Stormie: A Story of Forgiveness and Healing (7 page)

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Authors: Stormie Omartian

BOOK: Stormie: A Story of Forgiveness and Healing
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A week after the doctor took the tests we still had heard nothing. The snowstorm made it impossible to go to town, and we had no way to contact him. Dad spent most of the day trying to get hay to livestock trapped in the fields.
One afternoon there was a knock on our front door. I was too weak to care who it was or to recognize how unusual it was to have a visitor in such severe weather. My mother gasped as she opened the door. It was the doctor, snow caked over his heavy coat, hat, boots, and gloves.
“I had to come immediately,” the doctor said as he removed his coat. “I drove as far as I could, then walked the last few miles. Your daughter could die at any time if she doesn’t have this medicine.”
My young heart marveled, “This man came all the way out here to save my life!”
As the doctor removed his suit coat and rolled up his sleeves, he told my mother that I had “nasal diptheria.” After a quick examination, he plunged a needle into what little flesh I had left on my bottom.
I went to sleep immediately after the doctor left, and when I woke up hours later I could see the sun setting as it reflected through the bottles of cream soda on the dining room table. My throat was much improved, and for the first time in many weeks I asked for something to eat.
Mother seemed overjoyed, and when Dad came home she welcomed him with the good news of what the doctor had done. Dad in his usual quiet manner didn’t say much, but I could tell that his smile was a sign of relief.
It was a slow recovery, but Mother’s behavior made me want to stay in bed even longer. There were no harsh words now. She often smiled cheerfully, played the piano, and sang pretty songs. It was as if this near-tragedy had given her a new perspective on life.
As the snow melted and we saw the first signs of spring, I thought that perhaps life would be different. No longer would I experience Mother’s harshness. We would be a happy family all the time. Unfortunately, that hope was short-lived. Gradually she drifted back into her unseen world. The period of my recovery was the last time I remember her being truly happy.
It was a warm morning, yet I ran to the roadside shivering at the prospect of another school day. The imposing yellow bus stopped in front of me and opened its yawning door. When I hesitated, the driver, with a wave of his hand, said “C‘mon, we don’t have all day.” The first few times he had seemed sympathetic about my fears; now he only expressed irritation. I was one of many stops on the hour-long trip into town.
I hurried aboard and slid into the second seat behind the driver. I practically mashed myself against the window, hoping no one would notice me. As more students boarded, the noise level grew. Everyone seemed to know everyone else, and their lively talk frightened me. I sat motionless and stared out the window, hoping no one would notice I was alive. I got my wish; no one did.
When the bus finally parked in front of the school, I had survived another trip without anyone speaking to me.
School was even more terrifying than the bus ride. Because of my long illness, I was starting first grade as the oldest and tallest person in my class. I didn’t have nice clothes like the rest of the girls. They had beautiful shiny hair; mine looked like tangled straw. My one haven was the classroom itself. There I felt safe. I never uttered a sound unless spoken to, and I obeyed every command and rule. The work was not too difficult; I studied hard and got straight A’s as a result.
My problem was outside the classroom. I was terrified of the playground. The children ran around screaming, laughing, and playing games I didn’t know how to play. I had never been around children except for my cousins, who visited only occasionally. I didn’t know how to relate to anyone my own age. During recesses I hid in the bushes at the edge of the playground and waited for the bell to ring. If a teacher found me and sent me back to the playground, I would get in the longest line for the swings. There I felt safe because I had a legitimate place to be for a period of time. When I got up to the front of the line I ran off to find another long line. I didn’t know how to swing, and I feared looking like a dummy.
During my second week, as I was standing in line for the swing, one of the boys asked me, “Hey, skinny, what’s your name?”
“Stormie,” I mumbled.
“You’re kidding!” he yelled. “Hey, guys, listen to this! Her name is Stormie!”
As everyone started to laugh, I felt my face turning a deep red. Then someone yelled, “Hey, Stormie, how’d you get such a stupid name?”
“That’s easy,” someone else added, “I’ll bet she was born in a storm drain.”
“Or maybe she’s a storm trooper,” said another.
I felt panic inside me as I struggled unsuccessfully to fight back tears. I breathed a shaky sigh of relief as the bell rang and everyone headed back to line up for class. An intense feeling of loneliness gripped me, and I wanted to disappear from the face of the earth. How I longed for a normal name like Mary Smith so I would never have to be teased again!
My dad had named me Stormie when I was born because not only had I been born in a storm, but he always said that when I cried I clouded up a long time before the tears of “rain” came. Mother had wanted to name me Marilyn, but Dad said the name reminded him of someone he never cared for. They agreed to name me Virginia, after my mother, but it was a name that existed only on my birth certificate, for no one ever called me that. Eventually the name was changed legally to Stormie. It never bothered me until I entered school, and then I never heard the end of it.
Another problem I had was my speech. From the reaction of the other children I became aware that I didn’t speak well. I couldn’t form words correctly and I tripped on them, stuttering a little. On rare occasions when I took the initiative to speak to someone, either I spoke so softly that they didn’t hear me and I felt rejected by their lack of response or else I stumbled embarrassingly over the words.
“Stormie speaks funny,” laughed the children.
I dreaded recess and lunch—times when I had to relate socially to other children. There were no teachers or other adults who noticed my plight or even attempted to help me or draw me out. It was the Dark Ages as far as knowledge of the needs and inner workings of young children was concerned.
