Stormie: A Story of Forgiveness and Healing (6 page)

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Authors: Stormie Omartian

BOOK: Stormie: A Story of Forgiveness and Healing
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“This doctor talks,” my friend assured me. “And he gives good advice.”
With that assurance, and the hope that he might help me control my emotional pain and cope with depression, I made an appointment for the following week.
At my first meeting with Dr. Foreman I found him a very likeable, polite gentleman. He was a distinguished, mid-fifties, gray-haired man who was five times more expensive than any other doctor I’d ever been to. But if he was going to be five times more personable, it would be well worth it. Right away he treated me as if I were an intelligent person and not insane. This impressed me so much that I was immediately at ease. He motioned me to sit in the chair across the desk from him.
“What’s been troubling you, young friend?” he said with a warm smile.
“I live in constant fear, Dr. Foreman. And I’m not even sure what it is I’m afraid of. I’m surrounded by people, yet the loneliness I feel is unbearable. I suffer with debilitating depressions and anxiety attacks that make me feel like I’m dying. I have emotional pain all the time and I don’t know what to do about it. I thought getting married would relieve some of this, but it has only made it much worse.”
I couldn’t believe I was blurting out all that information to this man, but I couldn’t hold it in any longer. Dr. Foreman laughed an accepting laugh, leaned across the desk, and patted my hands reassuringly. “Don’t look so worried,” he said. “These sound like symptoms of something deep inside that you have probably hidden away. It’s as if you were a child and you locked what you thought was a lion in the closet because he frightened you. Through the years as you grew up, you often thought about that lion and how scary he was. But if, as a full-grown adult, you were to go back to that closet and let out the lion, you would probably discover that he was actually only a kitten. He seemed large to you as a little girl, but he is nothing to be afraid of anymore. What we need to do is open a few doors from your past and let you see that what was once so frightening no longer poses any threat to you now.”
With Dr. Foreman’s calm, reassuring words, I knew that I was finally going to tell someone my story—things I had never before told
anyone.
I took a deep breath and slowly began with my earliest recollection.
CHAPTER FOUR
FOUNDATION FOR BROKENNESS
I sat cross-legged on top of the large laundry basket that was filled to overflowing with dirty clothes. The musty smell of my dad’s soiled shirts was comforting as I waited in the darkness of the small closet underneath the stairway. The old two-story ranch house was so tiny I could hear exactly where my mother was most of the time. At the moment she was coming out of the single small bedroom on the second floor, and I could hear her shoes on the hardwood as she came down the stairs.
I held my breath as she approached the closet.
“Maybe she’s coming to let me out,” I thought. “Or am I going to get another spanking?”
Instead, she walked right by my door and into the kitchen. “I think she’s forgotten me,” I began to cry silently. “How long will I have to be in here this time?” I wondered.
My only light source inside the cramped closet came from a small crack at the bottom of the door. I dared not get down from my position on the laundry basket to peek through it because of the mice that frequently scurried across the floor. I was afraid they would jump on me. Once I had found a large snake in the small room off the kitchen, and the possibility of another one joining me in the closet was very real. I made sure my feet never touched the floor.
“Why was Mother always angry at me?” I wondered in the silence. “All I did was ask her for a glass of water, and she turned and yelled, ‘Get in the closet until I can stand to see your face!’ ” I learned at an early age that if I cried or protested I got beaten and then put in the closet, so I never resisted. The force of my mother’s personality was so strong that even my father seemed powerless against it, for he always let her do as she pleased.
I saw her shadow pass the door once more and I could hear her muttering to herself as she headed into the living room. She had entered her dream world again, and it would be hours before Dad came home and she returned to reality.
I pictured Dad laboring outside in the hot sun. He was a tall, quiet, even-tempered man with a square jaw and large hands who always worked long, hard hours just to eke out a living. When he wasn’t working he was “dead tired,” as he always phrased it. Today he had gone to haul lumber for another rancher. Though he had much work to do here, we needed extra money to make ends meet. I wished he was home more. Mother didn’t make me stay in the closet when Dad was home. Once I tried to tell Dad about having to go into the closet, but Mother had called me a liar and I’d gotten a spanking. I never tried that again.
Hot tears began trickling down my face. Why was Mother always mad at me? Did all children have to spend time in dark, stuffy closets? I didn’t know any other children, for we lived on a small cattle ranch in Wyoming, 18 miles from the nearest town and several miles from our closest neighbor. We had no radio or telephone, and apart from occasional visiting relatives we were isolated from the rest of the world.
Visits by our relatives were the highlight of my life. Mother was a different person around them. She was cheerful, giving, outgoing, the life of the party. Her ice-blue eyes sparkled as she played the piano and sang while everyone gathered around to join in on the choruses. I admired her beautiful voice and pretty smile. I had heard my mother’s older sister, Aunt Delores, say that Mom’s tall, dark-haired beauty reminded her of actress Vivien Leigh, star of the movie “Gone with the Wind.” I hoped someday I could see that movie.
