Dancing With Darkness

I seem to m to have writer's block when it comes to putting on paper about my aunt, my second mother, Dora. It has been more than two months, and still I seem besieged by an avalanche of horror, nightmares and darkness.

But I will try.
No pictures.
Just black and white.
Stark desolation.

This woman was a professed Christian. An extremely judgmental Christian.

1 Peter 5:8

Keep your mind clear, and be alert. 

Your opponent the devil is prowling around

like a roaring lion as he looks for

someone to devour.

2 Timothy 4::17

But the Lord stood by me and strengthened

me, so that through me the message would be

fully proclaimed, and all the Gentiles would hear it.

So I was delivered from the mouth of the lion.

It took me until I was 35 years old to come to the realization of the Truth, as found in both these scriptures.  The bedrock of rejection and self-loathing was firmly in place - first with my natural mother, and then with Dora.

There were things about her youth, which I heard about as an adult. It made easier to forgive her. I am so thankful  the Lord helped me through that, even though she said and did things against me over and over again, right up to when she died. It wasn't just me who felt her maliciousness, it was other members in the family and her foster children.

Yes.  Foster children.  The State of Michigan declared her an unfit mother and took my sister and me away from her; placed us in an orphanage, then a foster home until we ere once again adopted.  In the meantime, our records were filed with the state Humane Society. Are you surprised?  Well, it is true.  While she went on to foster children, for pay, for the state. Some were special needs children.

How do I describe her?  In her youth she was pretty, with blond hair and blue eyes. Men found her attractive; she always had men.  Yet, her smile never reached her eyes. Her eyes were shrewd and always calculating. She never missed church, yet there was nothing Biblical in her home, nor about her. She was 100% self-serving; if she didn't get something out of a thing, she wanted no part of it.

Harold was her husband, and such a sweet man.  She left him for a hoodlum by the name of Bud.  (I believe tt was she and Bud who took us in the car that rainy night.)  Bud was a small time gangster, who had spent time in prison. My aunt met him while out drinking, while Harold was at work.  I was there. I saw and heard it. Bud was a good looking man, and a dashing dresser.  Harold was a simple blue collar worker, a Christian and a man who adored his wife.  Dora chose Bud. She took us with her, though she had applied for adoption of us with Harold.

Our time together, for two-three years was living in a converted corn crib in the middle of a corn field, on a farm. It was partitioned into three squares: two bedrooms, and a kitchen. We used an outhouse.  We used a pump for water. We used a galvanized tub for a sink. There was no insulation in the house. The room my sister and I shared barely had room for a twin bed. The bed had broken, rusted springs for its base, with a mattress and one sheet. The mattress had a large hole in the middle big enough for a child to fall through; we wrapped our arms around the edge of the mattress to keep from falling through.

The bedroom was dark; black. And we could hear the violence and love making through the thin walls. Bud was a drunk. A bully. A beater of women and men, and children.  And he had a lovely, deeply soft  voice, but Bud was very scary..

ALLIGATORS UNDER MY BED

Bud wanted  nothing to do with sister or me. We moved into the shed at the end of summer, and it was beautiful on the farm. At that time my sister was in kindergarten, and went to a small, one room country schoolhouse about a mile from where we lived.  I would walk with her in the morning, to a grove of pines and watch her go into the school.  We were accompanied by a beautiful Border Collie by the name of Lady.  She, and my sister were anchors in my world. After I left my sister I would head back to the farm, and spend my time with Lady. Eventually I would see Bud's car speed away, and I would head back to the shed. I always hoped he would leave scraps of meal, so I could have something to eat. Dora would always chase me back outside, scolding me for getting dirt on the floors. Sometimes, Dora wouldn't be there; she went with Bud, leaving me at the shed alone.

Lady and I would walk back to the pines and wait for my sisters.  Together we would wander and hope for something to eat, until we got back to the shed. Dora would pull together meager scraps for us, but we were never full.

When Bud returned it was time for them to go out. To bars.. My sister and I sat in the back seat, and were told to lay down on the seats. We were told if we saw any "niggers" (sorry, their words, not mine) we were to drop to the floor of the car, because if "they" saw us they would kill us. We spent many nights like that.

Back at home, every night, Bud would make us go to our room and close the door. We were instructed to say there until they let us out in the morning.  Then through the door we would hear the scraping of something heavy, a creaking door, and heavy treads on the floor. "I've let the alligators out, and if you dare get down from that bed, they will eat you up!"

