My friend Anne found freedom in telling. She uses discretion. She
tells wisely. When opportunity arises she shares her story. "I had a
difficult childhood," she says. "My parents divorced when I was six.
Six kids were given away and sent to foster homes."
Forty, fifty years ago that's what parents did when they couldn't
care for their children. I know two boys who were left in Mount Cashel
Orphanage by their father after their mother died. "I'll come back and
get you," the father said. He never did. Abandonment and loss.
My friend Anne said, "I was placed in a foster home. It was a
wonderful place. I loved it, and then when I was ten my foster father
died. The only man who loved me well, died. At ten years of age I had
lost two fathers. Years later I worked as a camp counselor for inner
city kids. They would say, "I have no father." I'd say, "That's okay. I
don't have a father." They'd say, "My father didn't want me." I'd say,
"My father gave me away." They'd say, "My father died." I'd say, "My
father died too."
Those kids looked at Anne with a wary eye and said, "Are you just
saying these things?"
"No, I truly know how you feel."
Anne's life is an example of sorrow finding joy, of experience
meeting a purpose for which it was intended, and through her
circumstances she found meaning and gained new value.
How about you? Did you lose a father? Did you experience divorced
parents? Did you experience abandonment or foster homes? Did you
experience the death of a parent at an early age?
My father repeatedly abandoned our family and then when I was
thirteen left for good. My mother was allowed to get a divorce after
three years if she could prove desertion. She never got the divorce.
How do you find someone whose left you and then prove that they didn't
want you? Why not just look at the family. Did they have a father, a
provider? Why wait three years?
While my father was coming and going from the family I experienced
the threat of foster home. I remember the day my mother woke us and
said, "You kids are going to have to go to a foster home." I was
terrified. I could imagine my younger sister and older brother standing
behind glass in a room waiting to be picked by prospective parents. At
nine I still wet the bed. I knew I would never be picked. I went to my
room and sobbed.
I remember going down the steps one morning and my mother said, "You
don't have to go to school today." We had no food and mother didn't
want us telling anyone at school about the dire straights we were in.
Later the Salvation Army stepped in. As a child I didn't understand the
pressure and strain my mother was under. My world of play and make
believe served me well providing a protective cocoon around my
understanding. I played in abandoned bliss truly unaware of the
seriousness of what was happening around me.
When I was seventeen, after three years of solid abandonment from my
father, we received news that he was found dead out on the highway near
Barrie. He was in a car, apparently on his way to a dance with an
unknown lady. The lady disappeared after telling the police there was a
man dead in a car out on the highway.
I have occasion to discover many life stories, but the more I hear
the more I'm impressed with how strong and resilient we all are. We
need to nurture that strength, exercise its arm and then share the
paths of resilience. We are bendable creatures, adapting to the
twisting blows of the unknown. The mind and soul have amazing abilities
to protect and mold us into creatures of beauty. There is beauty in the
ashes.
Anne does not wear the badge of abandonment and loss on her sleeve.
She wears the badge of victory and freedom. Her past is not a lead
weight dragging around behind her. It's not a history she wishes to
rewrite. She's not trying to ignore her past, to run from it, or hide
from it. She has accepted it, even embraced it, and within its folds
has found a purpose. Her past is opportunity to open a door of freedom
for others. She knows great freedom in the telling and in the hearing
one finds encouragement.
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What are the elements in this story?
Take your pick: