MISTER chapter VII

This is chapter 7 of a short 'book' - an autobiographical tribute to my foster father.  To start at the beginning, go to Chapter 1 and work your way backward.  When it's all entered on this site, I will try to reset the chapters so they read chronologically forward instead of backward.  In the meantime, I hope you bear with me!

  
 Chapter 7 - 1979       

  “I don’t want you to leave,” I groaned.

             Lisa and I were flopped back on my bed, head-to-head, our legs dangling off opposite sides, staring at the ceiling.  I had learned that Dad had never left Lisa to fend for herself at the church like he had told me the day she left our home.  He had actually brought her to a highway rest stop, transferred luggage and belongings, and thus began Lisa’s life as an only child, first, enjoying life with Grampy’s son and daughter-in-law, then went to Washington D.C. to live with our mother and they eventually moved on to Arlington, Virginia to a larger, three bedroom apartment.  Strangely, Lisa really called her by that name - ‘Mother’.  She told me Mother preferred it.

            Eventually, Lisa was joined by our sister, Robyn, who had spent a few years living with my mother’s cousin.  We had all just been reunited at a resort in Hyannis, Massachusetts, where my mother was participating in a presentation for her company and Lisa had come home with me to Grammy and Grampy’s home afterward, to spend a few more days before flying back to Virginia.

            Time was passing much too quickly.  I was madly elated to be with Lisa again, and I didn’t want it to end.  Even though Grampy’s home had been my very own home for some time, Dad still called the shots, and it was becoming clear that he was not happy I had spent any time with Mother.

            Being with Mother was uncomfortable for me, but having Lisa by my side made it all worth it.  Mother had tried to engage me in a ‘tickle fight’, something I wasn’t at all accustomed to.  Grampy and Grammy were reserved, loving and tender in other, sincere ways.  I pretended to be OK with being tickled, following Lisa’s lead, but just couldn’t bring myself to tickle anyone back.

            I wasn’t so sure I was on board with my mother’s attempts to include me, anyway.  I wondered why she had never even tried to be a part of my life, and couldn’t view her as anything more than a stranger.  I wouldn’t have known her if I passed her on the street before this.  No matter.  Lisa accepted her, and I wanted to spend as much time as I could with my sister, so I made sure to be as nice and polite as possible.

            Lisa rolled over to face me. “I wish you could come to Virginia with me.  It’s right outside Washington, there are really neat subway trains and you can walk almost anywhere you want to go.”

            “I don’t know.  Dad would never let me, and I wish you could just stay here with me, anyway,” I replied, for a moment, sampling, then squashing the thought of moving from my country home to a big city.

            “Let’s not waste time thinking about saying good-bye,” Lisa suggested.  “What do you want to do now?”

            We were just dreaming up some sort of activity when I heard Grampy on the phone in the hallway.  There was no other phone in the house, so unless a person wanted to stretch the cord to the laundry closet and sit on the dryer with the bi-fold doors shut, everyone could easily hear everyday conversations.  Normally, this was never a problem.

            “That is not a good idea.  You need to think of Elizabeth and what’s in her best interest,” his voice was escalating. “I do not agree with this at all!”

            Grammy quickly ushered us outside, though twilight was casting long shadows on the porch, already.  Lisa and I nervously played for a while, then were called in through the back slider door.

            Standing threateningly in the living room was Dad with a police officer in tow, spouting at Grampy, commanding him to pack my things because he was putting me in the car and moving to upstate New York with me tonight.

            “She’s MY daughter, and I am her father - not you!” Dad raged. A sour, familiar smell of stale beer wafted over to where Lisa and I sat together on the far side of the room.

            Grampy stood toe-to-toe with Dad, as Gram softly said “Earl” a few times from her armchair.

            “You treat her like a possession - a barnyard animal with no feelings at all - not a precious little girl!  Look at the fear in her eyes.  Do you care even one bit what you‘re doing to her?” Grampy’s passion was evident.

            “I’ll treat her anyway I see fit,” Dad spat back. “Come on, Liz, get your things.”

