Understanding

“I pray that the eyes of your understanding may be opened…” Ephesians 1:18 NKJV

My life had changed, but I didn’t know it.  Daily family life for me consisted of my mother, a sister old enough to be a mother, and a sister who was young enough to be my friend.  I was wrapped in the arms of a grieving family.  Perhaps the gift of new life somehow eased their deep pain.  I think it must have felt good to be so loved and cuddled, but I can’t remember anything from those years.  Three years of life passed for me; a series of waking, eating, playing, attending church, visiting with friends and family, and sleeping.  I didn’t know I was missing a father’s love.

It was 1967.  In my eldest sister’s house, another baby was on the way.  A third child would be born to them in April.  Christmas had been celebrated and rejoiced over at our large stone church with the stained glass windows depicting, as so many do, Jesus Christ, his disciples, and his crucifixion.   As far as anyone knew, a very happy New Year was ushered in on January 1st.  

On January 9th, my mother, youngest sister and I were sharing a cup of tea and conversation at a friend’s home.  We were allowed to join them at the table.  The smell of the mostly warm milk mixed with a tablespoon of hot tea created in us the impression that we were ladies, too, old enough to carefully lift the delicate tea cup to our lips for little sips; never gulping.  Slowly sipping, and listening, we passed the time in the sunny kitchen, happy with the familiar, comforting routine.  Mom was here.  We could hear her voice talking and laughing.  We could glance up from our steaming cups and see her face; the same face that greeted us in the morning and tucked us in at night.  She was our world.   It was just the three of us now living at home.  The siblings from the older generation were out on their own.  

After the nice visit, we hopped into our car, which was parked along the neighborhood street, directly in front of the house.  I was on the front seat with Mom, as children often were back in those days.  My sister was in the back seat.  No seat belts or car seats were required in the 1960’s.  The seats were bench-style, so I could snuggle close to Mom while she was driving.  If she had to stop short, she would just reach out her arm to make sure I didn’t tumble off the seat.  My sister was considered safe behind the tall seat back.

Turning to close the driver’s side door, my mother dropped her keys.  Leaning down to retrieve them, she fell, crumpling out toward the sidewalk as her friend waved goodbye to us from the door.

Noticing the fall, the friend rushed to our car, only to turn and rush back inside to dial 9-1-1.  An ambulance came.  We were taken out of the vehicle and placed inside the house, in front of the TV.  My Favorite Martian vied for our attention while the ambulance whisked our mother, our one and only parent, away from us forever.

Mother died on the way to the hospital of a cerebral aneurysm.  We were orphans.  

In a flash life changed again.   My name changed, my mother changed, and my identity changed.  Or perhaps I should say it got lost in the upheaval.  Most of the events during this time have been blocked from my memory.  I am left to again imagine a 3 year old in this circumstance, with adults grieving all around her, sitting tucked in beside one of them wondering what was going on.

We were not allowed to attend the funeral.  It was thought to be better to keep children away from those ceremonies.  I suppose I just watched from the window for my mother to return.  When she didn’t, the tears came.  In fear and confusion, I cried.  I cried and cried and cried for years, until the adults around me had had enough.  I was told to stop crying.  Everyone else had placed their grief to the side, and I should, too.  Life must go on.  The only problem was that I didn’t have a good understanding of what had happened.

It turns out that understanding is important, but there is a door we must walk through for true healing, and we must keep the hinges to that door free of dirt and grime.  We must keep them oiled.  I attended church for half a century before someone explained it to me.

New Name

Our family house was sold, and the two of us “little sisters” moved in with the eldest sister.  The new house was small, and not far away.   The four of us kids shared the two bedrooms upstairs, and when the new baby came in April, she slept in a crib in our parent’s room.  They rolled her out into the hallway at night.   Before long, a larger house was purchased on a lake, but it needed renovation badly.  In the time between the ranch house, and the new house, we “camped” in a run-down house a few doors down from the new one with no indoor plumbing.

How my sister did it all, while grieving her parents, taking care of a newborn, and dealing with a new family of five children at only 28 years old is a marvel.  I know it was very difficult for them.  I have no memory of these moves.  

We were formally adopted in June of 1967.  My last name, Tirrell, became my middle name.  I received a gold bracelet with a little charm on it that held my new name.  On the back of the round charm was etched the date of my adoption.  I was truly a member of a new family.  My sister was now my mother.  Instead of being the baby of the family, I was now fourth out of five.  The third girl in the line up.  Our brother was the oldest, then the two sisters that were four months apart.  Then me.  Then the new baby.  

We still didn’t see much of the older brother, who had sown some wild oats, then married and moved about an hour away.  The sister that had lived at home when I was born, was married, and eventually bought a house on the next street over.   My new grandparents lived on the lake, a couple of miles away.  My new Aunt and Uncle lived across the street from them.  

The first real memory I have after all that change was being put out in the hall for punishment because I was chasing a boy in Kindergarten.  His name was Joey, and he lived on the same street as the sister who lived one street over from us.  I can still see the teacher’s face as she scolded me, and still feel the shame of standing in the hall alone, knowing I had done wrong.  

My next memory is sitting on the heating grate in the new kitchen with my flannel pajama gown stretched over my pulled up knees, with my head down between them, crying. I was probably about 5 or 6 years old.  And that is probably why my mother couldn’t take my crying another minute.  She told me to “stop crying and be thankful.” 

I really spent a great deal of time wondering about what it meant to be an orphan.  In fact, I would say a great deal of my time was spent in my head, puzzling out my family, trying to understand.  

