

OB-LA-DI, OB-LA-DA, LIFE GOES ON, BRAH!

raindrops keep falling on my head

That Tiny Pebble in One’s Shoe

That Pebble Turns into a Stone

That Moose Keeps on Charging

The Calm After the Storm

I am dedicating this book to Jack Wenke, my former English professor at Salisbury University. Thank you for believing in me when I didn’t believe in myself, for helping me have the courage to pursue my degrees in English literature. I learned so much from you, but the most important thing I learned was that I did have a voice and that my opinions mattered. You also taught me that it’s better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation. You told me that if I ever wanted to be a serious writer, I needed the discipline to write every day, even if the inspiration muse never showed up at times. Thank you for making such a huge difference in my life!

Blackbird

Blackbird singing in the dead of night

Take these broken wings and learn to fly

All your life

You were only waiting for this moment to arise

Blackbird singing in the dead of night

Take these sunken eyes and learn to see

All your life

You were only waiting for this moment to be free

Blackbird fly, blackbird fly

Into the light of the dark black night

Blackbird fly, blackbird fly

Into the light of the dark black night

Blackbird singing in the dead of night

Take these broken wings and learn to fly

All your life

You were only waiting for this moment to arise

You were only waiting for this moment to arise

You were only waiting for this moment to arise

Written by Paul McCartney

Performed by the Beatles

chapter 1

No Port in a Storm

Growing up was extremely hard for Prudy Hopkins in the 1950s because she had to fight for her very existence all throughout her childhood. Her first memories were from when she was probably about three years old and living in the Claremont Orphanage in New Hampshire. She can remember lying in her bed every night, feeling so alone and scared, yet being too afraid to cry. There was no coddling or snuggling, just a handful of women taking care of her basic needs for food, shelter, and clothing. In fact, they were very rough with her, treating her like her presence was a personal affront to them. As a result, Prudy never really expected to be held and nurtured because she didn’t know that was the way it was supposed to be for a small child.

And so, her day-to-day existence became just that—getting through each day the best way she could. When you don’t know about the security love affords, life becomes more a matter of survival than about thriving and blossoming.

The hardest part was having to contend with Ralphie, a blue-eyed, red-haired freckled boy who was two years older than Prudy. She assumed that he was in her life since the beginning because she couldn’t remember any of her early years without him. For some reason, he developed an intense dislike for Prudy and never missed a chance to hit her, shove her down, or pull her hair when the women weren’t looking. Prudy cried the first few times but nobody came to her rescue, and it only fueled Ralphie’s enjoyment of torturing her. What made matters worse was that he always stole some of her food when nobody was looking, and that left her hungry most of the time. But when you don’t know any different way of living, you just accept that this is the way it will always be.

Ralphie would often sneak into Prudy’s communal room in the middle of the night and grab her around the throat with one hand and cover her mouth with the other. When she finally opened her eyes, he would just stand over her and gaze at her with an evil grin for several seconds. Although he never did any lasting physical damage to her, she would wake with a start and spend the rest of her night afraid. Consequently, she never felt safe. Prudy would go to bed each night and lie there in abject fear, listening for noises and unwelcome footsteps until she finally fell asleep.

Every so often adult couples would come to the orphanage in search of a child they could adopt. Prudy would watch with fascination as they examined each child and chose the one they deemed the most appropriate candidate. She was never even considered because even though she had blond hair and pretty blue eyes, she had a cleft palate that left her upper lip cracked and deformed, and of course none of them wanted a defective child. Prudy came to believe that she wasn’t worthy of being adopted and loved. Instead of the healthy self-esteem she should have developed from kind, loving, nurturing parents, she learned to feel undeserving and ashamed of herself.

She did pray fervently that Ralphie would find a new home though, but that just never happened and he continued to pick on and torture her throughout her early childhood. Prudy tried to make herself invisible whenever he was around, but it didn’t work. For some reason, he fixated all his anger onto Prudy, and she just kept quiet and put up with it. What else could she do? There was absolutely nobody in that home who had even the remotest interest in her emotional well-being.

