Wit And Wisdom: She Was a Long Shot

It’s an amazing and mysterious process that brings us into contact with people who influence and affect our lives.

In 1951 an illegitimate child was born that was not wanted, so the mother left her in the hospital where she was taken care of by nurses. Six weeks passed before the mother’s parents came and took the baby and raised her for the first year of her life.

During that year, the mother of the baby married and eventually took possession of her little girl. Whether that was a good thing or not, you, the reader, can decide, but what is certain is that the young girl’s life quickly took on the semblance of the early pages of the Cinderella story or the bleak life of a Charles Dickens’ character.

The mother began having babies every other year until there were nine children, the end result being the life of the hero of this story evolved into the role of caregiver. The family lived in abject poverty not always knowing where the next meal would come from. Often the next meal didn’t come. The various rental and tenement houses they moved in and out of had little if no heat in them. To stay warm during the cold Indiana winters the children piled into the same bed and huddled together for warmth. Their hair was stringy and unkempt, and their clothes didn’t match. Ridicule by peers was at every turn.

The harsh words that came out of the mouth of the girl’s stepfather were as destructive as lava—destroying the trees of self-esteem, searing the grass of familial love, and crushing the rocks of self-confidence.

When it seemed things couldn’t get worse—they did.

She was thirteen years old when her mother was stricken with cancer. It was not the type of cancer that attacks like a savage beast, quickly killing and devouring but rather was the kind that gradually drains life away like a leaking hot water heater.

In a short period of time, this girl forfeited what was left of her childhood and became an adult, a mother to her brothers and sisters, especially the youngest who was only a few months old. She missed an entire year of high school, cooking, cleaning, chopping wood, hauling water, and seeing to her bedfast mother. Occasionally, her mother would ask her to bring the baby to her bedside so she could sing to her.

It took nearly two years until the frayed thread that tied her mother’s spirit to her body finally broke, and she died.

Then the sun, moon, and stars hid their faces from another approaching storm.

The stepfather sent seven of the children to various family members to live, and he took the baby and our heroine to live with him where she constantly had to fight off his sexual advances. Terror-filled nights became the norm.

Some months later, the stepfather rounded up all nine children and began driving south out of Indiana, through Kentucky, to Tennessee. None of the children knew where they were going but knew better than to ask questions. Eventually, he pulled into a driveway that led past several two-story buildings that were arranged in a horseshoe shape. He told them to get out and then drove off. Hours later they learned he’d left them at an orphanage.

Many people with this kind of history would have fallen into a life of despair and hopelessness, a life of low income, a sketchy job history, poor mental and physical health, unhealthy relationships, and even the path of addiction. But not the heroine of this story. No, this girl grew into a woman who went to college, held a steady job that required a person of impeccable character, fought her way through depression, learned to forgive the unforgivable, faced cancer and won, and became an inspiration to everyone who had the privilege of knowing her and her heart.

Both her daughters, her six grandchildren, and her husband of fifty years (which I have the privilege of being) rise up and call her blessed.

(Because she wants people who’ve had difficult childhoods to not give up, my wife, Brenda Johnson, readily shares her experiences with others not to gain sympathy but to hopefully inspire others to follow her example.)

* Taken from The Wit and Wisdom of David Johnson, Volume III: A Harrowing Halloween Tale