It Happened Just This Way

CHAPTER 1

The Beginning

MY LIFE BEGAN A LITTLE more than sixty years ago. I went by the name of Betty until I graduated from high school. I always hated that name and would come to find out later that it was not even my legal name. That was not the first of many bitter pills I would have to swallow before coming to that point in my life. I believed I was ready to pack it in, check out, move along to the next level. I wanted to put an end to this meaningless existence. In short, I was ready to see my life end. I was sure I had endured all the suffering one was expected to undergo. Several times in my life, I was sure I was meant to die, but for some unrevealed reason, I obviously never did. Giving birth to my daughter was the greatest joy I ever experienced. Well, not the actual birth—that part was pure hell. But having this remarkable human being in my life was more than I felt I deserved. I had nothing more to accomplish. I had nothing more to look forward to, or so I thought.

To truly understand my despair and the suffering I felt I could no longer bear, let me take you through the ups and downs, the trials and tribulations, and the peaks and valleys that were to become me.

My earliest memory goes back to the age of two. I can remember standing on my bed, gazing out of the window, and pondering the question, What am I doing with this family? Even at this young age, I felt I didn’t belong. I must have been dropped there by mistake. The monotonous, joyless childhood I was destined for was about to begin. Let me start by painting a picture of the parental unit that brought me into my world of woe.

Back in the 1940s, everybody was getting married. I’m not sure true love was really a requirement—at least it didn’t seem to be for my parents. The routine was to get married, have kids, and stay together ‘til death do you part. At least they got that part right. The part about love and honor seemed to be just a suggestion, so I don’t even mention it. I give them credit for the stamina they had to tolerate each other for almost sixty years.

My dad died of lung cancer at the age of eighty-eight. He was a career army man and apparently not a very good one. In twenty years of service, he never made rank higher than sergeant. Of course, this is not to say he didn’t excel at something. In his free time, he was a great consumer of beer. I heard my sister say once that he was a drunk. If that was true, I believe he was a very happy drunk; his mood seemed to improve with each beer. He had a great sense of humor, and everybody loved him—everybody, apparently, except his wife. She had no tolerance for his drinking, but he felt compelled to drink in order to put up with her. This was his second marriage. His first wife had died soon after they were married. That made my mother the second wife, which never sat well with my grandmother. She refused to speak English around us. It was always Spanish. Needless to say, my sisters and I were never pleased to be informed of upcoming visits with her.

My dad gave up drinking shortly after retiring from the army. He became a member of Alcoholics Anonymous and returned to the Catholic Church. By the time of his death, he was a prominent member of the Knights of Columbus. He and my mother apparently patched up their differences, because they actually seemed to enjoy each other’s company during those last few years of his life.

My mother was a beautiful young woman, one of twelve children. As a youngster, she worked the land, picking cherries, beets, or whatever was in season. As one of twelve kids at home, she was expected to help with the finances. A couple of my mother’s siblings would actually become millionaires. She married my dad at the tender age of nineteen; he was twenty-six. This was pretty much the norm back in the day. But it would have been nice if she had given her choice just a little more thought. To this day she says she doesn’t know what made her choose to marry him. Maybe she saw how much everyone else loved him and wanted in on the action. After a short engagement, they married. He had malaria on his wedding day. I can’t imagine why he didn’t see that as an omen. She was a stay-at-home mom until I was ten years old. At that point, my sisters and I became latchkey kids.

This was the foundation of my childhood. When I wasn’t listening to my parents arguing, I was dreaming of having a best friend. I do have two sisters, one older and one younger, but I was never really close to either one. In keeping with my original thought from when I was two, I was truly sure now that I didn’t belong to this family. Charlotte, my older sister by two years, was always my dad’s favorite. She was a pretty, slender, and smart child who grew into a beautiful woman. Margie, my younger sister by one year, was a little chubby, but also very smart and pretty, and she was my mother’s baby. Trouble always seemed to follow her, partly because I used to blame her for things she never actually did. I guess it never occurred to anyone that perhaps she was innocent. Charlotte was always very popular and had more male suitors than she knew what to do with. Even in elementary school, she was getting boxes of candy for Valentine’s Day. Margie was only too happy to help her eat them. Me, well… the little boys used to call me Betty Spaghetti and Fish Eyes. I guess you can picture what a lovely child I was: small in stature, and always skinny. No boy ever went out of his way for me—not in elementary school, anyway.

