Getting Past the Grief that Led to Addiction

By Charles Watson on behalf of a staff member at Sunshine Behavioral Health. Special thanks for her sharing in the hope of offering encouragement to others.

 

It isn’t uncommon for people to lose valuable things in their lives—homes, cars, money, a member of the family or a friend. In fact, on some occasions, people even lose themselves—often while trying to find something.

Well, that was how I felt 10 years ago.

It started with the death of my firstborn son. In my thirtieth week of pregnancy, I was on leave as an associate professor for literature at a community college in California. I still remember clearly, opening the fridge at 4:15 in the afternoon to prepare a meal when a contraction ripped through my abdomen, almost too painful to bear. I called 9-1-1, and the rest became a blur.

Little Frederick, the name of my angel, was stillborn. He died of asphyxia inside my womb. The cord connecting the two of us had wrapped around his fragile neck. The doctors cut me open, and I didn’t know it then, but they took a part of my soul when they removed my son’s lifeless body. My husband Jeff took off from work and rushed to the hospital where he attended to me for days.

The power of grief

Our lives took a great turn the moment I got out of the hospital. We both mourned the loss of our child, but Jeff had no idea the unimaginable sorrow within me. Doing the simplest tasks could be overwhelming.

I tried to go back to teaching, hoping that being busy in school would distract the hollowness I felt. But if household chores were exhausting, how did I think I could teach literature to college students? My ineptness grew increasingly obvious, and after a few months, the department supervisor advised me to take a leave of absence. I didn’t tell my husband.

The sadness of losing my son had swallowed me. Whole.

I gave birth to a dead child.

My body killed my baby. 

These thoughts played over and over in my head. There had to be a reason why Little Frederick died suddenly — and someone to blame.  I could point to no one but myself.

Even without me saying a word to Jeff about my deepening despair, he knew I was  sinking into depression.

“You need to get help,” he’d say. “You know that.”

“I’m okay. I just need to sleep,” I’d tell him.

He insisted that I shouldn’t blame myself nor should I let the incident affect my work—and I loathed him for it. I told myself: My husband only thinks that because Frederick didn’t die inside of him. He is clean, and I am not.

Jeff tried to talk me into getting help from our family doctor but I refused. I said he should not belittle my capacity to overcome problems. Lying to myself as much as Jeff that I could deal with my grief on my own only made things worse for our family.

Since then I’ve learned sometimes we are given good options, but our anger can diffuse our will to fight to regain ourselves. Instead, I succumbed to the pain. I nourished it.

Photo by © Gustavo Alfredo Schaufelberger Pirron

I didn’t go out of the house and stopped talking to my colleagues. I pretended not to have read their emails. A glass of wine now and then numbed my anguish a little. Before long, I consciously kept count and mentally justified the number of the bottles I drank, well on the road to alcoholism.

Jeff would come home from work to find me dozing on the floor, on the stairs, in the garage, or inside the room that was supposed to have been Little Frederick’s nursery.  He would patiently wake me or carry me to our bedroom. Drunken afternoons became our new normal.

Deciding to get into rehab

At some point, I began to notice the strain on Jeff’s face and realized his misery was my fault. I felt so guilty and embarrassed that I asked him for a divorce. He pleaded for me to go to a rehab program. The idea sounded ugly, but I knew I had to do something to take control of my life again.

Jeff brought me to a center for women where I had a session with a counselor who told me of the loss of her family at the hands of a drunk driver.

“They were out to pick me up from work because it was my husband’s birthday,” she said. “Suddenly, another car changed lanes and rammed into them.” Her voice didn’t crackle. She didn’t cry. But her eyes looked really sad.

I worried for her. “How have you gone on without your whole family?” I asked.

“I decided to help other people not lose theirs,” she said and smiled.

Finding hope in therapy

I was admitted to a 30-day rehab program. Inside the center, I saw women fighting to get out. Some of them found ways to sneak out. Others would hide their medicines and opt not to take them. Often, I heard how they felt like they were in prison.

Honestly, at first, I felt the same way. But during one of my one-on-one sessions at the center, I realized that there are things we cannot control, but we do have the power to deal with our emotions, which gave me hope.

The detox process was not easy though. I would crave a drink or any drug to help ease my loneliness. Thankfully, the 24-hour monitoring makes it difficult to take the easy way out — which actually means not recovering from addiction.

The patients who tried to sneak in contraband would have to start at step one again. And again. Until they finally decided they wanted help to manage their addictions.

I told myself that I had to finish treatment if I wanted to become better. After detox and the one-on-one sessions, I joined therapy groups and went to lectures on coping with addiction. We attended seminars on how to recognize our triggers. I particularly liked the meditations and yoga where I learned about mindfulness. In time, I started thinking more clearly.

But the realizations came in trickles. There were countless times when I would revert to denying losing my child and then myself. When I first joined group therapy, it had taken the whole session for me to describe my guilt and pain.

I was happy when I successfully finished the program. Jeff showed me he’d turned Frederick’s nursery into a library filled with my books. I remember feeling so excited to come home.

Ongoing recovery

Therapy opened me up to a lot of real stories of people with substance addictions who inspired me to move on. Losing my Little Frederick, my unborn child, had been devastating. But I met mothers and fathers who had lost several children, their homes, and more, under horrendous circumstances. I shared their pain and cried with them. And I began to feel less isolated.

I wrote my thoughts daily as well as letters to Frederick and Jeff. Several I read aloud during sessions with the recovery group. Again, I found hope, writing and talking to people who understood. I also learned to listen and support them in their recovery. Slowly, I realized that losing Little Frederick, and my old self with his death, had become the path for me to discover the things I cared about most.

I returned to teaching—not at a local college, but at a private facility for young people recovering from mental illness and drug abuse. My pace picked up, and the void inside me began to fill. I knew then that whatever pain I experienced prepared me to become a better teacher and parent. If it weren’t for Jeff, I would not have been able to find myself.

Today, my day starts at 6:00 in the morning since I take the kids to school before heading to teach my class. At 3:00 in the afternoon, I pick them up and take them home. I practice yoga from 4:30 to 5:30, and I write in my journal after dinner. Before bedtime, I read books with our two kids — Michael and Roger.

Yes, I was given another chance to have kids, and I am grateful they came on my path to long-term recovery. They have had a better mom to care for them.

Sometimes, things don’t go the way we plan, but now I know we have the ability to decide how we’ll proceed into our next life-chapter. 

 

Charles L. Watson is the head content writer for https://www.sunshinebehavioralhealth.com. Thank you for sharing your colleague’s story  with Tenacity to Triumph.

Readers, if you have an experience of grief or recovery to share, we would love to hear from you! Your comment could be the spark that ignites someone else’s healing — begins their journey to eventual triumph.

 

CHALLENGES AND TRIUMPHS OF RAISING A SPECIAL NEEDS CHILD

by Eva Gremmert

Our son Nick has Lennox-Gastaut syndrome (LGS), a rare form of epilepsy that comes with seizures as well as cognitive impairment and developmental delays. He lives with his dad Arden and me, Eva, his mom in Carnation, Washington, USA.  Although he’s 38 years old, we still take care of him and always will. It’s a big job, but we’ve had a lot of help along the way.

We’ve raised our four kids and quite a few other people’s kids, so he has a lot of siblings who love him.  Nick has traveled with us to many beautiful places on our planet. He loves, loves, loves airplanes and airports, which is great for us.

I know he’s more popular than me.  Whenever I post a picture of him to Facebook or comment on what he has said or done, lots of people hit the like button.  For someone who has difficulty verbally articulating what he’s feeling, he manages to get his message across, and it often has a big impact.

As a young mom of 22, I delivered Nick, our second son, and knew right away there was something different about him. Being his mom has changed me. He has taught me many things. I have learned to look past first impressions, outward appearances, and obvious behaviors to see the real people behind those things.

As parents of a child with special needs, Arden and I have faced many challenges, but somehow, we always manage to get through them and feel richer for the experience. For example, in the fall of 2010, Nick’s seizures got out of control. Our epileptologist (a neurologist who specializes in epilepsy) looked for all sorts of solutions, including the usual prescription changes. We also worked on controlling his environment, restricting certain foods, following a strict medicine schedule, and doing our best to make sure Nick got enough sleep — which often meant sleep deprivation for us.

