DOES ANYONE OUT THERE CARE?

Bronco visited Grandma and Grandpa Williams in Magdalena for the weekend.

          “Mom, Bronco has family on his father's side that he belongs to.  I don’t have anyone,” I said sadly.

          “What if I write Linda lee’s mother, and see if the two of you can meet? Mom suggested.

          “Really, can you do that?  Do you know where they live?  What if her mother doesn’t want us to meet?  What if Linda doesn’t know about me?” I bombarded Mom with the questions in rapid succession.

          “I’ll send the letter to the last place they were living, and then we’ll just have to wait and see.”

          We waited, but never received a reply.

          “If they didn’t get the letter, it would have been returned,” Mom said.

          I was disappointed!

          One weekend, during the following month, we took a short trip into Arizona.  Outside Holbrook, Mom turned in her seat.

          “Your grandmother lives here.”

          “What grandmother?” I asked, surprised.

          “Lucky’s mother, Mrs. Murphy,” Mom answered, “She and her husband run a restaurant in Holbrook.  Would you like to meet her?”

          I nodded my head yes, and my stomach knotted nervously.  As we parked outside the cafe and got out of the car, I wondered what would happen.  I had often daydreamed of meeting Lucky’s mother, and in my imagination, a loving grandmother was overwhelmed to see me.

          We entered the small, air-conditioned restaurant and sat at a table.  A waitress took our order, and I noticed a dark haired woman staring at us from behind the lunch counter.

          “That’s your grandmother,” Mom whispered.

          “After the waitress took our order, the woman walked over to our table.

          “Hello Mrs. Murphy,” Mom said pleasantly.

          “I thought I recognized you, Wanda.”

          “Mrs. Murphy, this is Deryl my husband, Bronco my son, and Gloria.”

          Mrs. Murphy had been glancing at me, and now her blue eyes never left.  I felt like she was studying me.

          “How old are you now, Gloria?”

          “I’m thirteen.”

          “How is Kenneth?” Mom asked.  (I noticed she didn’t call him, Lucky.)

          “He’s doing just fine.  He’s in California.  He and his dad are in business together out there.”  She turned toward me, “Would you like to see a recent picture of him?”

          I nodded my head and she disappeared through a swinging door into the kitchen area.  When she returned, she handed me a billfold size studio photo.  I stared intently at the man’s profile in the black and white picture.  He was smiling and his black hair waved back from his forehead.  I studied the photo trying to see if there was any resemblance between him and me.

          “Does Kenneth have any more children?” Mom asked.

          “No. You know how Kenneth feels about children,” Mrs. Murphy replied, and from her tone, I new it was negative.

          As we left the cafe, I could still sense Mrs. Murphy’s eyes on me.  I felt empty!  My daydream had not come true, and now I remembered another frequent fantasy.  I would walk up to a dark haired man and say, “I’m Gloria, your daughter.”  His arms would reach out in recognition, as a broad smile of joy spread across his face.  When I walked into his embrace, he would tell me...he had always cared!

          But now, Mrs. Murphy’s voice echoed in my mind, “You know how Kenneth feels about children!”  I remembered Mom’s words long ago when I was ten, “He didn’t care about you or he would have contested the adoption!”

          Evidently Mom had been right...he didn’t care.  Puff...my daydreams vanished! The reality of what I had just heard, from my grandmother, hurt.

           Would I ever meet this mystery man of my life? Didn't he even care?  Did he ever think about me?  I wanted to know the answers to my questions.

But, who could tell me?

Someday I would go to California and find him, I decided.

The Mystery Man...Warren Kenneth Bolding...my biological father

My Grandma Gertrude Louise Storie Bolding Murphy. I would only see her once. She at one time played guitar and sang on the radio.

LEFT ALONE

IS IT ABANDONMENT…IS IT SAFE?

                         1955

         

          “Gloria, I want you to take care of Bronco this weekend.  Deryl has a truck run to Colorado, and I am going with him,” Mom announced one afternoon when I got home from school.

          My heart began to beat faster, “But...but.. Mom,” I stammered.

          “You don’t need to be afraid.  I have confidence in you.  You are a big girl now,” Mom persuaded.

           I thought back to the previous summer.  Mom, Bronco and I had driven to Colorado to meet Deryl between his truck deliveries.  We were staying in a motel that had an attached restaurant.