            I had always tiptoed around my father’s moods and never, ever dreamed of saying no to anything he told me to do.  I had become very adept at not exposing an ounce of emotion, good or bad.  Tonight, gaining strength from my sister on one side, and my dog, Crisco, on the other, I looked steady into his eyes and said, “No, I don’t want to leave with you. I want to stay here.”

            Dad took a step or two toward me and the officer stepped in.  “Sir, why don’t you go home tonight, speak to a lawyer in the morning and come back tomorrow.”

            Dad hesitated for a moment, then said, “No.  We’re doing this right now. They have no legal right to keep her from me.”

            Placing a hand on his arm, the officer simply said, “Sir, I insist.” And then he was gone as quickly as he came.

            Grampy gathered me to him in a rare gesture. “I’m sorry you’re frightened, Elizabeth.  We must pray for your father and seek the Lord’s will in this situation.  We know that God is with us at this very moment, and He loves you more than you will ever know.  He never closes one door without opening another.”

            “Is he going to take me tomorrow?” I asked.

            “I don’t know,” Grampy’s words were not comforting, but his honesty was. “We do know you don’t have to go with him tonight, so we’ll pray on it and see what tomorrow brings.  No matter what, we don’t need to fear because ‘The Lord is our refuge and strength; a very present help in trouble.’”

            Drying my eyes, I asked, “Will you make sure the door is locked tonight?”

            “I check the doors every night before bed, and I’ll be extra sure no one can get in tonight,” he promised.  We both knew who ‘no one’ was.

            The next morning, Gram announced that Lisa and I were going to be picked up with the grandkids by a lady in the church, who had invited us to swim at her house for the day. Grampy’s middle son was the pastor of our church, so all us kids were often invited to tag along in some of the parishioners’ family activities.

            I liked going to this lady’s house.  She had a son who was a few years older than me, and I was almost a teenager.  He mostly hung out with his friends, but once, he strolled up to the above-ground swimming pool, hoisted himself up on the side and dunked his head and hair under water.  Coming up he shook the water off his thick, blonde hair the way models would do in a hair commercial, and walked away without saying a word.  I stopped playing with the younger kids long enough to admire him sauntering away in a very cool, indifferent manner.  Today, I hoped he might just happen to be home.

            Sometime in the afternoon, and after overhearing a muffled conversation by the adults in the house that I was  ‘in hiding’,  Lisa and I were brought back home, where we were intercepted by Grampy in the living room on our way through to the kitchen.  Gram joined him, a reassuring peacefulness adorning her face, as always.

            “Your mother has agreed to come bring you to live with her,” Grampy began. “We want to protect you, and feel it’s best for you to go live with her.”

            I didn’t ask why, or tell them I was terrified or that I didn’t trust Mother.  Instead I expressed the sum of all my unanswered fears and questions, in one simple, matter of fact question.

            “Will Crisco be able to come with me, or will he have to stay with you?”

            “Your mother’s apartment won’t allow dogs, but he can stay here and you can see him anytime you come back to visit,” Grampy’s voice was upbeat, giving me strength, and with that, Lisa and I went to my room and gathered our belongings for the short flight to my new home in the city.

MISTER Chapter VI

Chapter six - 1977

            Dad and I were sitting on top of a picnic table in the hot sun, resting our feet on the bench, eating ice cream cones.  He had brought me to an ice cream shop to talk. I wasn’t sure whether I should be happy about this, or worried. 

            After I was released from the hospital, Maum had moved out one night as dad threw her TV, bicycle and a torrent of toiletries out our third story apartment window, aiming for her car below.  I had to sidestep broken glass, pieces of twisted metal and a drying pool of hair products smearing the sidewalk as I began my usual mile walk to school the next morning.

When summer vacation arrived, I was handed a bagged lunch and instructed to go to the park down the street until dark, having to stay out of the house for up to twelve hours each day.  I’d sit on the swings, trying to appear indifferent and aloof as moms and dads spread out picnics and chased ice cream trucks with their squealing kids. When I became hungry and bored, I’d visit the Dunkin Donuts dumpster to see if there were any new munchkins or donuts that had been tossed.   Once home, I quietly crawled into bed so I wouldn’t disturb Dad, and my daily lack of routine began all over again the next day.