The doctor brought to our attention that many individuals with epilepsy also have sleep apnea. Studies have found that treating sleep apnea decreases the number of seizure episodes for some patients. We decided to get Nick tested.

The hospital had a sleep study facility set up to look like a hotel room, with an observation window on one wall. Nick has had many EEGs, so the electrodes on his head didn’t concern him. In fact, he was pretty excited for the adventure of sleeping in a new place.

The staff brought in a cot for me to lie on near his bed. Although the lights were dimmed, they could see us through the window. Every hour or so, a technician would come in to take more data. At the end of the night, I was sure that neither Nick nor I had been asleep, but I was assured they’d collected the necessary information.

When we met with the sleep doctor the next week, he confirmed that Nick did indeed have sleep apnea and would require a CPAP (Constant-Positive Airway Pressure) machine to help him get the oxygen he needed to get a good night’s sleep. I worried he would have trouble adjusting to wearing a mask all night with constant air pressure blowing into his throat, especially because a few friends had told me how hard it was to get used to their CPAP machines.

But it turned out there was another choice.

The APAP (Automatic Positive Airway Pressure) machine starts with a lower pressure than the CPAP and ramps up on a breath-by-breath basis as needed during sleep. Being that the device wouldn’t start out like Nick was in a wind tunnel when we were trying to get him to sleep, I thought that the APAP machine might be a better fit for us. The doctor agreed to order the APAP machine. One hurdle jumped.

Next I worried that Nick would reject wearing the mask. There are different types and sizes, and the technician was great at helping us pick out what we all hoped would be most comfortable. While we made the final decision, Nick held the mask we were leaning toward. He didn’t look to happy about it until Arden reached over, put it on our son’s face, and said, “Look Nick, you have a mask just like Maverick on Top Gun.”

Nick loves the movie Top Gun the music and, of course, the airplanes, but he frowned a bit. “I got a Top Gun mask?”

“Yes, Nick,” I complied. “You have a Top Gun Mask.”

“I keep it?” he asked, his eyes a little wider, even hopeful.

“You get to keep it and wear it every night,”Arden assured him.

Clearing the mask hurdle, we became cautiously optimistic, yet we worried what might be in store for us in the wee hours. That first night, we did the usual routine to prepare Nick for bed, culminating in putting on his Top Gun mask.

“I am Maverick?”  he asked.

“You’re just like Maverick on Top Gun,” we told him.

As we shut his bedroom door, Arden and I looked at each other, trying to be positive yet ready for anything.

We went to bed, and the next thing we knew, it was light outside.

Nick had slept for 11 hours.

I was afraid something bad had happened to him. Dreading what we might find, I made Arden go into Nick’s bedroom first. But there was our son just as we had left him, sound asleep. We actually had to wake him. It was amazing. Nick had woken up every two hours for the previous couple of years. Apparently, what we’d thought was insomnia had been sleep apnea.

This sleep habit has worked now for more than 7 years. He wears his Top Gun mask every night.  I’m sure the oxygen infusion has helped reduce his seizures, which is wonderful. For me, the biggest change is that Nick is sleeping through the night — and so are we.

It’s incredible what’s possible with enough sleep. I’m back to professional writing, and I’m finishing up a memoir about my life as a mom with lots of kids and one who has special needs.

Thank you so much, Eva, for sharing your story. Find out more about her adventures with Nick and her upcoming memoir at www.evagremmert.com.

If you’d like to share a story, one about yourself or someone you know, email trish@write-to-win.com.

Have you had a problem that got fixed even better than you’d imagined?

Leave a comment, and tell us about it!

“If It Bleeds, It Leads”—One Woman’s Recovery from Tragedy

By Constance Gilbert

Laurel and Randee

Tragedies make headlines and the TV news. If it bleeds, it leads—as if the violence and travesties, to which we’ve become so desensitized, don’t happen to real people. But horrible things, things of nightmares and novels, do happen to real people.

In 1995, the Saturday before Easter, Laurel and her oldest daughter went shopping for holiday basket goodies. They shopped for the three grandchildren and for Randee, the fourteen-year-old baby of the family. Randee stayed home to babysit her big sister’s two-, four-, and six-year-old children.

After dropping off Laurel at her house, her older daughter went home to quickly stash the packages. She heard the children playing in the bedroom, but Randee didn’t respond to her greeting. Maybe Randee hadn’t heard her.

The bedroom door wouldn’t open when she tried to check on the kids. We have to get that fixed, she thought as her six-year-old jiggled the doorknob, just so, to let her in. The children proudly showed her their tower of brightly-colored blocks on the floor between the twin beds and giggled wildly when the rickety structure fell.

But where was her sister? It wasn’t like Randee to ditch the kids.

She scouted through the house, calling out Randee’s name to no response, and found the other rooms empty. With growing trepidation, she walked down the stairs to the basement. I can’t imagine her horror when she found her little sister, lying in bright red blood on the floor. Dead.

As a nurse who has seen graphic, real-life injuries and observed autopsies, reading the killer’s appeal transcript haunts my thoughts. Randee was repeatedly and violently raped. One of her two attackers murdered her so she couldn’t identify her assailants.

Laurel and her husband arrived at their older daughter’s house in shock and disbelief. “They wouldn’t permit us see her,” Laurel told me. ”I can’t stress enough how good the police treated us AND Randee. They were kind, respectful, and always at our beck-and-call.”

That’s Laurel. In the midst of the most horrible moment in her life, she noticed the first-responders’ courtesy.

Laurel

This story is really about Laurel, my friend and Randee’s mother.

Laurel always has a smile, sees the positive side of life, is compassionate and caring. She’s also the only housekeeper whom I’ve trusted to clean my office without moving or misplacing papers or other materials at the long-term care facility where we worked.

Occasionally, she’d stop by and say, “Mrs. G, do you have a moment?”

In the rocking chair next to the window in my office, she would rest her feet and ask for my input on common life issues. She always had encouraging words for me too. After that Easter in 1995, Laurel would sit in my rocker and cry for a few minutes before wiping her tears with a deep sigh and returning to her work with a smile.

It is Laurel’s grieving that amazes me. Everyone responds to losses differently. The Grief Cycle is not linear. We don’t go from point A to B.

Nor do we grieve alone in a bubble. Laurel grieved alongside her husband and three childreneach in their own way. As a wife and mother, she tried to comfort her family through their anger and pain.

I experienced some of that chaos when family members disagreed about telling Laurel’s mother of the tragedy, who was my patient. Grandma had the right to know her granddaughter died. Besides, secrets are hard to keep in small towns—especially in long-term care communities where TVs, papers, and gossipers spread news quickly.

I gently shared Randee’s loss to spare Grandma the discovery in a less than savory way. She cried in my arms, lamenting that granddaughters shouldn’t die before their ninety-year-old grandmas. Lots of anger was hurled at me the day. I like to think I was Laurel’s shield from the family’s frustration and grief for a little while.

 

Laurel says she found support and stability through her work. The love of staff and residents in the retirement community enveloped her like a cocoon. While at work, she could leave conflicts at home and take a break from the police investigation that lasted for years. She could retreat into my rocking chair to shed a few tears in private or to “talk” even when there were no words.

When Laurel emerged from that cocoon, back to living life in real time, there was no bitterness. She has a special, unique spirit and is thankful for the fourteen years the Lord lent Randee to her.

Author Elisabeth Kubler-Ross wrote:

“The most beautiful people are those who have known defeat, suffering, struggle, loss and have still found their way out of the depths. These people have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.” 

Laurel is one of the most beautiful, wonderful, amazing people I know.

Randee in a popcorn fight at a sleepover.

“[Randee] was very loved and spoiled by all,” Laurel shared. “Her siblings were nine, ten, and thirteen years old when she was born. We all were proud of her. A week after her death, she would have been inducted into the National Honor Society. She planned on attending Michigan State University to become either a child psychologist or a veterinarian.