          “Gloria, I want to go with Deryl on his next run,” Mom had said, “You can take care of Bronco.  We already have the room in the motel.  I will leave you money for supper and breakfast, so you can eat at the restaurant.”

          “But Mom, we don’t know anyone in this town!” I argued, “I’m afraid for Bronco and I to stay overnight in the motel...alone.”

          Mom hadn’t insisted, even though I knew she was disappointed and unhappy with me. Now, I was faced with the same request and I felt just the same as I had then, even though we would be left at home and not a motel.

          “If it’ll make you feel any better, you can ask one of your friends to spend the night with you.  We’ll be gone Saturday and will be back late Sunday afternoon.”

          The following Saturday night, after Bronco was asleep, my friend and I laid in bed talking about school and the boys in our class.  My mind kept wandering.  I had an uneasy sadness. Part of me wanted to believe that my mother would never do anything to put her children at risk.  But my gut instincts told me that we were too young to be left alone.  I couldn’t understand how Mom could leave Bronco and me.  And, for some reason it bothered me more that she could leave my brother.

          Before Bronco was born, when I was only four, I could remember Mom telling me, “This baby will be your baby too!”  When my brother was born I was five years old.  I helped Mom change his diapers, and tried to help take care of him.  When he was a little older I would hold him while we traveled in the car.

          “Isn’t he too heavy for you Gloria,” Mom would say, as she smiled back at me from the front seat, “Don’t you want to put him down?”

          “No, I want to hold him,” I would answer.

          It was almost as if Bronco was “my baby too.” (Little did I know that over the following years Mom would increase my responsibility toward Bronco as our family became more and more dysfunctional.)

          On this Saturday night, when Bronco was seven and I was twelve, my feelings were ones of sadness and abandonment.  And this was only a foretaste of what we would experience in the coming years.     
 The responsibility would weigh me down.

.

CONFLICT

The battle lines were drawn.  Mom stood firmly against the kitchen counter, and I held my ground across the room.  Our eyes locked in combat.  Mom and I had never warred until recently, and I was the initiator of the battles.

Part of me watched as an observer, wondering why I was behaving in this way.  It was as if I wanted to see just how far I could go and where Mom would set the limits.  I was testing her authority.

A few days earlier, after mouthing off and running to my room, I had waited, with heart pounding, for the footsteps I fully expected.  I was sure, like Dad, Mom would appropriate to me the spanking I deserved.  I waited, but she never came.  I knew I was guilty and needed punished for my actions.  With my right hand I spanked my backside as hard as I could and said out loud, “You behave yourself, and don’t act like that again!”  I sounded just like Dad.

Now, my actions were warring again.  I was standing my ground defiantly.

Mom’s eyes narrowed.

“You little Lucky!” she said with disgust.

Her words cut me with rejection.  I knew what she meant.  I reminded her of my real father.  She identified me with Lucky, the man she had never loved.  Recently she had told me how much I reminded her of him.  I had waited for her to say something good about him, but she never did.  It she didn’t love Lucky, and I was so much like him, did she love me?  Was I a constant reminder of a marriage that she regretted?  Before Dad died she may have thought of me as “her daughter” who needed extra love and attention.  As far back as I could remember she had talked and shared with me.  I had known I was special to her.  But now, there was something different between us.  I felt I was losing ground.  The sand was shifting under me and I couldn’t find solid rock to know I was loved as before.  No longer did I feel close or special and I missed it!

I also felt she was growing in partiality to Bronco.  I hated the jealousy I felt and the guilt that came with it.  I loved my brother and did not want any ill feelings towards him.  The only reason I could find for Mom’s partiality was “Dad.”  Mom had loved Dad, and Bronco was his child.

As Mom stared at me and called me, “little Lucky”, her words fortified my growing insecurities.  She had won the battle through the weapon of rejection.  She may not have known she was the victor, but I walked away defeated and wounded from the battle.  My heart was closing. 

 It would be twenty years before the balm of healing would heal the abscess, but for the time being, in my mind, the circle had been broken....

  It was no longer Mom, Bronco and me...I stood alone!

STRANGER IN OUR LIVES

“I’ll see you at 7:00...bye,” Mom chimed into the telephone.

“We’re going to have company,” Mom told Bronco and me after she hung up the phone.  There was an excitement in her voice that caused me to take notice.

“Do you remember me telling you about Deryl Gaines?”

“Well...sort of,” I replied as I searched my memory.

“I dated him when you were little, before I married Slim,” Mom continued, “He’s coming over here tonight!” (She made this announcement as if the President was coming.)

