ONLY THE NAMES ARE CHANGED

My Grandmother’s Gift Saved My Life

Memoirs 8

One day while my mother was cleaning up the flat we lived in at Tunney’s Pasture, I was in the bedroom with D. My baby sister B was sleeping in her crib. For some reason, I was laying on my parents bed when my maternal Grandmother called my mother.

My mother answered the phone only to hear my grandmother tell her to quickly go into the bedroom. She said I was turning blue and Mom needed take me to the hospital as quickly as possible. My mother’s response was to laugh as she had been in the bedroom not long before, and all seemed well.

My grandmother’s insistence caused my mother some distress as she was very familiar with her mother’s psychic abilities. Dropping the phone she rushed into the bedroom and found me on the bed turning blue. I was rushed to the hospital.

My mother phoned my grandmother from the hospital when I had been taken into emergency. She wanted to thank her mother for her timely call allowing me to get to the hospital in time. My grandmother took the thanks in stride and then told my mother I had a disease called nephritis.

Since the doctor hadn’t yet returned with any information about my condition, there was a bit of skepticism in my mother’s voice as she told her mother, “Sure, Mom. I’m sure the doctor will be glad to know that in case they can’t figure it out.”

When the doctor did come out of the examination room later to tell my mother what they had diagnosed and what they would be doing about it, my mother was again confronted with her mother’s scary psychic ability.

The doctor told my mother I had acute nephritis. He said that there would be a chance I might eventually need a new kidney. And even with a new kidney, the chances of my long-term survival weren’t all that good.

Early childhood trauma often shows up in some sort physiological disturbance as well as psychological disturbances. As a therapist, I have long known stress in the workplace and in the home often shows up in the form of ulcers, tension headaches, heart conditions, etc.

Is it that much of a stretch to see a correlation between the trauma of my first four years of life and the onset of a kidney disease? In modern medicine it is accepted that psychological trauma can lead to the lowering of physiological resistance resulting in a predisposition for the development of allergies.

So much of my work as a therapist has seen clients present themselves not only with behavioral and habitual dysfunctions, but also with various stress related conditions. The mind is a powerful thing, both friend and enemy at times. Despite all of our science and research, so much of what makes us tick and what causes us to fall apart still remain mysteries.

With the diagnosis of nephritis, the impact upon both my parents was significant. There was no choice but to shift from their self-focused narcissism to take on the role of parents giving their children needed care and attention. My illness served as a wake-up call for them.

They saw their first born at risk, and they did their best to not lose me. My mother began to cook without salt, leaving it as a sprinkle-on condiment for everyone else’s plate. My father toned down his anger and his demands, enough to hold a job that allowed us to finally move into a better house on Sunnyside Avenue, just a few blocks off Bank Street.

With a new home of our own, we began to have individual families visit us, Aunt L and her young family, and more often my Aunt J and her young family of two children. I remember this house quite well. For the first time I felt safe.

My mother would often take me for my medical checkups to the Ottawa Civic Hospital, an adventure as we would travel to the hospital by street car often passing horse-drawn wagons delivering ice and milk along the way. In the fall of 1954, with my health stabilising, I began my schooling in kindergarten.

I was excited when it was time to go to kindergarten at Hopewell School. It didn’t matter that the other kids had been in school for a while already. I was in a hurry to learn how to read and write.

My father would always be reading the newspaper and my mother frequently had her head buried in some novel or magazine. Often what my father saw in the newspaper would lead to debates and discussion with adult visitors. The newspaper seemed to be an opening to a bigger world.

Yet, when it was time for my mother to take me to school that first morning, I panicked. The fear of being abandoned resurfaced. It was an irrational fear, but it didn’t matter. My five year old child’s brain felt the trigger, the abandonment trigger being pulled.

It took quite a while after her departure for me to settle down. Finally, when the teacher brought a book with pictures and words after failing to calm me with a toy or teddy bear or treat, I stopped crying.

The book was magic. Holding the book and smiling at the teacher, I began to read aloud what I saw in the book. It was with a mixture of surprise and at the same time worry, when the teacher responded to my reading. Seeing that I already knew how to read, what was she going to be able to teach me, especially when learning to read was to begin in grade one, not kindergarten.

When my mother arrived later to pick me up and take me home, the teacher said, “Your son already knows how to read. I don’t know what we will be able to teach him at school.”

“Yes, he knows how to read. When he gets upset at home I give him the newspaper or one of my magazines to distract him.”

“There’s nothing we can teach him in kindergarten. I’m afraid he will get bored and become a behaviour problem.”

“A behaviour problem? I think you will be in for a surprise. He is the peace-maker at home with his brother and sister, and with his cousins when they visit. If anything, he tries too hard to be good all the time.”

“Hmm? I wonder?” mumbled the teacher as she worked thought about what my mother had told her about me, “Perhaps he should skip kindergarten and just go to grade one next year. What do you think about that idea?”

“I think he needs to be out of the house. He is too quiet and he needs to learn how to be with kids his own age. He needs to learn how to play. He watches too much from the sidelines except when he is being the big brother and fussing with his brother and sister. He is always helping as much as a five-year old can help. He needs to make some friends and learn how to play and laugh.”

“Okay,” replied the teacher. “We’ll let him stay in our classroom for now. However, if he becomes a problem for us along the way, I’m going to have to ask you to take him out of the class and keep him at home.”

I had heard my mother tell this story of my first day in kindergarten over and over again to various aunts and uncles and even strangers. The fact that I could read before I started kindergarten and that I was such a well-behaved little boy, fed my mother’s pride, as if she was responsible for my accomplishments.

And in a way, both of my parents were the catalysts for my being so well-behaved and perhaps even precocious. Being well-behaved had a lot to do with magical thinking, the belief that as long as I was super good, my father wouldn’t get angry or my parents wouldn’t get rid of me.

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Previously

Thanks to the following for following along with the story this far:

Carrie, Benighted, Patrick OConnell, Adrian CDTPPW, JB The Talker, Maddy Mirza, Block Wife, and katoshi