            “ I  just can’t take care of you anymore, Liz,” Dad’s announcement brought me back to the present. He didn’t waste any time letting me know why he had brought me here alone. “You’re going to go live with Earl and Minerva for a while.  Now don’t be too upset - I know you’re going to have to change schools and make new friends, but I just can’t help it.”

            Feigning disappointment, knowing any excitement read on my face could turn this train in the opposite direction, I furrowed my brow and mumbled, “It’s ok, Dad.  Will I still see you sometimes?”  I was hoping he would say no, but he told me he’d visit from time to time.

            Heading home, I mentally packed my belongings and planned a quick visit to my friend, Kim’s, house to tell her the good news before I left.  The next morning, my meager things were loaded up, and I was on my way!

            Missus answered the door, and we sat together in the living room until Mister came up from downstairs, where he had been talking to a customer.  Dad finally said his good-bye’s.  I exhaled deeply when I watched his car disappear out of sight.  I was home!

            Finally unpacked, I meandered my way downstairs to poke around in the bookstore, reading Christian comics, playing demo music albums on the stereo and listening to Mister provide Bible answers to his customers.  People drove from many miles away for a chance to speak with him.  He was chatting with a young couple with three very young children in tow.

            “Every single time scripture is memorized and quoted, those who participate receive a blessing.  Elizabeth, can you come here for a moment?” Mister rested his hand on my shoulder, drawing me to stand in front of him.  My heart warmed with his gentle, fatherly touch.

            “Tell me a verse you know,” he encouraged, gently nodding his head.

            Surprising myself, I began quoting a verse I had heard him say over and over. “Therefore said he unto them, ‘The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth laborers into his harvest.’ Luke 10:2,” I added the reference at the end, because Mister usually quoted those, too.

            I was mighty impressed with myself for rattling of a verse I didn’t even know I‘d memorized.  I supposed there were a number of verses I had soaked in over the years simply because Mister peppered most of his conversations with scripture.  He was never sad and serious like some religious people were on TV.  Studying the Bible was so much a part of who he was, he couldn’t help but express himself in a passionate, heartfelt way with the comforting and amazing words he discovered and loved, causing those around him to be blessed, giving thanks to God for using him to minister to their hearts in this way.

            Mister could take an everyday thing like peeking out the morning window, and instead of offering something like, ‘What nice weather, today’, he’d raise his face to the sky, eyes sparkling, and pronounce, “The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth his handiwork!’  He’d stride away either whistling or singing out a favorite hymn - “When morning guilds the skies, my heart awaking cries - may Jesus Christ be praised!”

            Standing in front of him now, he looked at me, pleased.  “You see, when we teach a child scripture, we are ministering to their souls, and when they repeat it back to us, they are ministering to ours!”

            Conversation lingered between the couple and Mister, eventually leading me to wander off to find more things to do.  I went outside and threw a rock or two into the brook out back, pondering my present situation of peace and joy, wondering whether it just might last this time. 

            Somewhere among my ten-year-old musings, a verse came to mind. This is the day which the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it. Psalm 118:34.  Mentally thanking Mister for quoting that so often at breakfast, I jumped up and ran inside to see what Missus was scaring up for lunch.

            After the meal, Mister and Missus asked if I would join them in the living room. 

            My stomach turned a few somersaults. “Oh no,” I thought. “Is the dream really over with so soon?  Please, please, please, God, don’t make me go back to Dad!”  I sat down, willing myself not to cry.

            “We’re glad you have come back to live with us, Elizabeth,” Mister began. “You fit right in with our family and our grandkids across the street.  We’ve loved you since the moment we met you, and are so thankful the Lord brought you to us.  We want you to know you are like our very own child - you couldn’t mean any more to us if you had been born to us, so from now on, we want you to feel free to call us ‘Grammy’ and ‘Grampy’ like our grandchildren do.  Would you like that?”