We lived on a pretty large lake in upstate New York.  Our neighborhood was modest, and we now had one of the largest, and newest houses on the street.  There were two girls my age that lived in the neighborhood, and these girls became my friends.  When we weren’t riding bikes, swimming, skating, or joining in games of kickball or capture the flag, we would work the hand pump on our property for something to do.  We were not allowed inside the house in good weather until lunchtime.  Then back out we would go until dinner.  If it was lightly raining we were told to stand under a tree.  So the hand pump gave us something to do when we were bored.  We would take turns pumping for what seemed like hours.  Our reward was the fresh water that finally poured from the spigot.  How we would cheer when the gallons of pure water gushed forth!  

Another thing that kept us occupied was searching for four leaf clovers in the grass.  Laying in the grass with the sun shining down on us, we would carefully search, hoping to find one of the rare gems, so that we would be lucky.  If we found one, we would put it in between two pieces of wax paper and iron it into a keepsake.  

The three of us loved to play Barbies.  Playing Barbies helped me work through much of the confusion I carried with me about my family.  I could also act out emotions I was feeling.  Barbie and her pals were loved on, scolded, separated, and reunited.  They hugged, kissed, and went on dates.  They went on adventures, changed outfits constantly, and always looked fabulous.  Ken got named “Donnie”, or “Bobby”, or “David”, depending on who the current heart-throb was at the moment.  Barbie and Ken get a bad rap today, but they sure were helpful to me as I struggled to work out my emotions.

Eventually, I was old enough to ride my purple, banana seat bike over to my sister’s house.  There was a little cut-through between our streets that we would take so that we didn’t have to go out onto the main road to get there.  This freedom was important to me.  I was often agitated and upset, so hopping on my bike to race over to my sister’s house really helped.  I don’t think I knew what I was upset about.  It was a deep sorrow that I could not escape, and didn’t know how to handle.  

My sister had begun having babies.  By the time I was old enough to babysit at 11 years old, she had four of them.  One day while I was visiting, I decided to call her by her name, but adding the “Aunt” in front of it that my other siblings used.  My sister smiled at me with a half-smile.  “You remember that you are my sister, and they are my nephew and nieces, right? So that means you can call me by my name, and not add the “Aunt.” 

This was something I knew.  I guess I just wanted to see how it felt to say it the other way, to feel how it might feel if I wasn’t different from the other members of my family.    It seemed special being able to leave off the “Aunt.”  But it also felt disloyal in a sense, to my new siblings.  I wondered if I had been kind of jipped.  Like it was more special to call her “Aunt” and I didn’t have that right.  I couldn’t figure it out. 

Figuring out where I fit in my family crowded my head space.  I reacted slowly to questions, or comments aimed in my direction, often missing the beginning of what was said, and having to say “what?” like a “dummy”; a word we used to call each other.  My internal struggle was very real, but invisible, so I guess I just appeared off, or not as bright, as my siblings.   My brother was the athlete.  The next in line, a sister, was the musician.  My next oldest sister was the artist.   And my little sister was the baby.  I don’t remember getting a title, but I could have had any of those, I suppose, looking back now.  But those titles were taken.  Knowing that left me with a conundrum.  I loved to swim at the time, and was pretty good, but not as good as my brother.  I loved to play the clarinet, and later the bassoon, but I wasn’t a double musician, like my pianist/french horn playing sister.  I tried to draw, but gave up.  My sister was the artist, after all.  And I had lost my baby status when I moved into 4th position out of 5 in my new family.  Countless hours were spent dawdling, a spectator to my own life.

I was good at changing diapers, having paid close attention when my sister taught me.  I loved to lay the baby down on the changing table and tickle him while I slipped his little pants down, and next the rubber pants, tossing them in the bin to be washed.  The baby’s wiggly legs would kick and it was a little hard to keep him still while I undid the big pins with the yellow chick head hiding the place where the sharp point tucked in.   The pins off, the wet diaper following the rubber pants, I knew to wipe him up good, then apply his Desitin.  Next the fresh diaper, the pins again, and I had reversed the whole process.  I would continue to think while I did it; the job coming second nature already.

I helped out in the church nursery, too, so I had plenty of practice.  I was thinking about why I got to call my sister one thing and my other “siblings” called her something else and where I belonged in the order of things.  I knew the story, of course.  But still, I was left with an unsettled mind.

One day, the kids and I were all facing my sister as she worked making lunch.  She asked us what kind of sandwich we wanted.  I answered, “I don’t care.”  She would not accept that as an answer.

“You have to choose, Jenny.  Grilled cheese, peanut butter and jelly, or peanut butter and banana.”  She looked at me, waiting.  It was hard for me to choose.  Not because I didn’t have a preference, but because I was self-conscious.  In this way, she began to teach me to have a voice, and use it.  

There was a picture over the sink.  I had noticed it before but it really caught my attention that day.  There were two angels outlined in black, facing one another, with blue scrolling adding ornamentation.  There was a name in Calligraphy written across the top.  The name was written out, but I will use initials.  B. E. T.  Her birthplace and birthdate were written underneath the angels in the broad-tipped script.  My sister saw me looking.  “You got one of these when you were born, too, I think,” she said “but I’m not sure where it went.  Do you see how my initials spell a word?  Our mother did that on purpose because she heard it would be good luck.  Your initials spell out J – E – T.  They spell JET.  So guess what? We are lucky!”

Only they weren’t my initials anymore, I didn’t think, so that confused me.   Was I still lucky?

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