My mother’s good-humored younger sister, Jean, whom I adored, usually visited along with Aunt Delores, Uncle Mark, and their three children. When we were all together I was in ecstasy. It was like death the day they left, for all the happiness went out of my life. We all hugged each other and said goodbye, but as soon as their car left the driveway I fought back tears as Mother began her typical stream of critical remarks. “Nothing but a bunch of leeches,” she grumbled as she turned and marched into the house. “All they want is free food and lodging. They have no consideration for our lives.” Dad made no reply and headed out to the barn. Within a day I knew I would probably be back in the closet.
One time my mother’s dad came to live with us for awhile. Pappy, as he was called, became my best friend, and life was good as long as he was around. Pappy and mother argued continually, but she never laid a hand on me while he was present. I missed him terribly when he left. He was a wonderful reprieve from my miserable existence.
Mother had two distinct personalities, and it was the bad one that she reserved for me when we were alone. Then she was critical, cold, and unpredictable. Her bitter anger could flare up instantly, and it frightened me. I had many nightmares about her. When people were around, Mother was highly concerned about making a good impression on them. It was very important for her to appear perfect. In fact she often said to me, “I am perfect. I have never done anything wrong.”
“Never?” I questioned in disbelief.
“Never,” she stated with such emphasis that I knew I would always fall short of her perfection. In fact she often told me I was ugly and stupid, and would never amount to anything.
I soon accepted the fact that I was not only a very unimportant person, but also rather undesirable. Helplessness, hopelessness, futility, rejection, abandonment, sadness, fear, and self-hatred were words too big for me to verbalize, but they were feelings I experienced every day.
The hours passed slowly on this muggy day in the closet. The still, stale air made me sleepy and I dozed for awhile. I awoke to hear Mother head into the kitchen to start dinner. A few minutes later she opened the door and I scrambled out, so grateful to be free that I didn’t complain. Dad arrived home shortly after that and collapsed on the couch, saying, “I’m dead tired tonight.” He was not gruff, yet it was obvious that he would not have time for me today. There were so many times when I wished Mom or Dad would give me a big hug or kiss, but I never remember them doing that.
Mother called us to dinner. We ate in silence except for Dad’s statement that he would be hauling lumber for the next couple of days at a neighbor’s ranch. When he finished, he said, “I’d better go feed the cows,” and he was out the door.
I was afraid of the dark, and there was no electricity on the ranch. When I went to bed, it was pitch-black except for the light I could see coming from the kitchen. I pulled the covers over my head and didn’t move. I awoke with a start a short while later, full of fear. I must have had a nightmare. I slipped out of bed and headed to the kitchen for a drink of water. Mother was still there and I nearly collided with her as I entered. In terror I saw that she was clutching a large butcher knife. The upraised steel blade gleamed in the dim light. A sinister smile crossed her face as she stared at me with her cold, steel-blue eyes. As I backed away, she began to laugh. It became a wild, howling cackle as I tore back up the stairs to my room and fell shaking into my bed. It was a while before I slipped into a fitful sleep.
I awoke as dawn was beginning to break and thought of Mother poised with the knife as if she fully intended to stab me. The memory of that moment of terror never left my mind. I repeatedly had nightmares about my mother in the kitchen with the upraised knife, laughing at my fear.
Shortly before my sixth birthday we moved to a small farm 18 miles from town. Like the ranch, there were no modern conveniences. No indoor plumbing—only a foul-smelling outhouse. No running water or bathtub. No phone or radio. There were electric lights, but no heating system except for a potbellied stove in the dining room. Life was hard there; nothing came easy. The bright spots were the many nice neighbors who lived within a few miles of the farm. They didn’t stop by often, but when they did, Mother was cordial.
That winter I had a sore throat that swelled painfully, to the point where I was unable to swallow food. Even drinking was unbearable. My nasal passages filled with a thick, rope-like material that the doctor pulled out daily with a special instrument. As with everything else in that small town, the hospital was overcrowded and didn’t have a bed for me. We had to make the long trip to town every day through the snow so the doctor could give me a shot and pull the diseased material from my nose. The whole treatment was painful, but I endured it, hoping I would soon be well enough to eat again.
After a few weeks in this condition, the doctor became disturbed that I was losing weight and getting weaker. He decided to send a sample of the nasal material, along with blood and urine samples, to a special clinic to find out what was wrong. We drove home to wait for the results.
That night a blizzard hit, and for the next few days we were snowed in. As the storm worsened, Mother made a bed for me in the dining room next to the potbellied stove. Temperatures were below zero, and because there was no indoor plumbing, I had to go to the bathroom in a big metal pot that was kept under my cot. Despite the odor, the weather was too cold to permit emptying it more than every few days.
It was hard for me to breathe, and I was so weak that often during the long, cold days I felt that death would be a pleasant relief. In the midst of my misery I sensed a concern in my mother that I had never seen before. Frequently she tried to give me something to drink, but I could stand only two or three swallows before the pain became unbearable.

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