A Child's Journey Through a Broken World

By Lydia Elise Salvatore

How have I become the person that I am today? Come take the journey through the eyes of me languishingly climbing up the steps of my childhood. Take a peek and explore the travails and triumphs as I was formed like a lump of clay is formed by a potter. The bend that forged my being was the unconditional love of my beloved Gramps and Granny. The chaos that surrounded my life started at the birth and continued throughout my first eighteen years of life. I am now a registered nurse, a mother of three very successful children, a grandmother to four responsible grandchildren, a wife to a man who is a keeper, an active member of my church, a secretary to an organization that serves my community, and most importantly, I am a Christian with a dynamic relationship with Jesus Christ, my Lord.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: May 17, 2018
• ISBN: 9781642142792

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A Child's Journey Through a Broken World

Lydia Elise Salvatore

Copyright © 2018 Lydia Elise Salvatore

All rights reserved

First Edition

Page Publishing, Inc

New York, NY

First originally published by Page Publishing, Inc 2018

ISBN 978-1-64214-278-5 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64214-279-2 (Digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Hurry, Rob, my mom said as they drove up to the hospital in West Illinois.

Ow, my dad exclaimed as he hit his head on the edge of the car door trying to get my mom out of the car. Blood trickled down his pockmarked face.

Chaos.

The nurse grabbed the wheelchair for Mom while another nurse guided my dad to the ER.

Mom’s OB-GYN, Dr. Brinkley, said, I’m going to give you a cocktail with a little kick in it to get you dilated. Do you feel any pain now?

No, my mom replied.

Just then, one of us twins moved off of my mom’s spine.

Wow, I feel that! yelled my pretty red-haired, blue-eyed, petite mom.

Sweat started to bead up on her forehead, making her straight hair wet, turning it darker. Then blank!—the gas took effect.

We came into the world on a sunny spring day, April 22, 1952. The trees were coming alive with white-and-pink buds peeking their heads out to feel the warmth of the sunshine and opening up like the womb, allowing us to escape and enter the world. It was purity in all of its innocence. We breathed in our first gasp of air after the slap on our butts, weighing over six pounds each.

My mom had predetermined our names. She loved the name Lydia, after one of her friends’ daughters. She invented Laurel, with the unique spelling. So our lifetime identification became Lydia Elise and Laurel Elizabeth. Being identical, it was nearly impossible to tell us apart, so our wristbands stayed on our tiny wrists until Mom, Dad, and our grandparents could tell us apart.

All our family—including aunts, uncles, cousins, nephews, and nieces—gathered together in my grandparents’ small, speckled red-green brick rancher to welcome us home from the hospital.

Oh, they are so perfect—ten fingers, ten toes, and look at their dark hair.

Such were the comments each member of the adults spoke as they passed each one of us around to cradle us in their arms. We wore the yellow lacy crocheted dresses that our Canadian auntie Ann had previously made for this special occasion. Well, that started a trend in our early lives—every week we got a new outfit, which only piled up the laundry for ironing. Our auntie Ann would thoughtfully take home a load of our darling outfits to iron.

We were not the only center of attention in the Salvatore household, for we had a sister, Angelica, who was three years old at the time of our births. She needed constant care. When she was two years old, she had been hospitalized with a high fever.

When my