Bronco and I sat in front of the television set.  Bronco was watching the screen, but I was watching Mom!

A flurry of activity surrounded her.   She disappeared into her bedroom and reappeared with curlers in her hair.  She sped about straightening the living room and flew for the kitchen.  I could hear chairs scooting, water running and cupboard doors closing.  She inspected the living room again as she scurried through to her bedroom.

In approximately twenty-five minutes, she made her appearance.  Her hair was fixed; she had on make up, and she was wearing a dress!

          “Wow Mom!” I exclaimed, “Why are you so dressed up?”

“Well...well, I haven’t seen him for a long time, and I want to look nice,” she stammered.

I tried to concentrate on the television, but I was wondering what all the fuss was about.

Mom paced the room and straightened the pillows on the couch for the third time.

Knock Knock

“Someone’s at the back door,” I told my frazzled mother.

She hurried into the kitchen and opened the door.  I could hear her and then a man’s voice.

“Gloria...Bronco,” Mom called sweetly from the kitchen.

Bronco didn’t want to leave his television program.

“Come on,” I persuaded, giving him a nudge.  Reluctantly, he followed.

“Deryl, these are my children, Gloria and Bronco,” Mom said as we entered the kitchen.

The man grinned pleasantly and said, “Hello.”  I could sense that he was nervous.

“Gloria, Deryl knew you when you were only three years old.”

“Hi,” I said giving him the once over.

Deryl Gaines stood five feet, eight inches tall.  He was of medium build and had brown hair and a slightly square jaw.  His dominant feature was his eyes; they were an unusual aqua blue, and they sparkled good-naturedly as he spoke.

“You have really grown up since the last time I saw you Gloria,” he said in my direction.  Looking at my brother he asked, “How old are you Bronco?”

“I’m five,” Bronco answered with a bored sigh and nonchalantly returned to the living room.

“Sit down, Deryl,” Mom said as she motioned to a kitchen chair.

I could never remember Mom appearing the way she did tonight.  Her face was flushed and her eyes were shining.  She looked lovely!

I took my attention off Mom and focused on Deryl.  I observed that he too had made a fuss.  He was cleanly shaven, had a fresh haircut, and he smelled good, a nice spicy scent.  The western shirt he wore had pearl snaps and the blue color accented his eyes.

As they conversed, it was obvious Mom enjoyed his company.  He told a story, and she laughed at his dry sense of humor.  I began to feel uneasy.  There was an indefinable electricity in the air.  A match could have been lit from its spark.  I turned to leave the room.

“Where are you going?” Mom asked absently.

“To watch TV,” I said sullenly with my back towards them.

I could hear the laughter in the kitchen and I didn’t like it!  Our family was just Mom, Bronco and me!  There wasn’t room for anyone else, but I had the feeling I was just whistling Dixie in a Yankee camp.

INSECURITY

         

Just moved to Socorro. One of the times my hair was cut. The picture on the right reveals volumes.

          The springs squeaked as I turned over in my bed.  Bronco was sleeping peacefully across the room.  It was comforting to know he was there.  An emotion of protective love rose up in me as I watched his sleeping form.  I would always take care of him, I decided; he needed me.  I tossed restlessly on the bed and moved the wet part of the pillowcase away from my face.  The room seemed strange and unfamiliar in the dark.  I gazed up at the ceiling, then rose up and looked toward the bedroom door and the light shining through the crack.  Music and voices filtered into the room as the television played for the baby sitter.  Mom had gone out with new friends for the evening.

          I wish Mom would get home, I thought to myself.  At just that moment, I heard a car engine and headlights shown on the wall of the bedroom.  Maybe that’s her, I thought hopefully.  The car drove on by.  I lay back against the pillow.  Tears formed in my eyes until they filled to the brim, trickled down my cheeks, into my hair and pillowcase.  My imagination overpowered me.  What if Mom doesn’t come home?  She might be killed, and Bronco and I would be left alone!  I turned and sobbed into my pillow until, finally exhausted, my eyelids closed heavily and I slept.

LUCKY'S CHILD

       Bronco and I watched the black and white cartoon characters dart back and forth across the screen.  Dad had been saving money to buy our first television set, but it was bought without his presence.

The front door was open, and the warmth of the sun shone through the screen door, causing shadowy designs on the hardwood floor.  Uncle Don was sitting in the straight chair, and Grandma Underwood sat on the couch.  She appeared exhausted from the last four days.