A couple of the local churches would have clothing drives every year for the children in the Claremont Orphanage, and that’s where Prudy got all her clothes, except for the hand-me-downs that the older girls in the orphanage had outgrown. Thus, most of her garments had seen a lot of wear before they were passed down to her, but it didn’t matter to Prudy as long as they were warm enough. They kept the orphanage at about sixty-two degrees in the winter, which was bad enough, but since they were living in a very drafty, poorly insulated old building in New Hampshire, she was always cold.

Toys were a different matter and were coveted by all the children. Each Christmas the girls would receive dolls and the boys would get toy trucks that had been donated by the local churches. Prudy tried to keep her doll with her at all times so that it wouldn’t be stolen by any of the other girls or, more likely, damaged by Ralphie or one of the other boys. But they were never allowed to bring their toys to the dinner table, so there were times when she couldn’t protect her precious babies. Hence, she had to be content with dolls whose pretty hair had been hacked off and were gouged in the face. This only made her love them more because she could identify with dolls that were deformed and also unworthy of being loved—and that was pretty much her only solace.

That and reading—well, actually, looking at pictures. Books were plentiful because there was a communal library filled with hundreds of books that had been donated over the years. Prudy hadn’t yet learned how to read, but she had a vivid imagination and would make up stories based on the images she saw.

*****

Something significant happened for Prudy the day she turned five years old. It was her birthday, and surprisingly enough, the people at the orphanage always made sheet cakes for each child’s birthday. The cakes weren’t anything fancy—just usually a yellow or chocolate cake with a simple cream cheese frosting. There were never any decorations on the cakes, but that didn’t matter because it was still a chance for all the kids to have something sweet.

This birthday was so special because it was also the day Claremont first introduced television to the kids. It was just a coincidence that the TV set happened to arrive on Prudy’s fifth birthday, but it was the best gift she ever could have hoped for—a gift that opened up a whole new world to her. She suddenly had a glimpse of life outside the walls of the orphanage and was amazed by everything she saw. Prudy was so fascinated with television that she watched it whenever she could. She particularly liked watching Father Knows Best and Leave It to Beaver because that was how she learned what being in a loving family meant.

The excitement, however, was permeated with sadness because that was how she also learned what was missing in her life. Prudy would often fantasize about having a loving father like Jim Anderson or Ward Cleaver, and a loving mother like Margaret Anderson or June Cleaver. She imagined her father holding her, reading stories to her, kissing her, and tucking her into bed at night, or just listening to her stories about her day. She would dream about going shopping with her mother, who would help her pick out the most beautiful outfits and magnificent toys. They would cook dinner and bake the most wonderful desserts together, and her father would tell her how clever and smart she was. Her fantasy world became more real to her than her actual life because it was filled with so much love and kindness.

Prudy silently cried herself to sleep every night, praying desperately for the life she wished she could have and listening for the sound of Ralphie’s footsteps. She would wake up each morning knowing that her prayers didn’t work—Ralphie would continue to torture her, and she would never have a family of her own.

Prudy formed no attachments to any of the other kids because they either singled her out for ridicule due to her cleft lip, or they just seemed to ignore her and merely view her as a fixture at Claremont. As a result, her TV fantasy world, damaged dolls, and the communal books became her only sources of comfort.

*****

Life went on in much the same way until September rolled around and she was told that she had to go to school. The children took a big yellow Blue Bird bus to Claremont Elementary School, which was close to half an hour from the orphanage if you factored in all the stops. Prudy would always get sick to her stomach on the bus—part of it was due to the fact that she had motion sickness, and the other part was due to her fear of the teachers and all the other kids. She absolutely hated school because it just meant more people making fun of her cleft lip, but she also knew that she had no choice in the matter.

It didn’t take Prudy long to learn how to read though because she was a very bright kid. Over the next few years she quickly devoured all the children’s books that were in the orphanage library and worked her way through most of them in her elementary school library. She loved the Nancy Drew stories and was so proud of herself when she realized that she could figure out how a lot of the mysteries were solved. The other girls didn’t have much to do with her, so reading quickly became one of her greatest pleasures in life.

Unfortunately for Prudy, Ralphie attended the same grammar school. He wasn’t in her class, but he continued to harass her every time he saw her in the hallways or out in the schoolyard. Recesses were meant to be a lighthearted, fun time for the children to play, but they quickly became another source of torture for Prudy. She derived no enjoyment from being out in the fresh air with all the other kids because she had no friends, and the ones who did pay attention to her merely viewed her as a source of amusement.