She was a bright light to all who knew her. I am thankful for the time she was loaned to us.”

For anyone experiencing loss, Laurel wants you to know there is no right or wrong way, nor “acceptable” length of time for dealing with grief.

Randee’s father lost his will to live and died three years after the murder, never knowing the two suspects were convicted in 2002 based on DNA evidence.

As in many rape cases, the perpetrators were not strangers. They took advantage of Randee’s sister’s absence. Randee could never have defended herself against two men, one who weighed more than 200 pounds and had prior convictions. As the killer, he was sentenced to life without parole. He was twenty-six. His seventeen-year-old friend left prior to the murder and was sentenced twenty-five years to life in prison.

Laurel hopes her story will help other families through their losses.

Rape is far more common than most of us imagine. Sexual intimacy isn’t an easy conversation, but our children need to understand their vulnerability. I watched a three-part documentary on Netflix that BBC produced entitled “The Detectives” to inform young adults and their parents of the truth about sexual assault and how to prevent becoming a victim. “The Detectives” could be your golden teaching moment. Myriad articles on this subject are also available online.

May Randee and Laurel’s experience touch your heart unlike any newspaper headline or TV reporter’s lead story.

 

 

Special thanks to Constance Gilbert for this Tenacity to Triumph story. Connie is a retired nurse who moved to Central Oregon to be a nearby “gramma”. She, too, has survived losses, which led to her heart’s desire to encourage others through written and spoken words. Numerous periodicals have published her short stories, and she regularly posts on her blog consheartstrings.blogspot.com, which always ends with    “Selah think on this…”

Meet Jayne, Whose Son Saved Her Life, and Running Saved Her Marriage

10500351_541207862712808_5131535543680842341_nJayne Rodosevich grew up in Ridgecrest, California, a small town in the Mojave Desert – mostly on her own. Her dad, a chemical engineer for Searles Valley Minerals, worked a lot of hours, and her mom, a registered nurse, spent much of the time at the local hospital. Until Jayne turned 15, she practically raised her younger brother and sister when she wasn’t training on uneven parallel bars, the vault or balance beam, or learning floor routines for the next gymnastics meet.

Then in her sophomore year of high school, her mom decided to go back to college to become a nurse anesthetist – in Los Angeles, about a three-hour drive from Ridgecrest. Her mom took Jayne’s siblings and invited their grandmother to live with them to take care of the little ones. A refugee from Thailand who didn’t speak English became the housekeeper for Jayne and her dad while Jayne finished high school and competed in gymnastics meets.

Gymnastics and homework kept Jayne out of trouble. She brought home trophies and earned straight As until she graduated from high school and went off to the University of California in Davis. Jayne went from little to no contact with her family, and she no longer had time for sports. At age 19, she worked in a clothing store, back-bussed at a local bar, and poured coffee as a barista to pay for tuition, books, food and rent – and Jayne was exhausted.

Her husband, back then her 21-year-old boyfriend, introduced Jayne to crystal methamphetamine to give her the zip she needed to get through the day.

And she got addicted.

So did he.

They were each other’s bad influence in perpetuating the crystal meth roller coaster of manic highs and devastating lows. Jayne managed to downloadget through six years of college classes, working three jobs, using speed to keep her going. Eventually, though, paying for tuition and living expenses became too much of a burden. Sadly, she quit attending UC Davis 30 units short of graduation, and they moved to the San Francisco Bay Area.

In the next 10 years, drug use whittled Jayne’s body down to 90 pounds. Her muscles, once robust from thousands of hours of gymnastics training, atrophied into saggy strands hanging off her bones. One cigarette after the next incinerated between her fingertips. Her teeth became mottled with black rot, a side-effect from crystal meth use, and still she and her boyfriend partied.

“We had one rule,” Jayne says. “You could never [mess] up at work.”

Life had become a cycle of self-induced bipolar disorder. Then three months after Jayne and her boyfriend married, she discovered she was pregnant.

Jayne’s life took a 180 degree turn.

Quitting her drug habits had seemed impossible until fear for her baby’s safety became a factor. For the first time in a decade, she put downWk14_Belly_02 the smokes, turned away the frenzied high she craved, and started eating regular meals that included produce and protein. Soon she plumped into a healthy weight, and eight months later, she delivered a healthy little boy.

(Since their son was born, over the last twelve years, Jayne has spent more than $20,000 to fix her rotten teeth.)

But Jayne continued eating the same after she stopped nursing her baby and gained 80 pounds. Her husband, too, blew past his optimal weight, into jumbo jeans.

“Crystal meth messes up your metabolism,” Jayne explains. “Your body holds onto fat in case you decide to starve it again because you don’t feel like eating when you’re using.”

Her husband cut his drug use way down, but it took a couple years for him to beat his addictions. Jayne focused on being a mom to their son and tried to be patient. After all, her husband never had the urgency of a human life growing inside him to fortify his will power.

Eight years ago, they moved from California to Bend, Oregon, where her husband was diagnosed with Type II diabetes, a bi-product of his arrested addiction and current eating habits. He knew if he didn’t do something to improve his health, he would get sicker. Since Bend is known for its mountain trails, and runners populate the bike lanes as often as cyclists, he put on a pair of cross trainers and started logging the miles. His weight began to drop, and he began to feel better.

183122_465327160203974_827085630_nBut Jayne worked graveyard shifts at Village Baker in their son’s early years, so she could be with their little one during the day. Constant sleep deprivation made cat naps more crucial than cardio workouts.

During this time, her mentally ill mother-in-law, estranged from her husband since he was a child, got diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and had nowhere to go.

So Jayne and her husband brought his mother home to live with them.

Jayne struggled to be a mom to their son, caregiver to her confused mother-in-law, and co-provider for the household for a nightmarish year-and-a-half before the woman passed away.

Jayne needed an outlet, a way to deal with stress, yet she didn’t know how to squeeze physical exercise into her busy life. Knowing her competitive nature, honed from years of competing in gymnastics meets, her husband teased her for two years, saying she couldn’t run for reasons that had nothing to do with time, alluding to her weight. Then Jayne and her husband both changed jobs, switching schedules, him working nights as head chef at a swanky restaurant, and her working days at Whole Foods Market after their son started school.

“I started running because [my husband] told me I wasn’t capable,” Jayne confesses. “I wasn’t going to let him be right.”

Getting regular sleep and living in daylight allowed Jayne to join a runners’ training group for a half-marathon through FootZone, an apparel 13346501_10208477979963824_4632028197835674607_nstore in downtown Bend that cultivates and nurtures the local running community. She made lasting friendships with people who supported each other in reaching their fitness goals. That first year, she not only became an excellent runner, Jayne lost 60 pounds and has kept them off ever since.

Three years ago, Jayne got a call from Christina Stavro, a training group coordinator at FootZone, who asked if Jayne would be willing to mentor other runners in the half-marathon group training for the race in Silver Falls, Oregon. A free pair of running shoes sweetened the deal, and Jayne has been mentoring groups ever since.

10433144_450950215071907_7800429536368401572_nIn fact, Jayne has been my knowledgeable, patient, supportive running mentor in both the Silver Falls Half-Marathon and Bend Marathon training groups through FootZone. I’ll be forever grateful for her gentle motivation, talking me through sore glutes, hips, and hamstrings, encouraging me to the top of steep roads and trails that seemed would never end.

In the meantime, Jayne’s marriage secretly suffered from her and her husband’s opposite work schedules. Last year, they had drifted so far apart, they became little more that roommates.

“I wasn’t afraid for him to leave,” Jayne recounts. “I’m not dependent on him anymore.”

At the brink of separation, they decided to carve out running time together, and their relationship began to grow again.10394615_10152840328548189_2315796588886067072_n

“We’ve realized we do better together,” Jayne acknowledges. “He’s my best friend.”

They’ve finally become a good influence on each other. Since March, they’ve trained for and competed in two races together, and she sees many others in their future. On July 9, Jayne will run her first ultra-marathon, a 50K (31 miles) at Mount Hood in Oregon. But her husband won’t be participating. He and their son will be cheering for Jayne as she crosses the finish line.

Thanks for sharing your story with our Tenacity to Triumph readers, Jayne!

