Bringing in the Sheaves

Prologue

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Divorcing my first husband, the father of my children, was the hardest thing I ever had to do.  A child of dysfunctional parents, abandoned at age five by my mother and left to my morose, unkind father to raise, I was shut up in a small box of confusion and distrust.

Mother, and I never called her anything else, was a selfish mean little woman who had handed me my baby brother when she got home from the hospital, saying, “Okay, you little shit, you wanted a baby so bad, so here’s one.”

I loved babies.  Granma Morgan had given me a plastic doll for Christmas, and I cherished it.  She didn’t give me a nice doll because Mother would have broken it in one of her rages.  She hated me and I would be grown before the reasons were ever clear to me.

Granma would gather old towels and rags and thrift store baby clothes that she put in a box for Sally.  We hid them in a space under the stairs where Mother would never look. There were even two diaper pins and a stained, dented plastic bottle.

Chapter One

I sailed through childbirth and motherhood with my two children.  I had already done the hard part—learned. I volunteered in their school, was P.T.A. President, tutored non-English Language students and thrived.

The fly in the ointment was my mother-in-law. She hated me too.  I was a nobody from the wrong side of the tracks.  They were moderately wealthy; his father owed a well-known vacuum cleaner company. 

I was so over- the- moon that this man loved me—nobody me, that I overlooked a lot of things that would destroy the marriage I had so longed for.

It was a nightmare.  His mother thought he should not have to do anything around the house.  He never played with the children, even when my son begged him to play catch.

It was 15 years before I knew for sure I could take no more.  Not having him around was easier than having a 30 something baby to take care of. Fights erupted – things I did not want my children to hear or see. 

I do not blame Wayne for all our troubles.  I was stronger and more ambitious than I realized; he was a spoiled mama’s boy, which he never saw.

Hate became a constant from their side.  His mother tricked me into signing something that made all the bills my responsibility, even though most of the costs were for things he had wanted.  We had purchased a fold-out tent travel trailer with money I received when my father died – he got that.  He got the car my brother gave me   he got that because I could not drive a stick-shift – he drove it into the ground.

To be truthful I was in a fog – not of despair, but of just wanting it all over with.  Material things have never mattered to me.  I like my trinkets and such, but fancy things do not interest me. 

I had two school-age children and no car; lived in a house I would have to move out of – had no job.  But I signed everything over to him, for my freedom and my children. I was awarded $75.00 a month for each child.  Poverty loomed.

What I did NOT do is seek out another man to take care of me.  I had helped support my family by seamstress work, childcare, ironing and whatever else I could do. So, I told myself I could manage some way.

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One day when I told my mother-in-law that I needed a car to take the kids to school as the weather got colder, she snottily said, “Well, you can always sling bed pans.”

That night I was thinking of my grandmother, remembering when my mother put her in a nursing home some years before.  We had gone to see Gran and while I was there the nurse came in to tend to her.

As I watched her struggle alone, I stepped in and helped her.  After we had finished, the nurse said, “You know, you have a knack for this.” Mother snorted and added, “She doesn’t have a knack for anything but causing trouble.”

I was so hurt by Mother’s remark, and embarrassed in front of the nurse, that I gave it no thought from then out.  But now something flared up in my mind and I thought about for a long time.

I had always wanted to help people.  Why not give this a try?

Two days later I called up a school that trained Certified Nursing Assistants. They invited me in for an interview and I went, fearing being refused. However, after looking at the test I had taken, they said I had passed with flying colors.  I had no money, but they set me up with a financial aid officer and I was set to go.

Classes were nine months long, and my child support had started. I had not yet been put out of the house and my mother-in law agreed to let me stay until school was through. 

I sold some of my precious antique dolls to buy uniforms and help tide us over. My children were proud of me and too young to realize how precarious our situation was.

My school was located in a big mall downtown. I was so nervous and began to pray earnestly for the first time in a long time. There were women of all types and ages. Many were young and giggly. I was near the top of the age bracket but being motherly came easy to me.

Our first lesson was washing hands.  The teacher let us all take a turn, then announced that I was the only one who had done it right. That earned me a few sniggers and frowns. Then she asked me to show the others how. Oh boy – talk about setting me up for being disliked!

I simply spoke to them like they were my daughters and showed them what I had done.  The trick was not to touch the handle after washing, but to use an elbow or a paper towel to turn it off, so you wouldn’t contaminate anything.

After class a couple of the girls thanked me and asked if I wanted to go for cokes.  I excused myself, telling them I had children who needed picked up from school.

Day #1 down, and I survived.

The next day some of the girls asked me about the kids and even showed me pictures of their babies.  Babies having babies and trying to find a way a support themselves.

Regardless of age, we were all in the same leaky boat.  The young girls became very respectful of me in my dotage -- thirty-seven years-old.  They began calling me Mrs. Sherry and asking me for help, asking questions.  I was afraid of what the instructor would say.

One day Miss Gilmore steered me away to the other side of the room.  I thought, okay, this was it, lecture time.  Instead she stunned me by saying, “Sherry, I see it worries you what I think when the students go to you for help.”

An egg-sized lump lodged itself in my throat.  I just nodded. 

“You know, I teach all day here, then to an alternative home for unwed mothers and spend six hours a day there. Girl, I am so tired. You have an instinct for this medical stuff and I welcome the free assistant you have become.”

Me. Me, who had been told my whole life I was stupid and worthless. I could not comprehend what she had just told me.