Storytelling Thursdays
The 4Generation House (Part Five)
My computer files are filled with the stories I have written. Some are true, some are not. Some made it into books, some did not. Some are still in my head waiting to be written. Hopefully, having a story in your inbox on Thursdays will brighten your weeks as winter trudges toward spring. I will also recommend some books I have loved!
The 4Generation House (2011-2013)
This story (shared over the next few weeks) was part of a manuscript written before I began my therapy journey in 2014. It was never published but sections were included in two chapters of A Brave Life: Survival, Resilience, Faith and Hope after Childhood Trauma. Many of our most treasured—and stressful—memories occurred during those three years. I am grateful that I paused to collect the stories.
The thing about family disasters is that you never have to wait long
before the next one puts the previous one into perspective.
—Robert Brault—
A Week of Stitches
One pleasant evening, as winter slipped into spring, the children were playing with the dog in the backyard. The adults, relaxing in the living room, heard a child scream, “He’s bleeding!”
With two children in the house, blood wasn’t all that unusual, but when Melinda looked outside she saw blood pouring from Jirachi’s leg as he frantically tried to lick up the pools of blood already on the deck. Scott went into action to wrestle the fifty-four-pound dog to the deck. He yelled for towels.
The children howled with frightened tears over their bleeding dog as I ran for the towels kept for just such emergencies. I stopped and took a picture of the carnage. Who would believe that much blood could come out of a dog’s leg!
After some effort, the bleeding stopped, and Scott and Melinda set off to the emergency vet. Cleaning the deck and feeding the children became my new priority.
A landscape border did the damage to the dog’s leg. The vet said it was a common injury. Who knew? Jirachi came close to needing a transfusion due to the amount of blood he lost. After surgery, he came home with a cone on his head. And we all col- lapsed in exhaustion.
Organizing Chaos
People often said to me, “I don’t know how you do what you do.” Well, me either! The house seemed in constant motion! We juggled lots of balls ... and sometimes we dropped a few.
Running such a large household required a ridiculous level of organization. I kept the schedules in my calendar and every week we sorted it out to make sure everyone and everything was where they or it needed to be at the right time. Hardly a day didn’t require shuffling. There were housekeepers, nurses, appointments, repairmen, jobs, workouts, school, church, deliveries, etc. Add to this mix a job that seldom looked the same on any two days, and my life was often mind numbing.
It all worked, but sometimes my poor brain reached its limit. When this happened, I usually did something awkward. One most uncomfortable moment occurred when the hot water heater stopped working. It was a huge monster of a water heater in the bowels of the basement. One day we had to take cold showers. So we called the owner of the house.
Someone came and temporarily “fixed” it, but soon the cold showers returned. A call came at work. I needed to return home for the repair guys.
We felt the spacious house was worth the half-hour drive to work. Yet, the long drive meant returning home effectively ended my workday. Completing necessary tasks first, I headed out of the office, stopping to tell my male colleague it wouldn’t be possible to return until the following day.
“Hey, I have to go back to the house because my hotty- weiter is broken.”
A shocked silence hung between us.
“Let me try saying that one more time. My hot ... water ... heater is broken. The repair guys are coming to fix it.”
A relieved expression spread across my colleague’s face. We had a good laugh. I headed home, mentally adding hottyweiter to the growing list of ridiculous things gifted to me by my exhausted brain that sometimes couldn’t speak in coherent sentences.
To Be Continued
(Reprinted from A Brave Life: Survival, Resilience, Faith and Hope after Childhood Trauma)
Have you read about Alexander’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day?
A few days ago, my daughter called me on her drive home from work (one of my favorite things for her to do). She had had a rough day. As she recounted all the mishaps, I said, “You probably need to move to Australia.” We both laughed. Sometimes books embed themselves into family life. I am sure Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day (1972) by Judith Viorst and illustrated by Ray Cruz, is part of many family conversations.
This made me laugh!