 

Readers, can you relate to Jayne’s story in some way? We’d love for you to leave a comment.

Here’s to bad asses everywhere!

Trish Wilkinson,

Author, Writing Coach, Freelance Editor

Meet Pauline, a Total Bad Ass Who Doesn’t Realize She’s Awesome

Pauline and her dog, Jack
Pauline and her dog, Jack

I meet amazing people to write about for this blog in the most unlikely places. The funny thing is, heroes think they’re normal. Nothing special. Talking people into letting me tell their stories often takes a bit of convincing that others can benefit from their experiences, particularly the life choices that empowered them to become the successes they are today.

For example, Pauline Kinneman, one of my favorite new running buddies in Central Oregon,

Pauline and I running in the Silver Falls Half Marathon last November where she placed third for her age group
Pauline and I running in the Silver Falls Half Marathon last November where she placed third for her age group

doesn’t think she’s special at all, but she’s a total bad ass. Due to her peer pressure, I’m training for the Bend Marathon, my first marathon ever, on Sunday, April 24. What kind of crazy people run 26.2 miles, for cryin’ out loud? Apparently, people like me who admire and respect someone like Pauline, a 62-year-old who has won several medals in half and full marathons, a woman nine years my senior who kicks my butt on the roads and trails. She’s also the mother of three amazing adults: Sean Michael Gion, age 32, father, husband, software sales executive; Lauren Elizabeth Frances, M.D., age 30, and Katherine Rose Sylvia, age 26, wife, writer for Human Resources at Columbia University.

A former manager for a Barnes & Noble in Seattle, customer relations officer for Washington Energy, disc jockey back in the day, retail sales person, and model for Frederick and Nelson as a teenager, Pauline now spends much of her time running with her FootZone friends talking, joking, and offering humble encouragement. When she isn’t running, she hits the ski slopes, braves rocky trails on her mountain bike, and takes 200+ mile trips on her road bike with her husband, Michael, of 37 years.

You might guess, with a such a glowing track record (pun intended), she came from a stable, educated family.

You would be wrong.

Pauline’s father, John Kelty, was illiterate. John ran away from home and enlisted in the army in his teens. As a sergeant in World War II, he was one of the last Muleskinners who saved women and children in the Swiss Alps, and he had a fabulous singing voice.

But he could never quiet his inner demons.

220px-Tennis_Racket_and_BallsPauline’s mother, Sylvia Baker, a professional tennis player who competed at the U.S. Open, met John, a soldier 12 years her senior, guarding the tennis courts in Japan where she’d been asked to play in a “Friendlies” match with the Emperor. A whirlwind romance would have the two married several months later.

And her mother would discover her new husband was a mean drunk.

Still, Pauline’s oldest brother Frank came along, Geoffrey followed two years later, and Pauline Sylvia Kelty, named after her English grandmother, arrived a couple years after Geoff. Her mother continued to play tennis, and her dad worked for Boeing as a plumber. They lived in a two-bedroom house in Seattle where little Pauly slept in a crib in the same room with her brothers until she was five years old.

Meanwhile, her alcoholic father had become physically abusive.

By the time Pauly turned six, her parents had split up. Her dad didn’t pay child support, so the family practically starved while her mom struggled to pay the bills on the meager sponsorship from Boeing to play in tennis tournaments and her secretary’s salary.

Pauly didn’t go to preschool or kindergarten. She stayed home with her stuffed animals while her mom went to work and her brothers went to school. When she got hungry, she’d knock at neighbors’ doors, asking for something to eat. In the afternoons, she walked several blocks by herself and waited for her brothers to be let out of class for the day.

Yet when her mom had a tennis match scheduled, Pauly and her brothers bathed and dressed in clean white shirts and behaved as model imageschildren, seen and not heard. At the swanky tennis clubs, servers brought them food and drinks while their mother battled for another tennis trophy.

“People waited on us,” says Pauline. “We were little princes and a princess – until we went home to our hovel.”

Win or lose, Sylvia would take the kids back to their little house to carefully stow their pressed shirts and slacks for the next match. On days when Sylvia didn’t have a match scheduled, she and Pauly would go to the track at the local public high school, where Pauly would watch her mom hit tennis balls against a wall and run laps to stay in shape.

track-shoes-9068173“I’d go to sleep at the side of the track listening to the rhythm of her feet,” Pauline remembers. “[The sound] was comforting.”

In addition to the difficulties of day-to-day living, the family lived in terror knowing her father could appear at any time, wasted and ready to bully them.

“We’d hold our breath hoping Dad wouldn’t show up drunk and violent,” Pauline confides. “Sometimes we had to leave to get away from him, which was fun because the no-tell-motel would have a pool, [but other times] the police would have to come and take him away.”

Single motherhood, a struggling tennis career, and an abusive ex-husband ground Sylvia into deep depression, so she tried to lift her spirits by dating. If Pauly and her brothers came home to hear music playing, they knew to stay out of the house. If the music still played after her date left, they knew their mother’s dark mood would isolate her for the rest of the evening. After such nights, ten-year-old Pauly would coax her mother out of bed, assemble an outfit, and help dress her for work in the morning.

“School was awful,” Pauline admits. “I was always sleepy, and I was super thin because I ate terribly.”

At age 11, Pauly found her mother running around the house with a handful of pills threatening to kill herself. Not knowing what else to do, sheimages (3) called the police. When the cops arrived, she and her brothers hid, and Sylvia told the police there had been a misunderstanding. After the police left, the kids crawled out of their hiding places, and Pauly tucked her mom into bed.

The following morning, Pauly ran late for school, so she awakened her mother, set out Sylvia’s clothes for work, and left the house. That day, Pauly got into trouble with her teacher for falling asleep in class, so she decided to go home for a nap. A priest intercepted her and broke the news that her mom was in the hospital. In a daze, Pauly walked home from school. When she wandered into the bathroom, she found bright red blood splattered on the walls, in the bathtub, and smeared on the floor.

“I can still see it in my mind if I’m not careful,” Pauline confesses. “It was horrible.”

Worse, Frank and Geoff blamed their little sister for their mother’s suicide attempt, saying that calling the police the night before had pushed her over the edge.

images (1)Sylvia was taken to the psych ward at the hospital. At first, people from their church took in the kids, but as days turned to weeks, Pauly and her brothers became wards of the state of Washington. Fifteen-year-old Frank went to live in an orphanage, Geoff spent time at the Griffin Home for Boys, and Pauly lived with the Lazaras family in foster care. The Lazarases had a rifle range in their basement, and they taught Pauly how to shoot. They also generously shared their horses and took her on trail rides. After two weeks, Betty Rae and Bud Gross, the Lazaras’s next-door-neighbors, asked Pauly to live with them.

When Sylvia got out of the hospital, she tried to get her children back, but the neighbors testified that she was an unfit mother, so the state wouldn’t allow Pauly and her brothers to go home. Pauly felt guilty to be relieved because, though the bathroom had been cleaned, whenever she visited the house for her mom’s visitation, vivid flashbacks made her heart race, and she’d have to walk outside.

Her mother felt there was little to live for without her children. Sylvia began to drink heavily and take amphetamines to control her weight, all while playing punishing amounts of tennis. Within months, Sylvia collapsed on the tennis court. Geoffrey, now 14, left the boys’ home to take care of her.

Just before Pauly’s 12th birthday in November, her mother died of liver cancer – and Geoffrey suffered a psychotic break.

“[Geoffrey] was never the same after Mom died,” Pauline concedes. “I think part of it had to do with him having to go to the same psych ward as our mother to recover.”

Pauline remembers her mother treating everyone with kindness. “[Mom] would say, ‘You never know what is going on with people. There is always someone who has had more pain [than we have].’”

Beverly and Vivian, Sylvia’s older sisters from California, came to Washington to attend the funeral. Pauly danced and skipped, excited to see her aunts for the first time, hoping these new-found family members would become part of her and her brothers’ lives. But Aunts Vivian and Beverly left shortly after the memorial service. Pauly didn’t know if she’d ever hear from them again.

