Silent Pain

Posted September 4,2011   1:44 PM


As I mentioned before, my Mama never worked outside the home. However, she did work.  We had a large vegetable garden, and we'd work for hours harvesting vegetables and preparing them to can.  She used a old-time pressure cooker and Mason and Ball glass jars. She can cook just about anything without a recipe. She began morraine pies when she was ten years old, even making the crust and filling, all from scratch.

My Mama was one tough woman.  She'd get a belt after me, whenever she felt I deserved it.

We lived about three miles from the small town of Burkburnett,TX. My Mama never went into town except to go to church and church functions. She did, however take me every Thursday for piano lessons. She'd drop me off for lessons, and then she'd go buy groceries for the week.  I practiced piano for nine years.

My Daddy was a hard-working man, with brown skin.  He built house foundations, digging ditches, getting ready for the concrete workers to pour what would soon be a house or a business.

Daddy worked in the blazing sun and the blistering cold.  He also owned forty acres.  Most of this land was used as pasture land to raise cattle. He used the remaining land, he used for wheat or hay. It wasn't unusual to rise up the middle of the night to help a pregnant cow, having difficulty delivering her calf.  When one lost a cow or a calf, they lost a good deal of money, and money is something of which we didn't have much.

My Daddy was a deacon, but due to his health, he is a inactive deacon. I should mention that I NEVER heard either of my parents say a curse word.  My Grandfather was also a deacon. His Father was a Baptist Minister. My Daddy was a very upstanding and well respected man in our extended family as well as our community.

When I was five years old, my oldest brother married.  He is sixteen years older than I. I was devastated. I was so upset, and I felt he had abandoned me. Ironically, I have a closest relationship with him today.

Now I am in Kindergarten, and I had my first boyfriend, Chirs Ganshert. I became ill with Chicken Pox, and I was out of school for two weeks.  When I returned, I learned that Chris had moved to Mississippi. I went to the restroom and cried, until the teacher had to drag me out. Abandoned again.