Tragedy's Gift: Surviving Cancer (2 page)

Dad had my older siblings take instrument lessons; one playing the piano, one the drums, guitar, etc., and then he organized this, “Partridge Family” type group and they would play and sing at church functions. They did that for about two years until the older kids lost interest and refused to do it any more. After they revolted, I was old enough to do a solo act for my parents. I was always ready to belt out a tune whether I was asked to or not.

My mom, Elaine, was a schoolteacher who took early retirement before I was born so she could raise our family. I really have fond recollections of her being a stay-at-home mom. With eight children, I can’t imagine how she did it, but she was very good at being a homemaker.

We lived in Cottonwood, California in a small home with three bedrooms and two bathrooms. If you do the math, the ratio of kids to rooms was slightly off by a room or two! We had bunk beds out on the back porch where my older brothers slept. We did what we had to do to make things work. We raised chickens, pigs, sheep, goats, a cow and a bull. I guess one could call it a small farm. That’s what my dad liked about living in the country.

One event that sticks out in my mind the most about Cottonwood is that I used to keep a nightlight plugged in next to my bed and one night while I was asleep it shorted out and my hair caught on fire. To this day, my mother cannot explain why she woke up in the middle of the night to check on me, but as she did, she was able to put out the fire and keep me from being burned. The only explanation that makes sense to me involves guardian angels and God’s favor in my life even at an early age.

A Dry Night

By the time I was six years old, I was what I would now consider to be a professional worrier. I worried about everything, as though it was my personal mission to dread, run scenarios in my mind, and sweat out every situation I could think of. If that wasn’t bad enough, it was also the time I started to wet the bed.

In most cases, six would be the age when bed-wetting would start to wane. Not in my case. As if I needed something else to dread!

At the time, I was sharing a room with my brother Richard and my foster brother Jeremiah. I tried with everything I had to hide my “secret” from them as long as I could. The embarrassment and shame I felt was overwhelming. I would sneak my sheets into the garbage every morning and then when no one was around, I’d slip them into the laundry basket so my mother could wash them. I thought I could continue this method forever, but my tactic only worked for a while. The smell of urine is very distinct and it didn’t take too many nights of “accidents” before my brothers started to catch on. This didn’t help our relationship any. No one wanted to sleep with that smell in the room, and I can’t say that I blamed them.

The embarrassment was worse when I had friends over and they would ask why my room smelled like pee. I learned quickly to make up stories to cover for my secret.

My worrying took on a new dimension. Before bed-wetting, I worried about things that didn’t really concern me first hand, but now I had personal humiliation to contend with. I wondered who would find out.

What would I do if I had to attend a sleep over? What would my friends do if they knew? I thought I was going to die. I felt like a freak and an alien.

I was six years old when the first episode occurred and this problem continued for three years. The impact it had on me was overwhelming and the emotional damage stayed with me long after the wetting stopped.

As an adult, I can see that being a worrier in the first place had everything to do with my problem. I always felt different than everyone else. I never felt a sense of security and I had a distorted sense of expectations that I thought were being placed on me.

I can’t remember being told that it was okay to have accidents or weaknesses. I was never aware that other people went through similar situations or had to overcome the same obstacle as I did. I felt like an outsider, different, weird. I look back and wish that I could undo some of that anxiety. I wish someone had been looking for the signs of stress that accompany a child reaching the breaking point. I didn’t have an adult in my life that was gauging my stress levels.

In reality, I was probably no different than most other kids in my school. The only problem was that I didn’t know it. No one ever told me that I was, “normal.” I didn’t have anyone to share my fears with. I never felt free to be emotionally transparent with my family or friends. The pressure to be “like everyone else” and to quietly blend in was the focal point of my existence. My self-consciousness was self-inflicted.

On The Move

My parents were always ready to lend a helping hand. There were constantly new faces at the dinner table, or foster brothers and sisters weaving in and out of our lives. I had a foster brother from the Indian Exchange Program who lived with us for seven years. Helping others has been, and to this day is a determination of my father’s. He never misses an opportunity to be in the service of another.

In 1974 we moved to Sacramento. Once again, our new house was small in comparison to the size of the family. Thankfully we only stayed there a short time until we moved to Fair Oaks, just outside of Sacramento. That home was much larger and made things more comfortable for everyone. No matter where we lived, my mother always made a nice environment for us and we never felt poor or needy, even when finances were tight.

Certain things were important to my mother. She wanted us to have dinner together as a family. We always went to church on Sunday, but most of all, even from the earliest age, she wanted us to be conscientious and to choose to do the right thing. Looking back on that now, I am sure that my sense of responsibility and challenge to be an upright person was developed during that stage in my life.

After dinner on Saturday nights was an event for us. When I was still pre-school age, my mom would draw a bath and one at a time she would take the five younger ones into the tub, wash us down, and then wrap us in a towel. It was only after I was a little older that I realized the importance of being close to first in the line up, as she would use the same water for all of us! I don’t know if I recall that experience with fondness or not!

There was a great amount of fun to be had whenever it rained, because the backfields would flood with water and we would go out there and catch frogs. There were literally hundreds of frogs and my brothers and I found every imaginable way to play with them. Unfortunately for the frogs, we owned a bee-bee gun. My father and brother Larry, who had a deep love for animals, soon helped us to understand that our idea of fun was not the same as the frogs. We didn’t use the bee-bee gun to play with frogs after that.