Prudy was such an intelligent little girl that when she turned nine years old, she finally learned to fight back in the only way she could. Ralphie and two of his gang members continually taunted her on the school playground. They were singing their favorite song, Harelip, harelip, you look just like a battleship, over and over again. Prudy couldn’t get away from them, and she couldn’t drown the sound out of her head, but she was smart enough to know that she couldn’t cry in front of them. She also knew that the other boys simply followed Ralphie’s lead, tormenting her only because Ralphie instigated it.

What are you going to do about it, freak? Ralphie would often ask as he pushed her down to the ground, and the three of them would just laugh.

After years of his abuse, Prudy finally resolved that she would get even with Ralphie if it was the last thing she ever did, and the plot soon started to take shape in her little mind. It took her about a week to figure out how to exact her revenge, but then the first idea came to her! She was so proud of herself because she knew that it was no less than brilliant.

Late one night she very quietly wiggled her way out of bed and snuck over to the door of the boys’ bedroom. After making sure that all the other girls and boys were asleep, she tiptoed down to the kitchen. Prudy was panting heavily and shaking violently, but she did it anyway. Absolutely nobody saw her as she quickly selected the food—a leftover biscuit from the evening meal that she cut in half and slathered with strawberry jam, the last wedge of a blueberry pie, two oatmeal cookies, and four Fig Newtons. Prudy very slowly worked the creaky wooden utensil drawer open, grabbed a fork, and took three bites of the pie. She then crumbled up a third cookie, saving some of the crumbs before placing the rest under the garbage in the kitchen trash can. She was as quiet as a mouse while she arranged the biscuit, cookies, crumbs, Fig Newtons, and fork on the empty side of the old Mrs. Smith’s pie tin and silently scrambled up the stairs.

Prudy then treaded softly into the boys’ room and placed the pie tin under Ralphie’s bed, just visible enough so the woman who woke them for school in the morning would see it. She even had the sense to put some of the cookie crumbs on the pillow next to Ralphie’s head! Then she wormed her way back into her bed, but she didn’t sleep much that night.

The next morning Prudy woke to the sound of Ralphie crying. This was in the days of strict capital punishment when nobody thought twice about spanking a child. Consequently, Ralphie got the thrashing of his life for stealing from the kitchen. Prudy sidled down to the living room door with a couple of the other children and reveled in watching Mr. Tough Guy get his bottom switched as he cried over and over that he didn’t do it, that he was set up. His protests fell on deaf ears as the whipping continued. Ralphie was so mortified that he hung his head for the rest of the day and wouldn’t talk with anyone. In fact, he never said a word to anybody on the bus that morning, and he didn’t play with his gang at recess. He merely sat on the school steps pretending to be engrossed in a book. Prudy wasn’t sure what hurt him the most—the beating or the fact that the other kids in the home saw it.

Ralphie never even suspected Prudy because she was always so quiet, mousy, and shy. He knew that she never even said boo to anybody and would never have enough smarts or backbone to do such a thing to him, or so he thought. Hence, he just never connected the dots. Prudy didn’t feel badly about what she had done in the least because she knew he deserved it after how he had been torturing her for all of her young life!

As predicted, the other boys left Prudy alone for the next few days, and she enjoyed attack-free recesses. It took about a week before Ralphie was able to recover, but then the teasing and taunting resumed full force. She was made to listen to the gang singing a new song that Ralphie made up: Broken face, broken face, hide it please, it’s such a disgrace!

But Ralphie had no idea that Prudy was so resourceful and cunning, and he certainly didn’t think she would ever have the courage to fight back against him. Besides, she was just a puny, little kid. Boy, was he ever wrong! Prudy might have been small, but she was empowered by her first act of revenge and knew that she had to put him in his place again. She wasn’t worried about the other boys because Ralphie was the instigator, and she now knew that they wouldn’t bother her when he wasn’t around.

She waited a couple of weeks until she saw that Ralphie had let down his guard and then enacted stage two of her retaliation. Prudy watched the women carefully from her hiding place in an adjacent closet when they entered and exited the office. She saw them putting money in and taking money out of the antique oak rolltop desk drawer a few times, and she also noticed where they hid the gold-colored office key on a hook behind the maple bookcase next to the door. Prudy knew that the desk was unlocked; she only needed a key to get into the office. All that was left was for her to put her plan into motion.