Every night I heard those words, terror filled my heart. I was so little! What if I accidentally fell through the mattress?  I wrapped my arms tight around the mattress, each night and held on for dear life. I would weep and ask God to protect me. If I dozed off, I would awaken with a start, my heart beating fast in terror.

To this day I have dreams about sliding down embankments into alligator pits.

I find I am unable to write any more today.  I will continue this in another, edited writing of this segment.

DEUTERONOMY 31:21

And when many evils and troubles have come upon them,

[the doers and planers of evil] this song shall confront them as a

witness (for it will live unforgotten in the mouths of their

offspring). For I know what they are inclined to do..

MATTHEW 10:19-20

Do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time

you will be given what to say, for it will not be you speaking. but

the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.

Mother, May I?

I haven't written much about fathers thus far, because they were so noticeably absent from my life. It would be so much easier if I were the one who slammed the doors, then I could chat about my motives, but the truth is they were the ones who slammed the door. And while I have some areas of discussion to cover about them, they will just have to wait a bit. For now, I want to talk about mothers - my mothers and my own motherhood. This is going to hurt, and may take me a bit to get through. Yet, start I must.  So with your permission, mother, may I?

It is now several days later, and my mind goes 'round and 'round.  I pray. I seek. I read what my sisters in Christ have written. I know I must write things as I experienced them, and how they affected my own motherhood, and many of my life decisions.

The truth is my birth mother threw me away.  She wrote a letter to me many years later, hoping I would forgive her and understand.  I have forgiven her, but it is beyond me to understand.  I wasn't her only child.  I was her fourth child, and she was pregnant with her first child in her new family. She had three more children. She never gave any of them away. And so she wrote me a letter.  I wonder what I was supposed to do with it, other than read it and forgive her. Probably nothing.  Probably the Lord wanted me to be free of the heavy load of wondering my whole life what I had done wrong. Wondering why He had created me too ugly that nobody would want me.  Wondering. Confused. Anxious. Yet, somehow stronger for my personal battles within.  I had few months with her, months filled with caution on both our parts.  Certainly she displayed no generous mother's love towards me.  My siblings didn't help, as there were established relationships there, and I was definitely an intruder. When she passed away, my siblings set about dividing up her goods. They told me I could have anything I wanted, as long as I paid for it.  She did love those children she kept, and I am thankful the Lord allowed me some time to put to rest all the questions I had. For it was God who gave me the strength and healing.

A week after my birth mother's death I received a letter in the mail from my eldest sister, Nettie.  It was two pages long, and in the letter she explained how I was responsible for her mother's death by coming back where I wasn't wanted. One exact passage I will never forget:  You are nothing short of a murderer. You might as well taken a butcher knife and stabbed her in the heart. You are so evil, and nobody wants you around.

The rest of the family thought i should just learn to live with the poison. This was just one example of many hateful things propagated by Nettie, and supported by other family members.  Even while my mother was alive, she saw no reason not to aceede to Nettie's viturperative attitude towards me.  My mother always yielded to whatever Nettie said or did. As time passed, it only grew to untenable proportions.

My husband and I were already making plans to move across country  to Oregon.  We were able to accomplish our move in 1985.

It is once again several days since I have approached this writing. One thing I have come to understand is that I cannot integrate each mother into one telling. I must divide them into their own space and time in my writing.  God will not let me skim over them.  What I learned about love, rejection, self-worth and womanhood, I learned from my mothers. In my writing I must try to find good, and free myself of and bitterness.  In my dreams I could never have imagined how deep and hurtful writing about my mothers would be.  I had thought the pain would come from [absence of] my fathers, but no.  My fathers taught me about rejection. I am learning the real pain, my foundational cracks come from my mothers.

No matter where this takes me, I am left with this from my Bible reading today:

     Proverbs 23:22-25 

Listen to your father who begot you,

And do not despise your mother when he is old.

Buy the truth, and do not sell it,

Also wisdom and instruction and understanding.

The father of the righteous will greatly rejoice,

And he who begets a wise child will delight in him.

Let your father and your mother be glad,

And let her who bore you rejoice.

Jennie Baker Allen Jones ca. 1928

Gone But Not Forgotten

I was awakened last night by a familiar ache, sharp and demanding, from a place deep in my heart.  A place I rarely visit in these, my old days.  Yet, every now and then the door to that long ago heartbreak opens, and I remember to pray for them.

My daughters.

Cheryl Lynn and Cathy Anne.

It was 1971, and my then husband and I had adopted these beautiful sisters through Los Angeles County, state of California.  They were five and four when we brought them home, and they were now six and five.  Dark brown hair and blue eyes, bouncing energy and perky smiles, they were the culmination of all I had hoped for.

