ONCE UPON A SKITCH

Skitch in a Diaper // First Photo 

THEN:

Once Upon a Skitch Or Other People's Memories of Me

It was a dark and stormy night that bore me out of the warmth of my mother's womb and into the hands of a waiting Catholic nun. 

 I didn't make a sound.

My mother tells me that the nuns gathered around me and worked frantically, desperately, and she knew that something was very wrong. The doctor had been late but I was impatient. The nuns had delivered me when I insisted on showing up -- doctor or no doctor. My father was fast asleep in the family car, dream-listening to the rain on the roof above him. It was one-thirty in the morning, my birth day, but I was not breathing. My mother began to cry in my stead. She repeatedly asked what was wrong with me, but she was ignored. The nuns were busy trying to fix what was wrong. They had no time for words.

Later they told her that I was a "blue baby". They said my navel cord had been wrapped tightly around my neck and tied in what they described as "a perfect bow." They told her my skin was blue from lack of oxygen. I wonder, these days, if those first blue minutes had anything to do with the learning disabilities I've learned to cope with. Perhaps there is a connection. Thankfully, they managed to free me from that death  grip, and my mam says my cries then were the sweetest sound in the world.  

Funnily enough, it was Johnny Cash and June Carter's fault that my mother's world was suddenly filled with the sounds of a new baby. In 1966, my parents went on a trip to go to a John and June concert. They were aiming for the sounds of good country music (not a baby crying to the top of it's lungs.) They got their money's worth in good country music, that is true, but my folks "forgot the protection," and after the concert they were feeling so happy and so romantic that they thought, "Just this one time, it will probably be okay." To this day, I'm convinced they were right. It is okay! I'm glad to be here. Thanks mom and dad! Thanks pseudo mom and dad AKA Johnny and June! Wonder how many lives you two jump started?!

My parents had hoped for a boy. After having three daughters and being forced to leave one in a cold December grave, I suppose it was natural for my farming family to hope for a son. Likely, it was a double disappointment to find that I was not only a girl child but that I, unlike my sisters, looked almost identical to the gone-child, Patricia. Pat had had straight blond hair and blue eyes. Sandi was dark haired and had brown eyes. Lila and brown hair and green eyes. And here I was, blond haired and blue eyed, just like Pat. The only difference was that, once it dried and grew a bit, my hair fell in curls. I remained a constant reminder of what they had lost.

"William Dustin" was the name they had chosen for me, so when I surprised them by showing up a female, they allowed my aunt to name me. She gave me a very unusual name, which was good. I was to be a very unusual person. It took me many years to grow to love it, and to realize that it was fitting. But does the name suit me or do I suit the name? Perhaps, the odd name shaped part of my uniqueness? In school, I had friends with one unusual name and one "normal" name. For a commonplace touch, they would often go by the one that raised fewer eyebrows. I was not afforded that opportunity. Both my first and second name were unusual. "Normal" it seemed, was not for me.

My mother tells me that she was very weakened by my birth, and that, although they sent her home when I went, she had to return to the hospital to recover and to endure a D & C, though probably not in that order. My father was more of a hands-on type of dad then most of his peers were, and my sisters were 12 and ten years older than me. So, I was in good hands until my mother made it home.

She was home with us when the nurse came to see me for my two week well baby check up. Mam says the nurse was intrigued by the intense, even "knowing", look in my eyes. She held up a finger in front of my tiny face and moved it back and forth. My eyes followed the movement. The nurse was amazed and told my mother, "I've seen a lot of infants this age but I've never seen one that would do that! She must be very smart!" Whether I am smart or not is still up for debate, but the fact that I was unusual was not long in doubt.

My parents tell me that, before I could even sit alone, my mother would prop me up with pillows and leave a book in front of me, not a book with photos, just a book full of words.  They swear that I would run my baby finger along the lines of print and babble as though I were reading aloud, that I would  be totally absorbed in this activity, and sit happily for long periods of time while my mother cooked or cleaned. My mother's uncle, Luthor, came to visit and refused to believe it until he saw the odd sight with his own eyes. Then he remarked, "That baby is either a genius or she's dumb as a stump!" He was a little more pragmatic and a little less tactful than the nurse.

When I was a few months older and had learned to sit up and, not to crawl, but to scoot around on my bottom, there came a day when my father says I came to him in the deep belly of a Virginia coal mine, kissed him on the cheek, and disappeared. It gave my dad the heebie jeebies. He told the man working with him that they needed to get out of that mine now. The fellow followed Dad out into the blinding sunshine, grumbling much of the way. Just as they settled down under a tree and Dad's heart rate returned to normal, the mountain grumbled, followed by a crashing sound, and then a billow of dirt and coal dust rolled out of the mine entrance. An investigation revealed that the exact area Dad and his friend had been in when I kissed him was now filled with dirt and rock. If they had not come out when they had, they would both have died.

My father tells me that insomnia has been a life long battle for me. He says that when I was a tiny thing, he was telling me stories about "Rawhide and Bloody Bones" because I could not sleep. To which I replied, "Maybe I couldn't sleep because I was afraid of Rawhide and Bloody Bones?" Dad laughed, but he swore it was the other way around: I couldn't sleep, so he told me the stories. He also said that, at that time, I probably could not understand a word he was saying, let alone that it was supposed to be a scary story. But that just when he got to the spooky part, I pulled the covers over my head. He went on telling the story in a low voice, pulled the sheet down a few minutes later, and I was sound asleep. Rawhide and Bloody Bones were nothing to be afraid of with Daddy around. I must have known that, even then, in those days that I cannot remember.