CHAPTER 2

The Early Years

WE WERE AN ARMY FAMILY who moved every three years or so. I used this as an excuse for why the little boys teased me. They never had enough time to find my inner beauty—and I was told I had plenty. Isn’t that what all homely children are told? I went to kindergarten in Fort Riley, Kansas. I never had a friend, even back then. But I got to ride the school bus with the big kids. I loved the smell of the bus’s exhaust and looked forward to it every afternoon, sort of like my treat. It kept me from feeling bad for not having any friends. That might explain why I would have mental problems in years to come.

The only real memory I have of kindergarten is taking naps. At Christmastime, all the kids would try to lay their little mats as close to the Christmas tree as possible. I usually won out, because the others were even more interested in getting a spot by their friends. Since I didn’t have any, the teacher made sure I at least had a prize spot on the floor. I should have seen this as a sign of things to come. Oh, well—after school I would get to sniff the fumes again. All was acceptable.

I don’t really remember playing much with my sisters in those days. My mother said if ever she was looking for me, I could be found at the neighbor’s house. I wouldn’t be bothering anyone, just sitting on the couch. I really didn’t feel as if I belonged with my family.

Kansas was a very windy state. One day, while my sister and I were outside playing, the winds came up so strong and fast, they picked my sister up and dumped her right in the mud. I thought this was quite comical, but my mother was furious—she had just washed the kid’s hair, and now it had to be redone.

The summer after kindergarten, my dad got new orders, and we were moving to Germany. We were to travel by ship. We had to get a bunch of shots, and I was sure Germany must be a really nasty place if we needed to be so well protected. In July we were off—first to Colorado to say good-bye to all our relatives, and then on to New York. I guess we drove. I really have no memory of the journey. My mother cried a lot; I think she felt she would never see her people again. Or maybe she was still crying from all the shots. I wouldn’t think less of her if she were; they really hurt. Nobody in my family ever confided in each other, so no one ever knew why someone was crying. It was just a thing we all did from time to time, especially me. I have always been something of a crybaby.

I don’t remember the boat trip to Germany. In fact, I don’t even remember arriving there. My first memory, after leaving Kansas and kissing the relatives, was starting first grade and looking around for a friend.

CHAPTER 3

Germany

I LOVED GERMANY. SEVERAL CARNIVALS WERE g oing on at any given time in the little town near the army base. We went to everyone we could find; it was a fun pastime that kept the three kids from driving their folks crazy. The base housing was made up of several three-story apartment buildings, no single-family homes. For some reason, we always ended up on the third floor. My mother would threaten to smack us if we ever slid down the banisters, but we did it anyway. I don’t remember ever getting smacked, so either we were very sneaky or I blocked out the smacks.

At age seven, at one of these carnivals, I walked right smack into a booth. I hit myself square on the bridge of the nose. I think I blacked out, because that is the last memory I have of that day. For several years after that incident, I kept thinking to myself, Maybe I’m in a coma, and I will wake up anytime to a lovely, perfect life with a loving, perfect family. To this day, I’m still waiting to wake from the coma. Age seven is also when I made my first Holy Communion. Now this is a very serious time in a young Catholic’s life, and I wanted to get it just right. But I was so nervous, the only sin I could come up with was blaming Margie for little indiscretions. So I made up a few. The next week, I had no problem, because now I could confess that I had made up sins the week before. Oh, the drama of being a good Catholic girl.

A short time after my smack to the nose, I had a bad smack to the back of my head. My sisters and I were playing on a merry-go-round. It was my turn to push while they rode; I was pushing from the inside. I did not have very good timing, and I stood up too soon. Pow! I was knocked out for sure this time. My sisters dragged me up to our apartment and put me to bed. They wanted to be clear away from me before our mom got home. If I was dead, they could swear that I must have died in my sleep. I had no friends of my own, so I was stuck playing with these little heathens.

I not only longed for a friend, but I also begged my parents for a pet. The answer was always no. They blamed our nomadic ways. I was told it wouldn’t be fair to the pet if we had to leave it when we moved. I guess it never occurred to them to take the pet with us. We also never had a yard of our own—another argument against a pet. So I found my own pets. I once had a shoe box I made into a home for my pet snails. I was allowed to keep them as long as they stayed outside, on the balcony. One night, somehow, the lid came off, and by morning, all that remained in my shoe box were bunches of grass and a few slime trails. The mystery still remains today as to how that lid came