Again, late at night, she stealthily crept downstairs and was careful not to place her little bare feet on the center of the steps where they creaked. Nobody saw her as she took the brass key from its hiding place, unlocked the door, snuck into the office, and removed some money from the center desk drawer. Her heart was beating like a jackhammer as she stole out of the office, locked the door, cautiously put the key back on the hook, and edged her way up to Ralphie’s communal room. The hall light illuminated the room just enough so she could see what she was doing. Once she was convinced that all the other boys were fast asleep, she padded softly into the room and carefully slid most of the bills under Ralphie’s pillow, but she also positioned a couple at the edge where they would be sticking out and facing the door.

Prudy might have been young, but she certainly understood that there was a huge difference between the consequences of appropriating food and stealing money. She also knew that Ralphie was going to get into serious trouble, but she just wanted his cruelty toward her to stop.

She was awake the next morning as Ralphie was being dragged out of his bed and taken downstairs. This time the overseer didn’t beat him; instead, she called the owner of the orphanage, who in turn phoned the police. The tall, thin red-haired policeman and the short, fat dark-haired owner arrived at the same time. They took Ralphie into the living room and proceeded to grill him about the money. The children could hear him desperately proclaiming his innocence over and over again, but the police officer and the owner of the orphanage definitely didn’t believe him, and they certainly didn’t condone what they thought was lying on top of the theft! He was taken away that very day and never darkened the weathered blue door of the orphanage again. Prudy later learned that he had been placed in reform school, and it didn’t weigh on her conscience one little bit.

Empowered by these two acts of revenge and their success, Prudy began to realize that she was capable of solving any further problems she might face. She decided then and there that she wasn’t going to allow herself to be a hapless victim anymore if she could help it.

*****

Her bullying days with Ralphie might have been over, but now there was a new kid on the block. She didn’t live at the orphanage, but Prudy had the displeasure of dealing with her every day at recess. Her name was Kay, and she was in the same class as Prudy. She was a good three inches taller than Prudy, and she had greasy short brown hair, green eyes, and thick dark-brown glasses. Kay was really fat with pinkish purple pimples all over her face. In fact, she was the grossest, most repulsive person Prudy had ever seen in her young life.

Kay had recently moved to Claremont from Lynne, Massa-chusetts, and she took an instant dislike to Prudy as soon as she saw her on the playground. Prudy might have been young, but she guessed that it was because of her harelip. She couldn’t voice it, but she instinctively knew that ugly kids like Kay always looked for someone they could look down on, and Prudy’s cleft palate was just the excuse she needed to start torturing her.

It started out with a new song, Harelip, harelip, you’re a drip, you’re a drip. You’re so ugly you should be sent out to sea. Where no one can see you, especially not me!

Can’t you be more creative than that? Prudy asked. I could write better songs when I was five years old.

Shut your cracked mouth, freak, or I’ll shut it for you! Kay responded. And don’t think I won’t do it! She then pushed Prudy hard enough so that she fell flat on her back to the ground. Prudy got up, brushed herself off, and placed herself as close as possible to Mrs. Jones, the playground supervisor.

Prudy put up with Kay’s taunts at recess for several weeks, and then an idea came to her. A couple of times during the school year, the teachers did an inspection of all of the kids’ desks. They said it was for sanitary and health reasons to get rid of rotting fruit, and cracker, cookie, cake, and bread crumbs that would attract insects, especially ants. Their teachers always warned them about the inspection a couple of days in advance so they would have a chance to clean out their desks themselves, but most of the kids paid little attention and just let the teachers go through and toss out any offending items because their desks really weren’t that bad.

The children were warned that if the insides of their desks were particularly filthy with rotting and moldy food, the offending parties would be called out in front of the class and made to stay in from recesses for at least a couple of weeks. Prudy had never seen it happen though because the kids were very careful not to spill food in their desks.

A couple of weeks before the inspection, Prudy began stockpiling torn-off pieces of bread, and cracker, cookie, and cake crumbs from her tray during the orphanage mealtimes. She had some tiny fruit slices, mostly apples, in her collection