Home life was no better than school. Most of the time Mother’s behavior was erratic and volatile. She would become suddenly angry and violent, punishing me for unknown transgressions. Other times she could go for days acting as if I didn’t exist; nothing I did distracted her. At those times she lived in a fantasy world talking to imaginary people. Mostly they were people who had done her an injustice, and she told them off. I learned never to bother her at those times because she would turn on me violently.
One day I took Mother’s pearl necklace from the small jewelry box in her bedroom so I could wear it for our school pictures. I kept it in my pocket until I got to school and then put it on in the bathroom. All the other girls had pretty dresses, but every day I wore the same red-checked shirt and navy-blue long pants. The pearls actually looked silly with that tomboy outfit, but I didn’t realize it at the time. I also wasn’t clever enough to realize that I would be in trouble as soon as Mother saw the pictures—I was just desperate to be attractive in some way.
A few afternoons later, shortly after I arrived home from school, Mother asked, “Have you seen my pearls?”
“No,” I said, trying to mask my panic as I wondered where I had put them. I knew I had taken them off in the bus on the way home from school and put them in my pocket, but I had completely forgotten to return them to her jewelry box.
Grabbing my arm, she pulled me to the kitchen sink. “I’ll teach you to lie to me,” she threatened as she pushed a slimy bar of soap into my mouth until I gagged. “I found my pearls in the pocket of your blue pants. You stay out of my things and don’t you ever lie to me again.” After she removed the soap, I had to stand for awhile with the horrible burning sensation in my mouth before I could rinse it out. Oddly enough, that punishment was never a bad memory for me. It was the only time I recall being punished for something I actually did wrong. It seemed normal, and I was almost happy about it. When the photo of me wearing the pearls arrived from school sometime later, she only laughed and I was relieved.
Somehow I survived first grade. However, two months after I started second grade, Mother took me on a trip to visit Aunt Delores, who lived in Omaha, Nebraska. I loved being there because Mother was nice to me around other people and my cousins were great company. The only problem, as we gradually realized, was that my mother didn’t intend to return home. My dad later said that there had been no fight, not even a discussion that would lead him to suspect that she was leaving for good. I did overhear her confide to my aunt that she thought Dad didn’t love her and that farm life was too hard.
I entered school in Omaha, and it was even more terrifying than in Wyoming. These were city kids, not farm kids. They were better dressed, more self-assured, and more knowledgeable. They had a set of mannerisms and expressions that were foreign to me. It became painfully obvious that I didn’t fit in.
At lunch time we had to travel in pairs to the cafeteria, but I was always the odd person. Every day that I walked alone my embarrassment increased.
My loneliness became so intense that one day after lunch, as I was standing in the playground waiting for the bell to ring, I became desperate for someone to play with. I decided to approach a group of five children who were standing around a small tree piling snow on its branches. I joined in and tried to laugh like they were laughing. Suddenly the largest girl turned to me and said, “You don’t belong here. Get out! Who asked you to play?” The other girls added, “Yeah, go away!”
The pain of their rejection penetrated like a knife. I turned and ran across the playground, blinded by the hot tears streaming from my eyes. I came to the edge of the field, but I couldn’t stop. I crossed the street and ran the short distance home to Aunt Delores’ house. Once inside, I tore up the stairs to my room, crawled into bed, pulled the covers over my head, and sobbed into my pillow. Mother and Aunt Delores had gone shopping and Uncle Mark was asleep with his hearing aid turned off, so no one knew I was there.
As I relived that experience over and over in my mind, I wanted to die. Was there no one on earth who would give me the time of day? I wasn’t hurting anybody. I just wanted someone to speak to me and to accept me in some way.
When Mother and Aunt Delores returned and found me, I told them I was sick to my stomach and had to come home from school. I got away with that excuse for a few days, but when I was forced to go back I felt so hurt, so unloved and lonely, that I stopped trying. Aunt Delores, with her wonderful sense of humor, was the only bright spot in my life.
After Christmas we suddenly left Aunt Delores’ house. Everyone was under the impression that we were going home, but that was not my mother’s plan. We went instead to my mother’s Aunt Grace in Grand Island. There I was enrolled in yet another school, and Mother immediately found a job.
Aunt Grace’s home was a large, pleasant old two-story building like Aunt Delores‘. It had a big front porch surrounded by lilac trees that were in full bloom in the spring and smelled wonderful.
Inside, the house was comfortable and clean, and Aunt Grace was always cooking something tasty in the kitchen. In spite of these nice living conditions, I missed my dad terribly. “When are we going back home?” I asked once again.
“I don’t know. Stop asking me,” my mother responded abruptly.
At this new school I resigned myself to loneliness. My only solace was reading books and writing letters to my dad. I simply endured the inner pain until school ended in June.
When Dad finally came to visit, Delores prompted Aunt Grace to inform Mother that it was time to go home to her husband. Since there was nowhere else to run, she reluctantly packed our things and we returned to the farm. Mother was despondent and immediately became her ill-natured self. Still, I was glad to be home with Dad.
We weren’t home for long. The following winter a severe blizzard killed much of my father’s livestock. Then his crops were ruined by a series of violent hailstorms. The hardships of Wyoming farm life were too much. Mother and Dad had heard about the easy life in Southern California, so we packed our belongings and headed west for an unknown destination and hopefully a better life for us all.

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