A few weeks after the funeral, Aunt Beverly called and explained Frank and Geoff were too old, but 12-year-old Pauly could come to live with her family in California. Pauly’s first time on an airplane, she flew by herself to live with an aunt she scarcely knew as well as an uncle and four cousins she’d never met. Pauly kept up with her aunt’s strict schedule of activities and mealtimes, but she was in pain over the loss of her mother. In her grief, she escaped by burying her nose in books every chance she got.

Two weeks after Pauly arrived, Aunt Beverly sat her down on the bed and said: “This isn’t working out.”

Sylvia’s oldest sister, Aunt Vivian, came to the rescue and offered Pauly a home. Aunt Vivian had a pool, and she set out the funny papers for Pauly to read at the breakfast table. With lots of swimming and reading and easy conversation, her inner-turmoil subsided. Life began to settle into a secure rhythm – until four weeks later when Aunt Vivian said she’d already raised her children and wasn’t prepared to bring up another child.

Pauly was sent back to Washington. She lived in two foster homes before Betty Rae and Bud Gross got licensed to be foster parents and invited her to come live with them again. She was almost 13. For the next four years, Pauly lived with them, but tensions grew in their home after the Gross’s son enlisted in the army and left to fight in Vietnam.

FHSLibrary
Interior Franklin HS Library

In those years, Pauly’s self-esteem steadily declined. Few of her peers knew she was a foster kid. Most

Franklin High School, Seattle, Washington
Franklin High School, Seattle, Washington

people thought of her as the “nice little girl who worked in the school library.”

Then in tenth grade, Philip Quinn, Pauly’s English teacher at Franklin High School, began to tutor her in the library with a group of other struggling kids to help them catch up in their classes. More important, he told Pauly she was smart, praising her for academic and emotional progress. Slowly, her self-image improved.

In her senior year, one fateful afternoon, she got into a shouting match with Betty Rae, and Pauly ran away. Literally. Being on the cross-country team at Franklin High, she ran miles and miles.

Eventually she bumped into a girl from school. Although little more than an acquaintance, the girl took Pauly home, and the girl’s parents let Pauly spend the night. The next day, Pauly went to see the guidance counselor. When Mr. Quinn found out what had happened, he called his pregnant wife, and the couple agreed to take Pauly in for a while. Christopher, the Quinn’s two-and-a-half-year-old son thought his daddy brought Pauly home especially for him as the two of them hit it off the moment she walked into the tiny, two-bedroom house.

Pauly finished her senior year of high school with the Quinn family, and Philip helped her get into the University of Puget Sound. She earned a degree in psychology, met Michael Kinneman through a mutual friend, and began her journey as a successful adult.

To this day, Pauline and the Quinns keep in touch, celebrating accomplishments, sharing in sorrows, or merely catching up. Betty Rae and Pauline have long since made amends, and the Gross family, too, remain precious friends. Sadly, Pauline’s brother Geoffrey died at age 44 struggling with addiction, but Frank lives in Alaska and is the mayor in the small town where he lives with his wife. Frank and Pauline have done their best to heal from the past. They talk on the phone and visit each other whenever possible.

Pauline (yellow dress), husband Michael (far right), and much of her family
Pauline (yellow dress), husband Michael (far right), and much of her family at Katharine and Tyler’s wedding

Soon Pauline will hang out with her daughter, Katharine Rose, and her son-in-law, Tyler Bischop when she travels east to run in the New York Marathon on November 6. My guess is that she’ll get another medal, but whether she places in her age group or not, Pauline is a hero in my book.

Pauline, thanks for allowing me to share your story as a notable bad ass on Tenacity to Triumph.

Readers, we’d love to “hear” your comments. Hopefully, Pauline’s story struck a chord to give you that extra something you need to get through your personal challenges.

 

If you have a story of grit and determination to share, leave a comment or email me at writetowinwithtrish@gmail.com, and we’ll make that happen.

                                                                                                Here’s to bad asses everywhere!

                                                                                                Trish Wilkinson

 

The Decision that Made LadyDice an Up-and-Coming Hip Hop Star

fcae31d3-71bd-4212-b3ff-5fa9ceb014ddA few short years ago, singer LadyDice, weighed 275 pounds, had never written a song, and suffered from debilitating stage fright. It took an honest, painful look inside herself to break through the obstacles keeping her from her dreams.

 
Growing up in Southern California with her biological father, a mentally and physically abusive addict, she remembers sitting in the courtroom with her mom and dad fighting over who would get custody of her and her sisters. LadyDice’s home life improved after her mom won the custody battle and eventually married a wonderful man.

 
But the damage from those early years had been done.

 
And understanding the source of her self-destructive behavior wouldn’t come until much later.

 
Hitting bottom either kills you or makes you stronger, and LadyDice chose to use that dark, desperate place as her springboard to recreate her life.

“I decided I was ready to become who I always wanted to be,” she says.

Being overweight had always plagued her with self-doubt; that is, until she got serious and dropped 120 pounds.

LadyDice three years ago, before and after she lost 120 pounds.
LadyDice before and after she lost 120 pounds.

“I wish I could give some miracle answer [for how I lost all that weight and have kept it off], but it was just discipline. I LOOOVE food,” she admits, “so I had to figure out yummy ways to stay satisfied. After I got that down, it was easy.”

In a similar way, LadyDice faced her fear of the limelight by forcing her feet onto the stage for the first time three years ago. She’d always wanted to sing, to be heard. No one would stop her, least of all herself. The dreaded shakes and queasiness she’d avoided for so long gave way to joy as her amplified voice filled the room, and the audience moved to the beat. Since then, she has performed in all kinds of venues in several states.

“I pushed myself for almost 2 years, and now I’m doing shows all over the place. I am a model and pursuing my dream in music!!” she exclaims. “You just have to find the belief in yourself.”

12088272_881154771968703_200476865479206303_nLadyDice has discovered her true friends in going after her dream of becoming a hip hop star.

“It’s amazing to see the people who step up and support your career and the ones who don’t,” she confides. “There’s been a lot of good and bad on my journey so far, but the good is definitely starting to outweigh the bad. I’m grateful.”

 

The single mom of a 4-year-old daughter and 3-year-old son, LadyDice finds juggling motherhood and her career challenging at times. “It’s really hard having to be gone and them not understanding why Mommy isn’t home,” she says. Still, her preschoolers root for her success. They love to see her perform on stage, and they sing along and dance to her CDs. Hearing about her travels to faraway places excites them, and LadyDice works hard to be present for her children when she’s home. “Honestly, this is an obstacle I haven’t overcome quite yet,” she acknowledges, “but I believe I’m finding a balance.”

 

Recently, LadyDice left her home in Oregon for a few days to be there for someone else’s little girl in Idaho. Ten-year-old Sophia has struggled with leukemia since birth, and although the treatments have gotten her cancer under control, her kidneys are failing due to the frequent processing of harsh chemicals from chemotherapy. Sophia loves LadyDice’s hip hop, tough-girl music, so her mother contacted LadyDice to set up a meeting to take Sophia’s mind off dialysis and waiting for a new kidney. LadyDice invited Sophia to her recording studio where they experienced a bond neither will ever forget. Not only did they have a great time getting to know each other, Sophia got to see LadyDice record Rachael Platten’s “Fight Song” to accompany Sophia’s video to help raise money to cover medical costs on GoFundMe.com.

 

 

Soon LadyDice will be hearing whether she’ll be opening for a big name act. Fingers crossed. (I’ll let you know the details if this opportunity comes through for her).

In the meantime, here are LadyDice’s five steps for reaching your dreams and goals:

  1. Realize no one is going to do it for you; the only one who can change you is you.
  2. Make a decision and stick with it, consistency is key.
  3. Believe in yourself. Even if there is a long road ahead of you, you absolutely CAN do it.
  4. You will fall over and over again, but you can always get back up and keep going. I refuse to quit until I get where I want to be! We should ALL strive for that within ourselves.
  5. Don’t let anybody tell you that you can’t do it. This world is ugly, and there will always be people who root for you to fail. You have to know your own worth. None of the other stuff matters.

