My get pushed challenge this week from Kerstin was "to think back and use your own childhood as inspiration for a picture. The place you grew up, a toy, a memory, a feeling, a special moment, anything goes!"
So while driving thru a little town outside Denver the other day called Idaho Springs (or was it Idaho Falls?), I noticed a small neighborhood section of town that reminded me of my best friend's grandmother's neighborhood in Staunton, VA, a place I only visited once. Her family almost always went there on Sundays after church for lunch with their extended family. My friend's name was Tracey, and she lived two houses down from me. We were the same age, the same grade in school, and usually had our classes together. We probably walked to school together too, but I don't specifically remember that. I don't remember exactly when I met her or when we became best friends, but we were neighbors from 1st grade thru 6th grade. We lived in a little valley town less than 10 miles from Staunton, surrounded by the Blue Ridge mountains.
Tracey's house was my second home, a safe place for me. Her mother was a hairdresser and had a shop in their basement. Ladies came in thru the side door and went straight down the basement steps to the shop. It always surprised me that they didn't have to knock first. The basement was divided into two rooms: one for the shop, and the other was a den where there was a piano and seating and games. We played in there a lot, and it gave me great opportunity to observe the hair fixing. I was fascinated by the hair fixing! Forgive my political incorrectness as I tell this from the perspective of a child in the '70's - I was a little white girl, and Tracey was black, as were all the clients who came to get their hair done, and it was NOTHING like the hairdressers where I went. For starters, they didn't actually CUT their hair each time they came to visit. Most of the time, they simply came to get their hair FIXED. And while people went to get their hair curled at my hairdresser's, they went to get their hair STRAIGHTENED at Tracey's mom's. The smells and tools and combs were totally different, and I just loved to watch, tho I usually got in trouble for staring.
Tracey had long thick hair and usually wore it in two braided pony tails, and sometimes she would let me braid it for her. Oh how I loved to braid her hair! The top of the braid would be full and thick, and by the time you got to the bottom of the pony tail, there would only be just a little hair left, almost just a few strands, resulting in two perfectly symmetrical long teardrop shaped braids that would, AMAZINGLY, stay braided as soon as you finished! You didn't even have to put hairbands around them, they just STAYED! They were MAGIC!!!
We rode bikes and roller skated on the sidewalk in front of our houses. We played jacks on the porch. We chased fireflies in the summer and played tag and Mother May I and What Time Is It Mr. Fox. We jumped rope. We raked leaves from the two beautiful maple trees in her front yard then jumped in the leaf piles when we were done. On windy days we would swing high and fast on the front porch swing and pretend we were in a tornado. I saw my first ever rainbow from her back porch. I'll never forget the day. Her dad was back there with us and I pointed and squealed and pointed and squealed ... and I couldn't understand why he was so unmoved ... that's when I learned about color blindness, and my heart was broken for him.
They were good people. I loved them and envied their family. I wished that my family was like theirs. I saw parents who worked and had enough money. I saw parents who didn't fight, verbally or physically. It was a house you weren't afraid to walk in to. It was a house where you could count on people being where they should be, doing what they should be doing. There was nothing to hide, nothing to be ashamed of, nothing to fear. They were safe.
Unlike my house. Unlike my family. We had a lot to hide. We had a lot of secrets. We were poor. Food stamps. No car. No fancy furniture or paint on the walls. We lived in a 2-bedroom rented duplex. Mother, stepfather, 3 kids still there after the oldest left. Little valley town in the '70's. Mom, the former high-school beauty queen, Miss Red Feather, ran off to San Francisco to get married, came home divorced with 4 kids, 3 of them adopted. Strike 1 on the whole divorce thing back in the '70's. But she was liberal and far ahead of her times. Then she married a black man. Strike 2. Unheard of back then. Scandalous. A let-down to the town. And then the whole poverty thing. Strike 3. But Mom loved people, and people loved Mom. There was standing room only at her funeral. Nonetheless, people looked down on us. I remember teachers who hated us simply because of Mom's choices, tho I didn't realize that was the reason until much later. I thought it was just me. Mom suffered from serious hormonal imbalances and depression. She could spend days in bed. She could be your best friend or your worst enemy. She had days that were absolutely spectacular, and days that were a living hell. As for my stepfather, well, pick a form of abuse and you can be assured that he practiced it.
They got married when I was in 2nd grade. For a wedding gift, Mom bought him the two things he wanted most: a St. Bernard puppy and a gun. In the end, it was the gun that ended their marriage. He was a violent person, needless to say, and had held her at gunpoint several times during the end of their marriage. She had kicked him numerous times and then took him back in, but the last time, she was serious. It was final, and he knew it. He came back once more to try to change her mind, held her at gunpoint throughout, and she refused to budge. He left, and she called the police the next day. They told her there was nothing they could do until he pulled the trigger. She was scared. Scared enough to send her three children elsewhere to live for a couple weeks. I was sent to Tracey's house, and that's how I came to visit her grandmother in Staunton one Sunday afternoon for lunch.
And so, dear reader, the story obviously does not end there, tho it could be said that I have answered the question of how I got to visit the house in Staunton. As I sit here in the car, hubby driving, on our way to spend the holiday weekend with our beautiful grandchildren, contemplating how to finish this story, it occurs to me that it was exactly 2 weeks to the day after visiting Tracey's grandmother's house that Mom's life on this earth came to an end. Mom, the beautiful woman who told me in one of her sane and insightful moments that our souls came from those breathtaking sunset pink clouds in the sky, was not to be allowed to live if she wouldn't agree to live with him. One week after she decided to bring her children home, he did indeed pull the trigger. Pulled it six times in fact. On a Sunday night two weeks after my visit to Tracey's grandmother's house. We kids were upstairs and heard it all. She called out to me. She called my name and cried for me to come help her in the moments before he killed her. And oh how that guilt plagued me for decades.
But my story is a story of redemption. It ends well. I've done years of therapy. I have a good life with two beautiful children, an awesome daughter-in-law who I love dearly, and now two beautiful grandchildren. I have a husband who loves me more than I deserve. I have a biological family that I have found who also loves me, again even when I don't deserve it. And I have a God Who has stepped in and rescued me many, many times. Life is good - live it to the fullest! Struggle and find your way. It's all worth it!
As your Get-Pushed partner I challenge you to take a picture of hands, good luck and be creative!
Again, thank you, I did not expect to get such a response to my challenge and I am glad that it was a good experience for you.