When Life Hands You Lemons...
I was six months old when my mom was told by the pediatrician to start feeding me rice cereal. It was one of those things that mom and dad probably hadn’t talked about. Boy oh boy. When he came home from work for lunch and caught her feeding me baby rice cereal he had a come apart. He pounded the solid oak table while yelling and screaming at her. The table leg broke off and he picked it up and hit her across the back with it. He slapped her around some I’m sure because she later told me that after he left she told her dad-who lived in town-when he came over and saw what daddy had done he said he was going to kill him.
Like most victims she talked her dad out of it, forgave my dad and kept on taking the abuse. For 42 years she took it.
During the 40th year of ‘taking it’ she was in a car accident which jarred her spine pretty severely. She laid on the ER gurney moaning and complaining and begging to be allowed to lie on her side and get off her back. They finally noticed her pleading and decided to let her but to also take her to x-ray. They found a fracture that was very old and had been re-injured in the accident. So they put her in traction for 10 days. That’s when we found out that when dad hit her with the table leg, her back had been broken.
It was good timing for her to be in the hospital for 10 days as that gave her regular doctor an opportunity to do an exam. Turns out she had breast cancer. When the 10 days were up they were going to do a lumpectomy so the surgeon checked on her the night before. He didn’t like the sound of her lungs so he had a chest x-ray done and found two masses in her lungs-but no other reason why he couldn’t do the lumpectomy the next morning.
The other good thing about being in the hospital so long was that she had an opportunity to talk with a therapist there. He gained her trust sufficiently that she could tell him she was afraid to go back to her husband and she was afraid to die. After finding out more about her marriage relationship and her emotional state he told her, “You don’t have to be afraid of dying from breast cancer; you will die from depression long before the cancer can take over.”
A day or two after the lumpectomy when she could leave the hospital she needed two things. One was to go up to at least Provo and get a confirmed diagnosis on the masses in her lungs and second to find a place to live. Her doctor called and talked with me to let me know what her condition was, what her needs were and was feeling me out to see if I would be willing to let her come live with us. I talked with David and offered her a place in our home. She didn’t want to impose on us. She kind of pussy footed around about it. Finally, when she’d gone to the bathroom, I turned to David and told him that she was from an older generation and recognized him as the head of the house and that if he didn’t offer her to come stay in our home she would never and would go back to dad, not get treated and would die sooner.
When she reentered the room, he offered her to come live with us. She brightened up and said yes. We went to her place and got all the stuff she most needed. Fortunately dad wasn’t there at the time.
During those two weeks of waiting for the testing to be done I worked hard with the kids and told them to make sure they told her every day that they loved her. By the end of the two weeks she said, “I’ve had more love in the last two weeks than I have had my whole life.”
The testing proved that the breast cancer had already metastasized. Then she knew she was in for the fight of her life. More than once in the next six months dad had called our home phone number and harassed her. More than once he left her in a puddle of tears-and never asked about her health. Once she received a phone call from a neighbor who told her that he kept hauling stuff outside and burning it and the flames went as high as the roof of the house.
When she decided she would have to leave him she knew she needed to go back and get the rest of her stuff. The three of us went down and loaded up all we could into our car. Once again we were blessed that he wasn’t there. She found most of her stuff.
Over the course of the following two years she became active in church, had her Patriarchal Blessing, stopped smoking, went to the Temple and took out her own Endowments, was sealed to her parents. Two months and about two weeks later she died, in my arms, on a Sunday morning.
Interestingly enough I wasn’t her favorite child, yet I was the one willing to support her. I was came into the world by her, on a Sunday. She was cradled in my arms when she breathed her last breath. I my home, she had learned that dad had been lying about how ‘rich’ we were.
I wouldn’t recommend to anyone to be beat up or to be in a car wreck, yet Father in Heaven turned it to her good. He always seems to know how to help people make lemonade when people are handed lemons.
Like most victims she talked her dad out of it, forgave my dad and kept on taking the abuse. For 42 years she took it.
During the 40th year of ‘taking it’ she was in a car accident which jarred her spine pretty severely. She laid on the ER gurney moaning and complaining and begging to be allowed to lie on her side and get off her back. They finally noticed her pleading and decided to let her but to also take her to x-ray. They found a fracture that was very old and had been re-injured in the accident. So they put her in traction for 10 days. That’s when we found out that when dad hit her with the table leg, her back had been broken.
It was good timing for her to be in the hospital for 10 days as that gave her regular doctor an opportunity to do an exam. Turns out she had breast cancer. When the 10 days were up they were going to do a lumpectomy so the surgeon checked on her the night before. He didn’t like the sound of her lungs so he had a chest x-ray done and found two masses in her lungs-but no other reason why he couldn’t do the lumpectomy the next morning.
The other good thing about being in the hospital so long was that she had an opportunity to talk with a therapist there. He gained her trust sufficiently that she could tell him she was afraid to go back to her husband and she was afraid to die. After finding out more about her marriage relationship and her emotional state he told her, “You don’t have to be afraid of dying from breast cancer; you will die from depression long before the cancer can take over.”
A day or two after the lumpectomy when she could leave the hospital she needed two things. One was to go up to at least Provo and get a confirmed diagnosis on the masses in her lungs and second to find a place to live. Her doctor called and talked with me to let me know what her condition was, what her needs were and was feeling me out to see if I would be willing to let her come live with us. I talked with David and offered her a place in our home. She didn’t want to impose on us. She kind of pussy footed around about it. Finally, when she’d gone to the bathroom, I turned to David and told him that she was from an older generation and recognized him as the head of the house and that if he didn’t offer her to come stay in our home she would never and would go back to dad, not get treated and would die sooner.
When she reentered the room, he offered her to come live with us. She brightened up and said yes. We went to her place and got all the stuff she most needed. Fortunately dad wasn’t there at the time.
During those two weeks of waiting for the testing to be done I worked hard with the kids and told them to make sure they told her every day that they loved her. By the end of the two weeks she said, “I’ve had more love in the last two weeks than I have had my whole life.”
The testing proved that the breast cancer had already metastasized. Then she knew she was in for the fight of her life. More than once in the next six months dad had called our home phone number and harassed her. More than once he left her in a puddle of tears-and never asked about her health. Once she received a phone call from a neighbor who told her that he kept hauling stuff outside and burning it and the flames went as high as the roof of the house.
When she decided she would have to leave him she knew she needed to go back and get the rest of her stuff. The three of us went down and loaded up all we could into our car. Once again we were blessed that he wasn’t there. She found most of her stuff.
Over the course of the following two years she became active in church, had her Patriarchal Blessing, stopped smoking, went to the Temple and took out her own Endowments, was sealed to her parents. Two months and about two weeks later she died, in my arms, on a Sunday morning.
Interestingly enough I wasn’t her favorite child, yet I was the one willing to support her. I was came into the world by her, on a Sunday. She was cradled in my arms when she breathed her last breath. I my home, she had learned that dad had been lying about how ‘rich’ we were.
I wouldn’t recommend to anyone to be beat up or to be in a car wreck, yet Father in Heaven turned it to her good. He always seems to know how to help people make lemonade when people are handed lemons.
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