 

Thanks, LadyDice, for taking the time for this interview. You definitely get our “Tenacity to Triumph” philosophy. You’re a fellow bad ass to the core.
Write questions or comments for LadyDice below, and help her realize her dreams by sharing this post!

Tech Corporal Claude Oliver Davis: An Unsung American Hero

Written on behalf of Claude Davis by Lyle Hicks

IMG_0737The threat of war in the early ’40s made every young man fear entering the service. I got my notice and went to Portland for a physical, but I failed, so I returned to Bend, Oregon to work and forget about the army. I was born July 6, 1921 in Hepner, Oregon, and at age 2, my family moved to Bend, where I will always call home.

Dad and I got jobs hanging doors on army barracks in Corvallis, and when we were done there, they asked us to do the same at an air base in Moses Lake, WA, so we moved the family in Dad’s ’36 Plymouth pulling a trailer.  About half way, both tires blew, and we had to leave the trailer behind with all our belongs. In a week, we’d raised enough money to retrieve it. Fortunately, it was still there.

While in Washington, I got another draft notice. This time, I became a member of the US Army, and I met some good guys whom I got to stay with all the way through the war. The army shipped us to Fort Douglas in Utah and then to Camp Hann in California near Riverside where we became a part of the Coast Artillery Anti-aircraft, 119th Battalion. Given my background, I became the small arms repair man and carpenter.

Basic training was a rough transition from civilian life with its strict rules and every part of the day regimented, but I survived. The army added driving the supply truck to my small gun repair duties, which remained my job throughout the war. After further training, we were given a 12-day furlough before shipping out. I decided to hitch a ride north, back home to Bend. A plump old fellow in a Lincoln Continental drove me up Interstate-5 at speeds of up to 100 mph. I sure got home fast!

The 119th Battalion embarked in New York on the fourth-largest passenger ship in the world, the Mauritania, which held 16,000 soldiers.Wecap_blanche went up and down waves so big, walls of water hid the whole ship. I slept in the top hammock of four that would swing back and forth with the pitch of the ship. Eating was an adventure where we would hang onto a pipe with one hand and eat with the other. Fifty-gallon barrels were placed every few feet for the guys who got seasick.  Man, I was glad I didn’t get drafted into the Navy.

While in England preparing for the trip to France, we set about the task of waterproofing our trucks. A trailer fell on my hand, breaking four fingers. Without a hospital nearby, we wrapped them and kept going. When I finally got to a hospital, the doctor had to re-break my fingers to set them in place, so I headed to Normandy with a cast on my right hand.

maxresdefaultWe left England on four Landing Ship Tanks and landed on Utah Beach 30 days after the initial invasion. At 6 p.m., we waited inside the tanks in pitch dark with planes screaming overhead and gunfire in the distance. When it was safe to disembark, we had to keep our lights off and follow the truck ahead. It seemed hours before we stopped for the night by a bridge we’d been assigned to protect. The Germans bombed and strafed us all night. 

The next morning, I saw my first dead German, not 50 feet away. He wasn’t more than a kid…but then, so was I.  As a scared young man, sleeping under trucks and in fox holes, I wondered why I was there. These guys looked the same as I. The war was a cruel, confusing thing.  

As we neared a farm in France, Germans strafed our battalion, blowing the tires on my trailer containing 500 lbs of TNT. The first time they came at us, I got as far as the ditch. The second wave hit the ditch, bullets flying right by my side, taking out the man next to me — 4 to 6 inches and I would not be here today. I took off running across the farm and into the woods. There, for the first time, it became real that I had to either kill or be killed. When it was over, I ended up dragging that trailer for 35 miles before we stopped for the night.  

Weeks later, our battalion stopped after dark in this lane with trees on both sides. In the middle of the night, the Germans hit us, their 88’s clipping the trees. One shell whistled through the canvas back of my truck. It didn’t take us long to roll out from under the chassis and run down the hill to better protection. Using the hill for cover, we shot back with our 90’s, lobbing shells back and forth.

It was about that time that my hand began to itch and smell bad. I went to see the medics, and the doc got angry. The cast should have come off weeks before. Boy, had my hand and fingers gotten stiff. It was months before I regained full use of them.  

114609-004-1A35CAD9We moved up the Mosselle River in the direction of Belgium where we took part in the liberation of the town of Vendun, where WWI had ended. The name of our outfit is on a monument there. After a 7-day leave, we went to Paris and into Southern France to an old castle called Mount Saint Michael.

We then began shuttling infantry to the front line and prisoners back into France. Most prisoners were happy not to fight anymore.  We did this under the cover of darkness watching the tail lights of the truck ahead. Often it meant that if the vehicle in front went into a ditch, so did I. One truck hit a land mine, killing some and injuring others. We loaded the injured into our trucks and kept going, leaving the dead to be picked up later. That night, my truck broke down and when guys came to help me fix it, they kept my co-driver, so by myself, I had to maneuver in the dark in unfamiliar territory. It was scary but I made it.

We were then sent to the front line during the Battle of the Bulge where the Germans made one last push back to Belgium. It was a hard and dirty fight with some Germans dressing like Allies and driving our rigs.  It was hard to know who the enemy was.  

On one trip, one of our planes was shot down, landing on nearby a motor pool. Since the plane had carried two-thousand pound bombs, the explosion blew a hole in the frozen ground 35 feet across and 15 feet deep. Debris fell all around as I dove under a trailer, and one of the plane’s motors dropped a few feet from me. I helped load the wounded into eight ambulances. It was sickening. When I got back to my truck, I found a bullet lodged in the padding of my driver’s seat. I’ve kept it all these years.  

Under enemy fire, shells all around us, we crossed the Rhine River on pontoon bridges like big rubber rafts. Across the half-mile stretch, the 4-US_Army_crossing_the_Rhine_on_heavy_ponton_bridge_at_Worms,_March,_1945foot metal rails were just wide enough for our tires, and our heavy trucks with big guns nearly submerged the rafts. Somehow we all made it to Germany alive. We crossed the Danube on May Day in 1945 and moved into our last position.

On May 9th, the firing stopped. The war had ended.  

We were given leave, so I went to Austria to do some skiing and then traveled in Italy.

After the war, I didn’t have enough points to go home, so I was sent to Metz, France to oversee a gas station there. Truckloads of dead people were shuttled through that station. I had a detail of German prisoners who were tasked with running water and garbage to and from the kitchen. One the prisoners did not want to be discharged because he had no home to go to.

Finally, I was sent home with four of my buddies. On a Dutch ship headed to New York, 23 guys slept in a room 14 by 30 feet where rows of beds were stacked four bunks high.  At sea, we hit a storm with 118 mph winds. I was not Navy material as I was sick all the way home.  

In New York, we stood in line to go west on a plane, but the line stopped about 35 guys ahead of me. The rest of us were sent by train. We later heard the plane went down by Billings, Montana killing everyone aboard. On Dec 18, 1945, I was discharged from the army and sent home to Oregon.

It was a joyful Christmas being back with my family. After the holidays, I went to work for my dad in construction.  Eventually, two of my brothers and I formed a company building barns. We also built three houses and a motel.  

Black_Butte_Ranch_-_Black_Butte,_Oregon_fsIn May of 1947, Eva and I got married. By 1950, work had become scarce in Bend, so we moved to Portland where I found work building homes for a company for 14 years. One of the houses I built won first place in Sunset Magazine. My wife and I then formed C&E Enterprises, moved to Sisters, Oregon, and built 47 homes in Black Butte Ranch. Health issues forced me to retire, turning over the business to my three sons.I have enjoyed a good retirement of 35 years, though in 2009, I lost my wife of 63 years. At age 94, I continue to struggle with health problems, my hearing and eyesight, but I still live by myself in Snowberry Village with family and friends nearby.

In those three years in Europe, I drove a truck more than 27,000 miles through England, France, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Italy, Switzerland, Czechoslovakia, and Spain. I had three stripes on my sleeve, one for each year, five battle stars and several ribbons, but the best reward was an honorable discharge.