Things were so simple and innocent at that time. We had chores to do every day, and the reward for doing them was our Saturday allowance. My mother would give us our money and one of the older kids would walk the little ones to the Circle K Convenience Store to buy whatever candy we wanted. My little sister and I looked forward to that trip every week. It gave us a feeling of independence and reward for a job well done. Fifty cents went a long way back then and it seemed as though we bought a lot of candy for our money.

My father was a hard-working man. His business quickly became very successful, making it necessary for my mom to jump in and help. They both worked very long hours every day. I think their dedication to business and the family was where I got my belief that as long as I lived a good and moral life, nothing bad would ever happen to me. I watched them strive to be good people and wanted to emulate those qualities in my own life.

I took piano lessons until I was eight, but never really mastered playing it. I didn’t mind because I never did have the discipline it required to become proficient at playing an instrument as I found out with the trumpet and many other instruments I picked up over the years. Besides, just because my brother Greg had mastered the trumpet didn’t mean I could (as the band teacher soon found out.) I liked singing better because it came more naturally to me. From the time I was very small, about 4 or 5, I would put on musical shows for my family. I would make tickets to sell (but mostly I had to give them away for free,) and I would stand on the coffee table in the living room and sing or lip sync to Barry Manilow, Glen Campbell or John Denver songs.

I eventually branched out into the neighborhood. I would deliver singing telegrams to my neighbors whether they wanted one or not. One time I got a one-dollar tip and dreamed of making it big as a singer! I consider that to be my first road tour!

In 1979, my dad’s company caused him to put in so many hours that it nearly drove him to his grave with worry. His health began to fail. On his doctor’s advice, he sold his company, we packed up again, and this time moved from sunny California to Weiser, Idaho.

This was the first time I had ever experienced a sense of loss. I had to leave my best friend and neighbor behind. He was someone that I spent a part of every day with, and now we were separated. I couldn’t imagine not seeing him again. I can remember crying for the better part of five hours into the trip.

My two older sisters Lisa and Mary decided to stay behind and finish their schooling in California. This also crushed me because Lisa had always been very good to me and Mary was the hero of my life. She was athletic and excelled at every sport. I wanted to be around her every minute and she never seemed to mind. She always let me tag along despite the ten-year age difference. She never made me feel like a pesky kid brother. I loved her so much that being separated from her nearly broke my heart. Still, to this day I have never forgotten at an early age, while in Cub Scouts, what Lisa had done for me. I had just come in last place for the third year in a row in the Cub Scout Derby. (My dad and I were never very good at the car-building phase.) Some of the other fathers and sons used space technology to assure a win.

Needless to say I was very embarrassed, again. So, without thinking and with tears running down my face, I threw my car into the street. Later that night I was upset because I now wanted my car. It was Lisa who drove me around looking for it. When we finally found it, it had been smashed by passing cars, but never the less, I was happy to have my little wooden car back. What my sister did for her little brother will always be a special memory in my heart

Leaving them behind was an emotionally challenging time for me. It didn’t feel as though anyone understood my pain.

We moved to Weiser, Idaho, where my dad bought a local restaurant. I think his plan was to relieve his stress by owning a quiet little diner in a small rural area. Believe me when I tell you he couldn’t have picked a smaller town. Weiser had about four thousand people and no convenience stores and not even a McDonalds! It was the epitome of a one-horse town. I couldn’t imagine what I would do for fun, or how we planned on living there for any length of time. One saving grace was that at 14 I could get a driver’s license. Only six years to go! It was Weiser that my family would call home for the next 8 years.

As part of the real estate agreement, our new house was the one next door to the restaurant. Although it made the most financial sense, my father still had to put up with his six kids’ constant complaints about it being too small. Dad’s plan was to find a bigger house as soon as possible, but doing so took a lot longer than anticipated. This caused many arguments between my parents and us kids. To this day we joke about the house being so cold that icicles formed on the
inside
of the windows. The first winter in Idaho was brutal for this California boy.

Once I settled into school I quickly found friends, and things were good for the next several years. The kids in town thought we were rich because we owned a restaurant. Although we were far from rich, my dad treated my friends to free ice cream, which I thought was very cool of him to do! We raised a few farm animals, I mowed lawns to make spending money, and the restaurant was doing well, although it wasn’t much less stress for my father. Dad seemed to wrestle with his decision to move to Idaho, wondering if it was the right one for the family. I think he found solace knowing that a small town upbringing would be good for us and in hindsight he definitely made the right decision.

When I entered the fifth grade I started playing Little League Football. I played for the Broncos and I was proud. Our team went to the championships that year. I remember that season better than any of the others for two reasons. First, we shared the championship with the Weiser Cowboys. It was the only football championship I ever shared with a team in my entire school football career. We were down by six points and I was the one who scored the touchdown that tied the game, and secondly, because in that same season, I was hit so hard that I got the breath knocked out of me, which caused me to swallow my tongue. I went into convulsions and had to be rushed off the field. At nine years old the excitement of winning definitely outweighed my fear of suffocation. However, the fear was always with me in the back of my mind and remained there until I was out of high school.