Chapter Thirty-One

Here’s the next Chapter of Lost and Found.

When I was about to publish this last week, I realized I only had an outline prepared from this point on, so there was some serious work to be done to put it in final form. Please let me know if you see any typos or other errors I need to correct.

Most of what I’m writing in these past few chapters is background information which I need to include in the book. One of the purposes for deciding to finish this project is so my children will get a glimpse into who I was in those days. Until this writing, they know very little about my youth.

Thanks again for taking the time to read this each week. It means the world to me. I also love the comments. Keep ‘em coming!

Be well — be in peace,

Ron Rink
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I had never had the experience of talking about the way my parents were brought up. It was the first time – and to have it be with my Aunt Dorothy made it feel right. My parents never spoke about their lives as children. I had no idea how either of them was brought up. I had been on trips to visit my relatives to Holland, Michigan, where my mother grew up, and Grand Rapids, Michigan, my father’s hometown.

I know I felt good around my grandmother, my mother’s stepmother. Their real mother died not long after Aunt Dorothy was born. The grandmother I knew, married my grandfather and took over the raising of his children, all eight of them. He was a plumber and ran his business out of a large barn-like shop behind their house. One of his sons, my Uncle George, worked with him until grandpa died. Then Uncle George and his sons took over the business.

Whenever we would go to Holland to visit, Grandma would always make a fuss over me, making sure I had toys or games to play with, and plenty of good things to eat, especially breakfast cereals. In my house, there was only cream of wheat or Shredded Wheat. In grandma’s cupboard, there were always five or six different kinds from which to choose.

Visiting in Grand Rapids was a fun time for me also. When we went, we would go to my Uncle Bills’ house. He was one of four brothers. My Uncle Fred was the oldest—he lived in Grand Rapids, then my father, followed by my Uncle Sam who was an architect in California, and then the youngest brother, Uncle Bill. Uncle Bill lived with his wife, Dot, their two sons and one daughter. One of his sons, Willard, was the same age as me. His other son, Jimmy, was a couple of years younger. His daughter, Isla, was about three years older than Willard. I was completely enamored with her. When I was alone in my room at home, I used to imagine that I would be married to her some day.

They lived out in the open country outside of Grand Rapids so there was ample room for running around and playing. Willard and I would play catch most of the time and sometimes Jimmy and Isla would join us. Both Willard and Jimmy got into semi-pro baseball when they got out of high school, but neither continued with it and went to college instead.

Isla, on the other hand, did get into one of the first women’s professional softball leagues in the country and was recognized as one of the top women’s fast-pitch softball players. To me, she was the most beautiful person I had ever seen. I followed her everywhere. I’m sure I was a pest, but she never stopped me from being her shadow and would even take my hand sometimes. I adored her.

Aunt Dorothy continued to quietly talk to me, “I don’t know how your father was treated by his father, but your mother believes he’s right in what he’s doing, and I haven’t been able to convince her otherwise. Your father believes all children are sinful and need to be punished regularly even if he doesn’t know whether you did anything wrong. He just assumes that since you are a child, and all children are sinful, you must have done something wrong, so he does this to punish you.”

As I was listening to her talk, I noticed I was on the verge of crying. Determined not to let that happen, I sat up straight and asked her, “Have you ever tried to get him to stop beating me up?”

Aunt Dorothy shook her head and took both of my hands into hers and said, “Your father is a very stubborn and domineering man. Not only does he believe children are terrible little sinners who need constant punishing, he believes women need to stay in their place. I have tried to talk with him a couple of times after I realized what he was doing to you, but he just told me to mind my own business— you were his son and he would raise you his way. He was quite angry with me for saying anything to him about it.”

“What about my mother? Have you ever talked to her about this?” I asked, hoping she would come up with a magical solution.

“I have talked with your mother many times—especially after she came to me with her fears when you started running away from home. She gets frightened when you disappear and has talked with me each time it happens. She worries about you getting enough to eat. She worries about where you’re sleeping. I know she worries about whether you’ll be safe. She knows there are many men who don’t have homes who are wandering the streets at night. There are also the hobos who come in and out on the freight trains and who set up camps down by the railroad tracks. She worries about what those people might do to a young boy like you.

However, I think her fear of your father is even greater than her worries over you, although she has told me he has never struck her. I couldn’t get her to stand up to him—but I have tried—several times. This again goes back to the way they understand the Bible. She told me she is his wife and must not interfere with him. She also doesn’t think he is doing anything wrong.”

My lips had gone past the stage of being numb and were starting to hurt from being so cold. I took the ice pouch off and set it on the table.

Aunt Dorothy bent down and gently placed her hands on the sides of my face. She tilted my head and looked closely at my lip. She straightened up and stood with her hands on her hips, smiled and said, “I’ll be right back, Roland. I want to get some special salve from the bathroom to put on that lip to help it heal.”

She left the room as I sat quietly at the table. I was thinking about getting another cookie, but my milk was gone and I didn’t want to just help myself without asking first. I thought about all the things Aunt Dorothy had just told me and wondered how I was ever going to find a way to cause my parents to change. I loved the way I was feeling with my aunt. I was tempted to ask her if I could come and live with them, when she came back into the room holding a small jar of salve and what looked like Mercurochrome. I was sure glad it wasn’t iodine since that’s what my mother always used on cuts or scrapes.

She took her finger and dabbed a little of the salve on my cut lower lip. She looked at my face carefully and said, “I don’t think you need any more medicine. Your lower lip is the only place where you have a cut. The bruises and the swelling will get better on their own, I’m sure.”

“I think I’ll just have to keep running away until I finally figure out how to keep from getting caught all the time,” I said as she got up from the table.

“I do understand why you feel it’s your only choice right now,” she said, looking at me, her eyes filled with concern, “but you can’t imagine how frightened your mother and I are when you do. We’re so afraid you’ll be hurt out on the streets all by yourself. There are a lot of not-so-nice people living on the streets.”

“I haven’t seen any people who act like they want to do anything to me. In fact, the people I meet are good to me and have helped me a lot,” I explained. Of course, I was thinking mostly of Billy and the people at the track. “Plus, I’m learning how to take care of myself too. My friend, Billy is teaching me how to fight.”

“My dear little Roland, I just wish there was some other way for you to cope with all this, but I don’t know what to say to make it easier for you.”

She took my face in her hands again and looked into my eyes with concern. “Try not to lick that salve on your lip if you can help it, okay? I don’t believe what your father is doing to you is right. It isn’t. It’s wrong. But there really isn’t anything I can think of which will make him stop—I’ve tried—with both of them. But they won’t listen.”

“I know, Aunt Dorothy,” I said rubbing my fingers over the salve and wincing, “but maybe sometimes I could come over here and play with Smokey and Diane if it gets bad at home, okay?”

She smiled and nodded her head, her eyes filling with tears.
I left a few minutes later and started to ride over to the track. How I wished I could have been her child instead.
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My other blogs:

http://www.theleaderinside.com
http://www.buddhistbelief.com
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