I am Tech Corporal Claude Oliver Davis, a proud member of the Bend Band of Brothers

Robert D. Maxwell: The Oldest Living Recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor

download (2)At age 95, Robert Maxwell is the oldest living recipient of the United States Congressional Medal of Honor, and one of the most humble people I’ve ever met. I had the pleasure to meet him at a Band of Brothers meeting in Bend, Oregon, and he agreed to tell me his story.

Born in Boise, Idaho in 1920, Bob’s parents separated when he was a baby. His mom was a traveling saleswoman, so he was raised by his grandparents on a farm in Quinter, Kansas. His earliest memories are of helping to weed and harvest crops, gather eggs, feeding chickens and pigs, and milking cows.

“My aunts and uncles treated me like a little brother,” he said. “When I was about 10, my uncles found a runnable car. We took off the body, put a bench seat over the gas tank, and rode all over the farm on that thing.” Bob cracks a smile and sits back in his chair at our table in the dining hall at Aspen Ridge Retirement Home.

In seventh grade, Bob had to leave school since his family needed his help on the farm. During the summers, his grandpa kept the farm going while he and his “big brothers” traveled to Willamette and Puget Sound, Oregon where they got paid to pick fruit.

One Sunday in 1937, when Bob was 15, a huge dust cloud blew in from Nebraska through Kansas. Fierce winds blew all day and most of the night. The air was so thick with dust; midday could have been midnight. He and his brothers wore scarves on their faces and held onto a rope to get to the barn to feed the animals. When the ferocious gale finally waned, buildings were buried up to the eaves. All the top soil had gone, leaving bedrock too hard to replant. Along with many Dust Bowl survivors, Bob’s family packed up to find a place where they could make a living.

They decided to go to Oregon, but by the time they made it to Colorado, Bob’s grandpa had fallen ill. The boys worked on a cattle ranch for a year before setting out again for Oregon; however, close to the base of the Rocky Mountains, his grandpa got sick again. They couldn’t continue to travel, so the family found a timber ranch where they supplied railroad ties and support frames for mine shafts, harvested Christmas trees, made fence posts, and bundled scraps to sell as firewood. Then in June of 1941, Bob got a letter telling him to report for service in the United States Army. Raised in the Quaker faith, the army offered Bob “Conscientious Objector” status, but he refused saying it was a privilege to fight for his country.

Used to hard work, Bob underwent 13 weeks of intensive training at Camp Roberts in Central California. He specialized in operating a 30 caliber water-cooled machine gun on three-man crew. From there, he went to Maryland to spend another 14 weeks at Fort Meade to learn advanced infantry tactics.

By February of 1942, Bob had boarded a ship and landed in North Africa at Casablanca, 19 months before D-Day, where he believes World War IIjb_wwii_casablan_2_e actually began. Four months after the Third Infantry seized Casa Blanca from the Germans, Bob joined the advancing company as a wire man. “Because that’s what was needed,” he says. Forget firing big guns the way he’d been trained. Since radios were easily jammed by the Germans, Bob lay wire from the battalion to the switchboard, so the company commander could call in firing orders via telephone.

From Casablanca, the Third Infantry made their way through Italy where they fought under General Patton and took Sicily in 38 days. American divisions and British units fought side-by-side to secure the island. After the victory in Sicily, Bob’s infantry traveled by water and continued to Naples where they fought until the Italians surrendered and joined the Allied forces.

Early 1944, Bob’s infantry landed south of Rome, in Anzio, to establish a beachhead, where Bob would earn his first purple heart. Although the Allies caught the German’s by surprise for another victory, Bob got injured. He was taken to the hospital in Naples on January 29. On June 5, the day before D-Day in Normandy, Bob was released from the hospital to rejoin his battalion when they came back through Naples.

In August of the same year, U.S. troops headed north along the Rhone River, up through southern France to Besançon, where they joined forces with English soldiers who had been traveling south. The night of September 7, 1944, Bob was on a roof, stringing wire from house to house to the battalion commander’s phone line when a German gun crew attacked the Battalion Command Post from a ditch near the railroad track. Bob didn’t bother climbing down; he jumped off the roof to avoid getting shot and frantically continued hooking up phone lines.

He came upon four infantry men and a radio guy crouched below a 4-foot stone wall shooting .45 caliber pistols at the attackers. Bob joined the fray, firing his own gun at the sparks in the dark. A grenade landed near Bob’s feet and rolled. He dropped where he was, hoping to fall on top of it and cushion the blast to save the other five men.

“I must have kicked [the grenade],” remembers Bob, “because it blew a hole in my steel-toed boot and tore up my foot.”

As it happened, the explosion was contained against the wall, and all six men were spared. MOH9Maxwell

Again admitted to the hospital in Naples, doctor’s repaired Bob’s right foot, but shrapnel had hit his temple; he couldn’t see out of his left eye. Hoping doctors in the States could safely remove the shrapnel and restore his eyesight, the U.S. Army sent him home.

Once back in the states, a surgeon removed the metal fragments from Bob’s temple, and his eye regained the ability to see. For his acts of heroism, seven months later, on April 6, 1945, Robert Maxwell  was awarded the United States Congressional Medal of Honor as well as his second Silver Star and Purple Heart medals in Denver, Colorado. Bob was also awarded the “Legion of Honor” by the French government on a French frigate near Norfolk, VA.

By then, his grandfather had died, and his grandmother had moved to Creswell, Oregon with his two uncles to work another farm.

“I took one look at that farm and turned around and enrolled in vocational school in Eugene,” Bob recalls with a chuckle. “No more farming for me.”

After two years’ training as an auto mechanic, Bob did a two-year apprenticeship for Oldsmobile in Redmond, Oregon. During this time, he met Beatrice who would become his life-long love. After the apprenticeship, he got a full-time job working for Ford, and a year later, on August 12, 1951, he and Beatrice got married at Redmond Christian Church.

While working under a Ford truck, the manager for the new Central Oregon College Mechanics Department (COC) wandered into the shop to offer Bob a teaching position. Bea pushed him to take the job as she thought it would be safer for him to teach than to work on cars. Since Bob’s formal education had ended in the seventh grade, in order to accept the teaching position, he took and passed the test to get his GED. During the winter and spring semesters, he taught, wrote curriculum, collected equipment, and found cars for his students to work on. In the summers, he took classes at Corvallis State College to eventually earn a degree in Industrial Education. Bob also taught auto mechanics classes at Bend High School in the 1950s.

“Bob was my scout leader [in Redmond, 1955],” says Wes Woofhiser, friend and fellow Band of Brothers member. “I damaged a car and Bob fixed it.”

IMG_0630Bob spent nine years at COC and then moved his family to Eugene, Oregon to begin an auto mechanics’ program at Lane Community College. By the time the Maxwells moved to Eugene, Bob and Bea had three daughters, two natural and one adopted. Bea had miscarried their third child, so they fostered Bonnie – and they fell in love with her. They adopted Bonnie in 1968. A year later, they fostered Rosie and decided they couldn’t live without this baby girl either, so at 18 months old, Rosie became the sixth Maxwell family member.

Bob retired from his position at Lane Community College in 1986, but he continued working for two more years until the college could find someone to replace him. Since the girls were grown and on their own, in 1991 he and his wife moved to Boise, Idaho where they established the Medal of Honor Scholarship program at Boise Bible College.

On vacation in Bend, Oregon one summer, they enjoyed themselves so much that they decided to move there in 1995. They lived happily in Bend for almost 20 years. In fact, Bob graduated from Bend Senior High School in 2011 where he is a “Distinguished Alumni”. Sadly, though ten years Bob’s junior, Bea passed away April 10, 2015. She is dearly missed by family and friends – especially Bob. Still he manages to participate in his community.

On October 24 of this year, the day before his 95th birthday, Mr. Robert D. Maxwell, our nation’s oldest living Medal of Honor recipient spoke at the Noon Dedication of the Oregon Medal of Honor Exhibit at Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum in Mc Minnville, Oregon (where the Spruce Goose is on display). Currently, Bob is also Director for the Bend Heroes Foundation.

Thank God back in 1944 Bob kicked that grenade in the dark rather than of landing on top of it. The world is a better place with the four wonderful daughters he and Bea raised together, the hundreds of kids he taught how to work on cars, and the kindness and humility with which he treats everyone he meets.

