It was 1965, I was seventeen. I had begun working as an orderly at the St. Thomas Hospital in Akron, Ohio. I started working at seventeen and under the age required by law. I was not asked to validate my birthdate when I completed the application and I figured I was in my eighteenth year, which was close enough.
I was living with Mom & Pop at the Merriman Rd house. I was working evenings and nights on a swing shift while going to Firestone High School. I was driving my Plymouth Satalite and dating Sandy Dako.
Pop was complaining about his feet hurting. I had seen patients in the hospital soak their sore feet after surgery and suggested we set him in a chair with his feet in a basin of hot water. I remember being on my knees, washing his feet, and thinking how vulnerable he must have felt. I became conscious of a level of understanding and forgiveness for all the pain and suffering he had caused me. I remember thinking, that if I were to meet this person on the street, I would walk on the other side because I would find him so distasteful. While at the same time thinking, he is my father, and in order to let these angry feelings go, all I had to do was make a decision to let go. I felt a profound feeling of release and relief, a sense of freedom, and a lift of pain off my shoulders. It was a serendipitous moment of reflection, resolve, and contentment in one moment of time.
Since that time I have repeatedly read and heard forgiveness is for the benefit of the victim, not the abuser. First the exam and then the lesson.
The pictures of me as a model in a high chair that changed into a rocker and small desk has always brought back one of my first memories. Mom and Dad had a friend that had invented this chair that could convert without taking the child out. I remember having had just about enough of being juggled as they changed the positions and began to cry. The picture of me reaching out was when they held my green frog, that would stick it’s tongue out when squeezed always brought a belly laugh out of me. To get me to stop crying, they held that frog out in front of me and I reached for it. My sister always says that I was a “pretty baby”. I maintained blond hair until about four years old – the curls lasted until late in life.