            The sick ice-cold feeling in my stomach proceeded to rapidly thaw as I began to comprehend what he had just told me.  Dad wasn’t lurking around some corner, ready to drive off with me again.  I had just been offered the most precious gift in all the world!  Mister, I mean ‘Grampy’, had just given me the only thing I had ever wanted - to belong.

            Stoic as always, I managed a small, tight grin and said, “I’d like that very much,” excused myself from the living room,  and went to the crawlspace-under-the-porch-fort where I cried, laughed, planned and practiced saying, “I love you, too, Grampy,” in a barely audible whisper.

MISTER Chapter V

Chapter 5 - 1976

            “If you won’t let me in as her friend, then let me in as her pastor.” That couldn’t have been Mister’s voice I heard - dad told me a long time ago, in a fit of rage, that I wouldn’t be seeing Mister again, accusing me of being ‘too attached’.  After Lisa was gone, and I was prevented from seeing the Beals, life melted into days, weeks and months of gray -  an endless procession of time I wouldn’t be able to recall for the lackluster quality of it all, until about three weeks earlier, when I began getting very bad pains in my stomach. 

I was sick for two days until one evening when Dad came home early from work, called a friend and drove me straight to the hospital.  In and out of consciousness, I had no recollection of how I got from the emergency department to my present bed in a room with a scary lady who had her jaw wired shut from a bad car accident, but I heard Dad telling anyone and everyone that I would have died of a ruptured appendix if he had not come home early that night.

             Maum had stayed home with me one day, but threw her hands up in the air, complaining that I wouldn’t eat the soup she brought to me, shut my bedroom door, and didn’t check on me again.  She didn’t come to the hospital to visit me, either, but that was just fine as far as I was concerned, because Dad was blaming her for neglect and I felt sorry and a little fearful for causing her so much trouble with him.

            Now, my mind must have been playing tricks on me.  I strained my ears, listening, hoping, praying I would hear Mister’s voice and see him walk into my room.  Nothing.  Five minutes, or was it an hour, passed with no more indication that he was in the hospital.  Feverish from a second infection, my heart was crushed, and I was hotly angry with myself for getting my own hopes up.  My eyes fluttered and I began to nod off...

            A warm, calloused hand lightly brushed my cheek.  Parting my eyes, I saw him standing next to me,  his fedora pinched between his finger and thumb in the other hand.  Tidal waves of relief, love, happiness and joy crashed over my soul, and I weakly said, “Hi”, as though it hadn’t seemed like a lifetime since I had been ripped away from him.  A nurse nervously flitted around the room muttering that my dad had specifically prohibited visitors unless he gave prior approval.

            “We’ve been thinking about you and pray for you every single day, Elizabeth.  How are you feeling?” Mister crouched down to my level, and I found myself lost in his kind, concerned eyes.

            “I’m ok, but I’ve been here for a long time and I get shots three times a day in my legs, see?” I moved just enough blanket to uncover a spot on my thigh that was filled with pinholes.  I didn’t tell Mister that they ran out of room on my backside, which was why they had to find other places to give me antibiotic shots for the peritonitis that still raged in my system.

            We talked about anything and everything and my weary, raw heart beat a little easier for the first time in a long time.  I watched his face, drank in his smile, and bowed my head in reverent thankfulness as he prayed over me.

            “Remember, Elizabeth, the Heavenly Father loves you and He has a plan for your life.  There is nothing too hard for Him.  Jesus said, ‘Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world‘, and even if we don‘t see each other as much as we‘d like to, no one can keep you from Him.”

            “Am I interrupting something, here?” Dad marched into the room and stood on the other side of my bed. “How are you, Earl?”

            “I’m here visiting Elizabeth as her clergy today.  I heard from a friend that she has been here for a few weeks.” Mister was polite, but he stood tall and confident.

            Dad gently smoothed the hair back from my feverish brow, and I peeked out the window, my head feeling strange and uncomfortable at his touch. “Elizabeth needs her rest, and I want what’s best for her, so it’s time you should go.”

            Mister brushed his hand across my arm, sending comforting warmth through me.  “Remember, we love you and are praying for you.” Stepping past my father, he smiled back at me, positioned the fedora slightly askew on his head, and was gone.