arn't you going to call the Sheriff?

Her happy childhood would not last.  The small village where she lived had older neighborhood juvenile delinquents who loved cornering defenseless young girls, touching and grabbing at innocence while she struggles for freedom.  "Mom, arn't you going to call the Sheriff, she asked?"  "No honey, it wouldn't do any good and it would be to embarrassing."   Health issues eventually turn the energetic  lass into a pale sickly shadow of herself.  Books become her world as she can do little else.  Any kind of physical exertion could trigger another asthma attack.   Labored breathing took away the desire to eat.  How could she eat when it took so much energy to breathe?   The doctor prescribed little brown pills three times a day to remedy that but she could not swallow any pills, regardless of size, so she had to chew them.   They left her teeth permanently stained.  

Rescue inhalers did not yet exist and her oral medication often took 4 hours or more to give her any kind of relief, all the while her breathing became more labored.   It would take a half hour to climb the eighteen steps up to her bedroom.  She could only take two to three steps at a time before having to stop and catch her breath.  She remembers on her 13th birthday her father was all set for the ritual spanking which always brought tears and pain.  She had another asthma attack and that is when he decided to end the yearly ritual.

High school was okay, she had a few friends, but the asthma continued to plague her.  Instead of having to take so many pills she could take monthly shots in the hip.   The arm would not work.  Along the way she developed an allergic reaction to the shots.  Some people have painfully swollen arms after Hepatitis shots, but her shots in the hip were ten times bigger.  The pain was so bad she could not sit down in class for 2-3 days.  After pleading with the doctor, the shots were given in the arm.   To this day she has pock marks all over her buttocks where the needle was injected. 

One particulary bad asthmatic episode left her struggling for air for four days.  Her mom called the school because she had already missed three days, but the science teacher did not care.  He sent a note home with a classmate demanding she get her butt to school the next day for the test or he would fail her.    With tears in her eyes, and her sides heaving as she struggled to breathe, she went to school.  She did not pass the test.  How could she?   Her science teacher was not in the least concerned for her health.   She looks at her pictures from school and all she sees is a girl with red eyes from sleep depravation.  The dangers of second-hand smoke did not exist back then, and she understands why she had so much trouble with her asthma.  Her father smoked cigars, two boxes of 50 a week.  She never knew what it was like to grow up in a smoke-free home.

Well-meaning as her mother was, she was sheltered, and this meant she was extremely naive.  She did not start dating until she was nineteen.  Even though she did not understand the ways of men she managed to remain a virgin until she married.  Her marriage lasted eight years and resulted in two children.   She remembers his anger, a temper that most men have AFTER they have been drinking.  She remembers the the insults and shouts, "You're worthless, you can't do anything right, I'd make a better mother than you!"  She had married a perfectionist.  She remembers how he used to jerk his young daughters arms so many times that she screamed in pain.  She remembers the dents and holes in the walls where he had slammed his fist and wondered - how long will it be before he turns on his family.   

With all the strength she possessed, she left and eventually gets her divorce but that made him even angrier.  Now the daughter is in first grade and he continues with the arm jerking and the temper tantrums.  The fear his daughter has for him is beginning to grow and she does not want to go with him on his designated weekends.   Six months after the divorce he has remarried and finally the arm jerking ends.   It was hard for her as she was working in a factory, staffed mostly by men, and doing a man's work.  She was physically and emotionally exhausted like all single moms.

She looks back now as a mature woman, and is still haunted by regret, for decisions, although often made with the best of intentions, had gone completely and utterly awry.  The great shadow of regret has reawakened to possess her once again.  "If only" plagues the heart like a deadly virus or disease that must be excised through radical surgery.  But how do you excise the heart?  She made some very poor decisions which cost her dearly, leaving her soul in agony.  One decision nearly cost her her sanity until she finally came to terms with what she had done.  Only then did the healing of her heart and spirit begin.   Life has its twists and turns, and she has learned to adapt, improvise, and overcome.  A new turn may be on the horizon, and she can only hope that her life will not have been in vain.