Mom entered the living room.  She was void of makeup, and her usually well kept hair hung limp and lifeless.  Her grief and loss of weight make her look older then her twenty-nine years.

“Come and sit down, Sis,” Uncle Don said, motioning to the gold chair.  It was the first time in days that there was an empty chair.  The house was quiet and void of relatives and friends.  They had returned to their own lives, but we were still here with our loss.

“I just can’t believe it, Don,” Mom said sadly, as new tears came into her already red-rimmed eyes, “What will I do with out him?”

“It will be hard Sis, but you will make it,” Don consoled.

          I moved from the floor, in front of the television set, and sat next to Grandma.

“Why did it have to be Slim?” Mom asked.

“I don’t know, Wanda,” Don answered.

“Slim was such a good man,” Mom said wistfully.

“Yes, he was; but Sis be careful and don’t put Slim on a pedestal that Bronco won’t be able to live up to,” her brother advised.

          Their voices faded, as I became absorbed in my thoughts.  Uncle Don’s last words surfaced something that I had been stuffing inside of me.  Why did he only mention Bronco and not me?  Normally, I probably would have reasoned that it was because Bronco was a boy, and boys follow their father’s footsteps; but during the last few days, amid conversations, I had heard Dad referred to as “Bronco’s dad.”

           Grownups talked past me, not expecting me to hear because I was a child.  They didn’t realize that I was listening and deciphering everything that was said.  No one knew the heartache I carried, and that I was trying desperately to figure out where I fit in the maze around me.  I was a child.  An active, living sponge, soaking up words, actions and impressions.  When I wasn’t mentioned in the course of a conversation, where I knew my name belonged, it bothered me.  Why didn’t they say “Bronco and Gloria’s dad?”        

              In slow motion my mind fed me the answers: Kenneth...Bolding...Williams...adopted.  As gently as possible, my subconscious reminded my conscious that Dad was not my real father.  With that, came the realization that life-long friends and relatives knew it too.  They knew I was “Lucky’s child.”

          I snuggled up to Grandma.

“Are you alright, honey?”

“I’m fine, grandma,” I said, but inside I didn’t feel special, and insecurity was building a stronghold.

               

 

FROM A CHILD'S VIEW

                                         Daddy Slims funeral...1954

                 I glanced down at the blue dress.  I had wanted the white organdy one,

 but Mom said it wasn’t appropriate.  My new shoes stood on the green grass beneath me.  They were white patent leather.  Raising my head, my eyes met the brown casket covered with flowers.   I looked away to sad faces encircling the gravesite.  The minister was reading from a small black book, “From dust you were taken and unto dust shall thou return...”

          My mud pottery came to my mind.  I could see it being formed from the earth.  It sat with substance for a while and then crumbled and returned to the earth from where it had come.

          Mom’s hand squeezed mine.  She stood between Bronco and I with her head bowed.

          “Since we are assured of a resurrection through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and...”

          I thought of Dad in heaven.  I remembered Ringo our dog.  He had been run over in front of our house in Philipsburg.  After we buried him, I sat on the back porch of the red brick house.  My heart felt like two hands were tearing it apart, but I couldn’t cry and release the grip of pain.  I stared up at the blue sky.  Clouds were passing overhead toward the west.  One cloud arrested my attention.  I watched with fascination as it moved straight upward.

          “Mom...Mom come quickly!” I yelled.

          Mom hurried to the porch, thinking that something was wrong.

          “Mom, look at that cloud!” I exclaimed as I pointed to the one odd form.

          She was as captivated as I was.  We watched the visible mass of vapor continue its journey until it disappeared.

          “That is really unusual,” Mom mused aloud, “What would make a cloud move upward instead of in motion with the other clouds?”

          “It was Ringo, Mom,” I said with child like faith, “God took Ringo to heaven, and He let me see the cloud so I would know He’s taking care of him for me.”

          The droning sound of the minister’s voice ceased and in its place was muffled sobs. I felt arms hugging me.  Mom was crying as friends and relatives consoled her. 

Uncle Don and Grandma Underwood helped her back to the black limousine.  Bronco and I followed behind.

The back seat of the car had plush velvet upholstery.  Mom placed her arms around Bronco and I.  She began to cry.

“You’re all I have left,” she sobbed.  Instinctively, I stiffened.  I didn’t want to be “all” that she had left.