But, today. On this day the end of all my hopes and dreams was at hand. I was returning them to the State. I was giving them back. It was over. I had failed. My husband had failed. I just can't write it here. What I saw. How wrong and selfish I had been to bring them into this house, to satisfy my longing, my needs. There was no other step but to return them, so they might have lives of love and joy.  Not lies.

I wanted a good marriage, a happy family.  I wanted it so badly, my mind refused to accept things as they really were.  I had a husband who was a alcoholic, who had stayed sober for more than two years so we might adopt a family.  A man who had at least 36 affairs in the time we were married, whose every thought and word was convoluted to suit his heart. I had thought I could change it, and believed I had.

Until that night.  When I had awakened and he was gone, and his car was gone. I never heard him come home, my mind was so busy racing with what steps would I take next. For I knew it was all over.  So I arose in the morning to check on the girls, and found the eldest wrapped around my husband.  He looked to be naked.  I threw the bed covers off them, yelling for him to get up and get out.  I noted he wasn't naked, but was wearing under shorts as he staggered from the room.

Even so, the girls were going back. I knew there was drinking and abuse ahead, and I couldn't allow it to happen to him. So here I sat with Cathy on my lap, hugging me tightly and begging me to let her stay.  We rocked and sang, and cuddled and kissed until the doorbell rang. it was time for them to go. Getting belonging stashed in the car, lat second hugs and kisses.  Hold the tears, hold the tears. It is amazing how quickly people can be there and then be gone from your life.  They were there. They were gone. So suddenly. My husband was gone, had been gone. I didn't know where, and I didn't care.

I turned to the room and did a nose dive into black despair.  It was as though I was sucked into a vortex of illness  and trying to cling to sanity. So much of the following year is a blur, just a memory of pain. I was extremely ill, and my weight plummeted to 95 pounds. My husband and I no longer spoke, as I packed my car and left California. I drank and partied in a frenzy the next few months. I couldn't eat; I couldn't  sleep. I buried myself in the neon playground. I divorced my husband, and settled in to live with a man who was to become the father of my son. And still, nothing seemed to touch me, yet it all burned me. I was just so lost.

It was at Christmas time, a year later when I received a letter from the caseworker. She had included a picture of the girls.  She thanked me for my generous heart is being sure these girls found a good, stable home. Their foster parents and three older siblings were adopting them. She concluded by telling me how much the girls still loved me, and wanted their hair to grow like mine, and for Christmas to get "granny gowns" like what I wore.  They wished me a happy Christmas.

And there they were.  Hair long and pulled back on top, with tiny angel curls around their face.  They were smiling from ear-to-ear in their new gowns.  They were no longer mine, except for that special place in my heart.

The picture is gone, the letter is gone and the girls will be in their 50's now. And every once in awhile Jesus awakens me with their memory, and I get to recall that year I called them mine. He has called me to pray for them, and so I do. Then I take their memory, fold it neatly, and tuck it away in my safe place, where nothing can bruise them.

I peeked in to say "goodnight, and then I saw my child in prayer.
"Please, dear God bring me some ribbons, scarlet ribbons for my hair."
"Oh, dear Lord, I have no money" I cried out in wans rsad despair.
"She wants ribbons, lovely ribbons, scarlet ribbons for her hair."
Through the night my heart was breaking, just before the dawn was wakening.
I peeked in and on her pillow, in gay profusion lying there,
I saw lovely little ribbons, scarlet ribbons for her hair.
If I live to be a hundred, I will never know from where
Came all those lovey little ribbons, scarlet ribbons for her hair.

...seeing I had lost my children and was desolate, an exile, 
and driven about? and who hath brought up these?
...behold, I was left alone.  Isaiah 49:21

My Tears Are Hidden By Rain

Today is my 75th birthday. By all odds, I shouldn't be alive to write this. So many skirmishes with the devil over the years, for my life. I have often wondered what has him in such a lather. Then I look at my children and grandchildren loving and serving the Lord. There are 12 of us in direct line reaching out to the Lord, and helping share the Good News. Then there are the spouses' families. We are an army of the Lord:

Kevin P. Rowe

Linda (Sunny) Rowe

R. Jason Rowe

Angelene Harrison Rowe!

Wynter Rowe Corcoran

Noah Corcoran

Ryan (Ry) RoweThe

Christian Rowe*

Colby Rowe

Jonathyn Rowe Corcoran

Ethan Rowe

Tanner Rowe

*Christian Rowe m. MacKenzie Spillman Rowe 2017

We are now a baker's dozen!