To Robert D. Maxwell and every other United States Veteran: Thank you for your service.

A Band of Brothers: Veterans Helping Veterans

obob-logo-webIn honor of Veteran’s Day this month, I’ve decided to write a series of posts about some amazing people I’ve met in my new town in Central Oregon. They call themselves “A Band of Brothers” although women have joined the organization, too. In 2006, a few World War II Veterans started meeting weekly in Bend, Oregon, and almost ten years later, the group has grown into the hundreds. U.S. Veterans include those who served in WWII, Korea, Vietnam, the Falkland Islands, Germany in peace time (that seems like a long time ago, doesn’t it?), and various conflicts in the Middle East. A few years ago, retired First Responders, our “domestic protectors,” joined the organization as well.

The Band of Brothers’ mission statement: “To provide veterans and current members of the military with the opportunity to share friendship, camaraderie and assistance.”

Elk's Club in Bend, OR
Elk’s Club in Bend, OR

Who knew that WWII Veteran, Phil Bellefeuille’s idea to get a few buddies together for coffee in the fall of 2006 would give support to so many? The original group of nine veterans who met at the Elks Club had such a great time swapping stories, they coined themselves the “Old Pharts: A Band of Brothers” and started meeting weekly at various local restaurants. The Bend Bulletin heard about those guys and published an article that included an invitation from Phil for any veteran to attend.

New brother and sister veterans showed up each week. The group quickly outgrew descending upon random restaurants, so Vietnam War10724170_708747482536519_924899253_n Veteran, Lyle Hicks, stepped up to solve the problem.  Hicks owns Jake’s Diner and offered to reserve the back room in his restaurant for meetings, including a reasonably priced breakfast buffet to accommodate everyone.

By 2008, they had dedicated an American flag to the Bend Heroes Memorial and dropped the “Old Pharts” moniker to become the “Bend Band of Brothers”. The organization was granted non-profit status in 2011.

IMG_0632Today, Hicks dedicates the main restaurant on Monday mornings to his veteran brothers and sisters. Although full of good cheer, even the larger space is a bit of a squeeze.

 

 

 

When welcoming back a veteran who has been fighting cancer, Secretary, Treasurer Ray Hartzell quips:

“We’re so glad to have you back, Lanny…even if he is army.”

The diner bursts into laughter and good-natured ribbing until Hartzell blows a whistle, calling the room back to order.

The harmless flirtation from some of these guys has been a crack up, not to mention good for my ego. Others are complete gentlemen, such as 95-year-old Bob Maxwell, the oldest living recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor; Vietnam Veteran Richard Fleming, diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in 1966 but wasn’t told until 2013; Captain Bill Collier who wrote his memoir, The Adventures of a Helicopter Pilot: Flying the H-34 Helicopter in Vietnam for the United States Marine Corps, and many more. (Stay tuned for posts of veterans’ incredible personal stories.)

As members have moved away and people from other towns have visited, new Band of Brothers chapters have emerged, first throughoutvet-salute Central Oregon and then in other states, such as Idaho and Washington. Veterans’ family members have also joined as they, too, find friendship and comfort in becoming acquainted with others who have lived through similar experiences.

Besides providing emotional support and companionship, the Band of Brothers chapters raise funds to help veterans in need, provide veteran funerals with the “Flag Line Honor Guard”, donate to projects such as Honor Flight, contribute to Central Oregon Veterans Outreach and other veterans’ organizations. Though founder Phil Bellefeuille passed away in March, 2011, he left a legacy for which many are grateful.

I hope you will join me for individual Band of Brothers members’ amazing stories in the posts to follow in the coming weeks.

When an Infection Eats Your Face: An Amazing Story of an Incredible Bad Ass

2D0688C300000578-0-image-a-6_1443820018926

Imagine you’re born perfectly normal, but then a virulent infection devours your eyelids, nose and lips. Your parents decide they can’t handle raising such a needy kid, so you become a ward of the state – and a doctor gets permission to do experimental plastic surgery on you. After three years in a cage-like crib at the hospital and myriad painful operations, you, the doctor’s work-in-progress, get placed in foster care. Wherever you go, people stare, and though your foster family does its best to make you feel at home, you feel like an outsider, a freak. People assume your misshapen nose and lopsided lips mean you’re mentally retarded rather than a plastic surgeon’s pet project.

This is Howard Shulman’s story.2D07078A00000578-0-image-a-15_1443824642109

Recently, his memoir Running from the Mirror was released, and it’s riveting. His raw honesty in how he describes growing up the “monster kid” at the mercy of his experimenting doctor and the opportunities he grasps to survive as a young adult (not all of them legal) brought tears to my eyes, caught my breath, and occasionally provoked a guilty grin.

I’m not going to lie. Sometimes this is a painful read, for example, when he describes one of his Frankenstein-like surgeries:

“A large nine-by-eight-inch patch of skin was excised from my chest and shoulder, the graft then rolled up and stitched along the seam to create a headless snake of raw, living flesh. One end was then attached under my chin and the other to the tip of my reconstructed nose. This appendage, left to dangle in front of my face for the next six weeks, was a constant reminder of what I had gone through but one that gave me no idea where I was going. Doctor Gratz literally held my future in his hands.”

2D068F4900000578-0-image-m-4_1443820002253If his childhood memories are gripping and intense, Howard’s irreverence in relaying shady career endeavors to keep food on the table and a roof over his head is equally engaging, possibly even a guilty pleasure (I’d give examples, except I hate when people talk about books and spoil the surprises). Ultimately, Howard’s journey as he learns to accept himself and finds love is extremely gratifying.

I actually got to meet Howard a few months before Running from the Mirror was released by Sandra Jonas Publishing House. Howard called and told me he’d met a friend of mine in line at Starbucks who gave him my number. He wanted to talk to a local fellow author about giving writers’ workshops together. We met at a coffee shop in Chula Vista, California, where Howard shared his experience writing his memoir: cleansing yet uncomfortable, often frustrating, sometimes sad or filled with regret. Still, the satisfaction of knowing how far he has come and the hope his story might give to others made the project worth the effort.

Talk about grit. They don’t make ‘em much more bad ass than Howard.

Now in his 50s, Howard has owned successful businesses and traveled, but what he treasures most is his family.2D068F5100000578-0-image-a-5_1443820009163

“When I turned 50, I experienced two miracles,” he says. “The first was my marriage. It never occurred to me…[I’d find someone who would be] beautiful and caring and love me for who I am. The second miracle was that my wife came with the family I had longed for… [By] helping raise my wife’s twin daughters, [I found] parenting is not a one-way street. I am in a relationship with them that provides more love than I could ever have imagined…We respect and learn from each other. ”

Since Howard and I met, my husband and I moved to Bend, Oregon, to start 94.9 FM Central Oregon’s Sports Radio (which has been a harrowing experience, worthy of a Tenacity to Triumph post, coming soon). Howard and I have become friends, though, and I’ll visit family in San Diego County every few months, so we’ll be doing writers’ workshops together in the near future.

If you’re interested in participating in a writers’ workshop with Howard and me, whether you’re a seasoned writer who could use inspiration and techniques to get you to the next level, or you’re someone who likes to write and has a fiction or nonfiction story to tell, please leave a comment with your contact information, email me at writetowinwithtrish@gmail.com, or call (619) 647-5559.

A portion of Howard’s sales go to Hillsides, an organization that works to recreate the lives of at-risk kids. For more informationhs_logo about Howard’s book or to order Running from the Mirror, click here.

A quick note: The link goes to Sandra Jonas Publishing, which is selling the book for 20% off ($12.00) until October 31. You can also get the book at regular price ($14.95), through Barnes & Noble and Amazon (Amazon erroneously has Running from the Mirror labeled “Temporarily out of stock”, but your order will go through).

Comments are ALWAYS appreciated, whether you’re interested in coming to a workshop, or you have something you’d like to share.

Talk to you soon!

(Lots of great posts will be coming now that the radio station is finally on the air. Sheesh!)

Trish Wilkinson

Writer, Coach, Editor, and Fellow Bad Ass