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Received notice last week that my son has been deployed back to Germany. What a wonderful news with which to celebrate the 4Th of July. I remember years past and different activities we enjoyed to celebrate the 4th. This year my husband and I traveled to Winthrop WA. What breathtaking scenery. We were there for two days and spent the time visiting the unique shops and tasting the wonderful food.

Social Graces

One of the experiences of growing up in a home with two parents is learning from parents how to interact socially. I believe the social patterns are learned by watching and interacting with parents. This learning occurs from birth through young adulthood. When a situation arises a child will observe a parent's response and often ask WHY or wait to see what happens. Through observation of behavior patterns humans learn normal acceptable phrases, responses and parameters of socially acceptable behavior. Children learn how to make friends, negotiate, trust, risk taking and self confidence. Being a child of an alcoholic mother and living in the orphanage I spent a lot of years being self conscious, made odd comments and generally lacked the ability to interact with a group of peers. When I found myself in a group of people I often felt awkward, invisible and would try to melt into my surroundings. Being recognized as a child that lived at the children's home automatically made me feel like others viewed me as someone who did not have a home with parents that loved and cared about me and therefore was pitied. I remember my fourth grade teacher and her husband coming to the orphanage one evening to pick me up so that I could participate in a square dance recital and then later took me out for ice cream. I remember it being a very enjoyable evening however, I remember defensively saying to her "You do not have to do this for me!" She smiled and looked at me and said "I know we don't, we want to". I don't remember what my response was, however I hope I told her thank you. I know I gave her fits my whole fourth grade year. She never made me feel like I was bad when I failed to do homework. I can remember one day she asked for all the students homework and I told her I had forgot it at the orphanage. She said go home and get it. I remember walking back to the orphanage and getting the homework. She instilled in me the sense of responsibility for myself and that lame excuses will not go very far. I will always remember her kindness.

Importance of believing

Attending mass everyday was excellent training and gave me a sense of peace. I loved listening to the mass in Latin and enjoyed even more singing the Latin hymns. I believe learning prayers were elemental in developing coping mechanisms and hope that tomorrow would be better. I can remember sitting in church with everyone being quiet and having a sense that God was listening to this 8 year old's troubled heart and that he would answer my prayers.

I remember especially the times my mother would visit. Although I was glad to see her I knew she would be drinking and the smell of alcohol on her breath caused me a great deal of anxiety. I did not realize that the visit was also difficult for her. Many times she said she never wanted us to be in the orphanage. I can only remember two visits during the five years my brother and I were there. The first year at Christmas when we were in the Christmas pageant in which the children in the orphanage participated and then again when I was in the 5th grade.

During the time my brother and I were in the orphanage our dad would take us to Denver to spend a couple of weeks in the summer with our grandparents (Mom's dad and stepmother). Mother would come out to their place a couple of times to see us. She was a waitress and didn't drive. Getting off work was not always easy for her. She did not believe in attending or belonging to a church. So we didn't have many conversations about God. Dad on the other hand attended mass every week and had a rosary he carried with him.

Believing in something greater than myself, learning to pray and sustaining a hope for tomorrow helped me through some pretty troubled times.

Orderliness

The routine of life in the orphanage was orderly and predictable. We we were up at 5:30 am, attended mass, proceeded to the dining room for breakfast, completed the morning chores then boarded the bus for school. When school let out for lunch we boarded the bus again and returned to the orphanage for the noon meal. Remembering back I am amazed at how organized everything was; that a hundred children could be transported back to the orphanage, gather up dishes of food from the serving pass through counter and deliver the food to the appropriate dining room, eat, wash the dishes reset the tables for the next meal, return containers back to the pass through area, board the bus again and return to school within the allotted time. After school we returned to the orphanage on the bus, changed from our school clothes into clothes for which we could complete our after school chores. Supper was served around 5 pm, after the meal was completed we washed the dishes, reset the tables, swept the floor and returned the serving dishes to the kitchen. After supper, time was spent doing homework, reading, or playing games. Television was only watched on specific days or on special occasions. We were not allowed to watch TV everyday, we were expected to find other activities to entertain ourselves. Reading to this day is one of my favorite pastimes.

Kitchen Duty

Back to the story of life in the orphanage. When one was assigned to the kitchen that person was to be there after school during the week and in the kitchen on the weekends. I can remember buttering a huge electric roaster (that probably held a good sized turkey) and then cracking eggs forever to make scrambled eggs for breakfast. We had the best food in the country. Sister D, hands down, was the best cook I've ever seen. It also helped that we raised our own chickens that provided eggs, pigs for pork and bacon, cows for milk and grew most of all the vegetables we ate. There was always plenty of food to eat. Sister D made almost all of the bread and baked all desserts and there was quite a variety. We were fed extremely well. I can remember getting a 10 gallon can of milk out of the walk-in refrigerator that had 2 inches of cream on the top (that was after the milk had been pasteurized and separated). Sister D would sometimes make pies and when she did she always made the left over pie dough into cinnamon cookies for me.

We didn't work all the time, there was time for fun activities too. There was a huge playground between the main building and the barns that had swings, slides, sandbox and more than enough room to play softball without hitting any windows or obstacles. There also was a full sized in ground swimming pool that everyone could swim in. I can remember the first summer there when I broke my nose. I was in the swimming pool in the shallow section that had a slide. I had just gone down the slide but did not get out of the way fast enough when a second kid came down the slide feet first and his big old feet connected with my nose. Man, did that hurt I can remember seeing stars. To this day I have a crooked nose. I liked this time the best; my brother could swim in the little kids pool that was right next to the big pool and I could go over and play with him for as long as I wanted. I can remember my dad coming to visit and he would sit in the shade with the sisters and visit and watch my brother and I play.

I think there was the right amount of work along with time for play. We learned the work had to be done before we could go off to play.

Back to Iraq

My son e-mailed me saying he was ok after the horrible shooting in Baghdad. My heart and prayers go out to the families of the soldiers that were killed. This is a very sad time.

Along awaited visit

My son was home last week for a visit. He also brought his girlfriend, which we were very happy to meet. I don't know how he found such a delightful young lady. We all had a great time visiting, playing games, eating and sightseeing in Seattle. The time went by in the blink of an eye and then the two of them were back on the road headed back to Wyoming. I hope it will be a memorable trip for my son and his girlfriend. I am hoping to get pictures printed of all of us. I am not very good with a camera so we will see how I did. David has several months left on his tour in Iraq.