Children are such a blessing, aren't they? Gifts on loan from God.  That's what you would think, anyway, but sadly this is too often not true.  What do we do about the children who are violently abused because of their very existence? What do we do about children who are starving and left to find whatever they can?  What do we do about children who are taken for trafficking?  What do we do about the millions of aborted children in our country?  Where is God in all this? What do we do when we don't understand?

1 Corinthians 13:12 

Now we see things imperfectly, lie puzzling reflectoins

in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity.

All I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know

everything completely just as God now knows me completely.

These horrendous things are not God's plan, and we must trust God and stand on that. It is the work of satan, roaming to and fro, devouring whom he can. We must remember that the spirits are always in God's domain, with the Holy Spirit standing by for protection.

1 Corinthians 13:11

When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like

a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I

put away childish things.

God not only wants us to have our childhoods, it is the desire of His heart. He wants us to grow in Him, through trust and faith, just like our little children grow under our tutelage. He is our place of safety, just as He expects us to be our children's place of safety. They should be able to run to us when they are frightened, and expect to receive understanding, love and security.  In a perfect world.  And that is what God created. It is satan and the sin of man which have brought us to a state of blurred love and hate.   Where does a child go when they are endangered, abused, wounded and afraid, when they can't go to their parents?  They are to young to reason out anything but survival.  Love is the gold ring from a merry-go-round. I believe, with all my heart the Lord does not hold the children responsible, for they have not yet come to a place of accountability.

We were staying in a house next an old school, and playground. The house was covered by tar paper.  I don't know "who" we were, when I say "we".  I only remember three things about that house: Seeing my father, Wilson Allen at the back door, bringing food, but not coming inside.  Sitting with my beloved Uncle Edward at the kitchen table, staring and the rain and sharing a piece of toast with him And finally, the place where "it" happened.

I was very young, not older than four years old. I had no toys, so I was doing my usual thing of exploring the yard, and the school yard, from behind the fence which surrounded it. An older boy, a teenager came riding across the school yard on a beautiful silver bicycle, I jumped up and down, clapping my hands in glee.  After awhile he swung the bike over by where I stood behind the fence.  "Do you like my bike?" He asked me.  I nodded my head vigorously up-and-down. He then asked if I had ever ridden on a bicycle (I hadn't). He rode around some more, and skidded to a stop in front of me.

"Maybe, I'll give you a ride sometime. Would you like that?"

I clasped my hands in joy. "Oh, yes, yes," screamed!

But, he just rode off. I felt crushed; I so wanted to ride on that bicycle.  I was soon back to puttering around the yard, planning on someday climbing that big tree over there, calling to the birds, looking for squirrels  Day dreaming.  Suddenly, up the alley came the boy with a group of his friends.  He was the only one on a bike. and they approached me from the area behind the wood shed. They were all grinning, and seemed very excited.

"Are you a scaredy-cat?" The boy asked me. I was fierce. I was strong. If I was ever afraid, I would never show it. "No, I'm not."  The boys joked among themselves, teasing me about being a baby and a scardey-cat. They did what boys do, pushed at each other, then tried to tickle me. 

"Do you still want to ride the bike?"  I nodded my head. "Well, you can have a ride with all of us, but you must come inside (he pointed to the shed). We have something to show you," and taking me by the hand he led me inside. It was pitch black, but they had brought matches. The door was blocked.  When they struck the matches, they were all sitting down with their pants opened, with their penises out.  They forced me to perform fallatio on all of them, then told me to get out, threatening to kill me if I told anyone.  They came around me other days after that, and always jeered at me calling me a whore who put out for a bicycle ride. 

Who did I go to for help? Nobody. I lived in fear the boy would come back and grab me. I was numb about the sexual aspect; I didn't like it. Not at all.

Do you wonder that a child that age would not scream for help? The answer is simple. I had already been through enough in my short life to learn self-preservation  There was simply nobody I could to run to for help.  What struck my heart was the fact I never did get that ride, and I was nicer than them.  i kept my promise! I didn't tell anybody.

So, then I still wonder how these things fit into the Kingdom.  I honestly don't know.  Yet I so trust God that I know someday I will know it all.  In the meantime, I can only pray and weep.

Raindrops. So many raindrops. Feels like raindrops, falling from my eyes.

Psalm 72:4

He shall judge the poor of the people; He shall save the children

of the needy  He shall break the oppressor into pieces.

Zechariah 7:10

Do not oppress the widow or the orphan, the stranger or the

poor, and do not devise evil in your hearts against one another.

Do you hear me, Lord?  It's me, again. Can you hear me?
Can anybody hear me?