The biggest change, however, is that I believe in myself. That I believe in my ability to have the life I want and deserve. I was telling someone yesterday that cancer changes so much more than your physical being. It effects your emotional and psychic being as well. This is where most of my work toward becoming healthy fits in. The cool thing is that I think we can all share in this journey whether you've had cancer or not. Becoming emotionally and spiritually healthy is something that everyone needs. I know that the journey is a little different for me, because of all this physical weirdness.
With that in mind, I want to share my work toward my goals with all of you. Working on those goals that I've set for myself starting with the business goal. Over the next few blog posts, I'm going to share a short story I've written. I would love feedback! If I'm going to become a writer, I'll need some honest comments. I'm pretty tough skinned when it comes to my writing. All those years in college and a classroom helped with this. Ready? Here we go.
New Worlds
Chapter 1
The green carnival glass slivers lay on the floor in a heap of cigarette butts and empty matchbooks. The wall smeared with ashes showed chipped paint where Mom had thrown the ashtray and just missed Dad's head by inches. I needed to clean up the mess just as much as Dad needed to get up and leave the room to escpae Mom's incessant screaming. But the yelling hadn't stopped yet. Dad was telling Mom that she was chicken shit and the white stuff around it. Mom's high pitched voice screeched through the room so that her words were indiscernible. I knew that if I started to clear away the debris of their anger their rage would get projected onto me, and I'd be in the back yard with a belt before I knew what had happened. And, Dad wouldn't be leaving any time soon. He didn't go anywhere anymore, because he said that the accident had left him unable to drive away from our three-room house, Mom's endless nagging, and the noise of my little brother, my sister, and me.
They said that was why we had to be sent away that summer. Dad's broken body and bad heart made it impossible for him to withstand the chaos that was our family. Dad had been truck farming on Grandma and Grandpa's farm to earn extra money. Coming around the blind curve into Round Valley, a car with failing brakes had broad-sided Dad's truck. His white truck with the rusted steel wool colored hood rolled three times and came to rest on its roof in the field next to Lewis Creek. Of course, there were no seat belts in those days so Dad was thrown from the ruck. The result was two broken arms, two broken legs, nine broken fingers, six broken toes, six broken ribs, a broken pelvis, and a skull fracture; twenty-nine broken bones in all. When he came home from the hospital, he looked just like Boris Karloff in "The Mummy." The first couple of months, he laid in bed surrounded by a sea of pillows. Both legs in casts were propped up on pillows at the end of the bed. On each side, there were pillows propping up his cast-encased arms. The pillow on his right also held his ashtray, cigarettes, and matches. He looked for all the world like a big old steam engine locomotive lying there in that bed. His right arm hinged up and down like the wheels rolling along a track. He would bellow at Mom to bring him a cup of coffee or a tuna sandwich, or he would rumble with laughter when I read him the comics page of the newspaper each day after school. He could read it himself; he just like to have a little company he said. Strange, since he was forever complaining the he never got any peace and quiet.
But, that summer it had been over a year since the accident, and Dad still didn't leave the house, and he hadn't worked since that fateful day. It was true that Dad's heart had never been strong, and since the accident he had complained more and more of chest pains. He suffered his first heart attack the year he married Mom. Not entirely surprising since Mom often makes me feel like I'm going to explode even now, but I still wonder if Dad's health was the real reason we were doled out to relatives for those three months. After all, Dad had been at home with us for more than a year. Besides, Kathryn was old enough to take care of Woody, and at twelve, I was old enough to take care of myself. In fact, we could have helped Dad around the house, could have helped him cope with Mom. They said that there wouldn't be anyone at home to take care of us. I do recall that it was necessary for Mom to get two or three part time jobs in packing houses to make ends meet, but Mom had never been one to stay home and take care of us much anyway. She had always said that she needed to go visiting to be in the company of friends and relatives because of the lack of conversation at home.
I have often thought that we were sent away more out of aneed to get us away from Mom and Dad's relational problems than to get us out of Dad's way so that he could heal. But, I'm still not sure, because for as long as I could remember, our home had been full of noise and movement. This was the way life had always been. My little brother, Woody, running around the house playing cowboys and Indians shooting his cap gun and hooting war calls. My older sister, Kathryn, stomping her feet and crying, because she couldn't go to the movies with her friends until she got the dishes washed and the laundry done. Mom running in and out of the house talking a mile a minute on her way to work, on her way to Grandma's, or on her way downtown to meet one of her friends. Then, screaming at Dad to get up and fix us dinner. Dad roaring that he was too sick, and why didn't she take care of her family instead of wasting her time with a bunch of idiots. And, I watched it all while I dumped ashtrays, picked up the laundry Kathryn had left on the pink living room sofa, and swept up the mud Woody had tracked in on his feet. It was home, and I didn't want to leave.
As it ended up, Kathryn went to work in Modesto picking peaches, Woody was sent to Grandma's to help out on the farm, and I went to Aunt Tootie's in Oakdale.