Chapter II
inding Magic on the Battlefield of Life
………….A Wounded Reminder
I would miss a lot if I didn’t
go back and catch you up on some of the other experiences I had; that opened up the magical world of wonder growing up.
I told you about the big people, but there were more difficult stories too.
Seeing didn’t always bring such an easy comfort ride, it jarred those around me and even created suspicion. I think it is important to share these formative experiences for several reasons. The obvious reason is to give you a snapshot of my mind. The less obvious reason might be to show the path that makes a person who they are, because so many people are being drugged to avoid pain, and I feel they may be missing out on something precious ~ the pain that opens up the Holy Spirit captured inside the body.
I won’t go all the way back now, except for to say that I grew up in what I lovingly refer to as
‘Psychic Survival Camp’. My mother would insist I always knew what she wanted to say and what she was thinking, without actually saying it. In those times that I just couldn’t grasp it, she would yell at me and tell me: “I know you know”…as if I was playing with her or trying to get her upset on purpose.
This could be followed by a spanking and certainly would come with serious reprimanding. I consider this a part of my training.
We can flash forward to high school, for several experiences that are worth retelling, but I will let you be the judge of that.
Let’s start with the story of Diane. Diane was a friend of mine, who was as sweet a girl as they come. Always asking ‘What do you think?’….The thing is, Diane was also experimenting with some things that were really frightening to me, AND then driving. I started to have visions, and I became very nervous as that bell started ringing louder and louder inside of me, warning me that Diane was going to die soon.
What was I to do? Try and talk to her? I did but that didn’t really go anywhere.
I wondered why the adults, teachers, etc. were not really doing something about this growing problem. I came up with a plan to design a class with credits and find the right experts to come in and educate all the students on the seriousness of abusing drugs.
After making an appointment to see the principal I went down to the office ready to share my idea. I told him we needed the class as I outlined and promised to do the work to put it together and find the experts as mentioned, and all he would have to do was approve it.
To my shock and what had to be obvious wide-eyed look of surprise, he said there was no drug problem in the school.
I did not back down, I told him that there most certainly was a drug problem (wondering how he passed through the haze of marijuana around the school in the morning, though that was not my worry). His response was: “Who are these children, what are their names?”….Oh yeah, let me just give you a list and fink on the young adults, which should work just fine…NOT!
Then he finally conceded, but only to a class that would be held after school, and would not have any credits. Again, my heart sank, knowing that you could barely get students to go to class during the day, let alone come after school, like they were being punished and then give no reward. They didn’t think there was a problem either, though I am sure there were those who must have thought so too.
So, I gave up.
Several days after this, the Diane bell of warning got so loud, I couldn’t shut it down; I went to another friend of mine Denise’s to finally tell someone else what was happening to me. While we were sitting in the basement, I began to shake and cry as I let it out, feeling the urgency. The phone rang upstairs, we heard her mom on the phone and I just knew, it had something to do with Diane. Sure enough, her mother called down the steps for us to come upstairs. She handed the phone over to Denise, Diane’s mother was looking for her and she was worried. We got news about an hour later that Diane was in a car accident and went through the windshield; she died as the phone was ringing.
The next horrific event was when my parent’s house was robbed. I came home from school and began my run through the house, yet this time, I stopped in the kitchen as though the air was too heavy to walk through.
I stopped dead in my tracks to take the pulse of what I was feeling. I just knew someone had been in our home, so I checked timidly to see if they were still there, looking around to see any signs of disturbance. There were none, nothing seemed out of place or missing. Our colour TV/Stereo was there, nothing out of the China Cabinet, and I made my way upstairs, conscious of the fact I also had a small window of time to get ready and rush off to the bus to go to work at Halle’s downtown.
I glanced in my parent’s bedroom, and again, nothing seemed out of place. It was very quick that I realized no one was in the house with me.
I dressed quickly and glanced around the house again and dashed out the door. I saw my little sister Janet coming home from school. I told her that I thought someone robbed our house (to her shock and horror and instant fear) and that she should call mom and dad at work (which we never did unless it was an emergency) and then proceeded to calm her down and reassure her that no one was in the home, they were long gone, but I had a ‘feeling’.
When I got home from work that night, the police were waiting for me, my mother and father had
that sick and drawn look on their faces. The police went right into, how did I know? Our house had indeed been robbed, and they had stolen coffee cans my parents had filled with old gold and silver coins. They also stole upwards of 60, 000 dollars, yes sixty thousand dollars! It just so happened that my father had brought money home, to make a purchase of a building/business with another friend of his.
They happened to rob our house in the three day time period, that this took place.
My parents did not believe in putting money into banks or in stocks and certainly not all in one place and my father often had large sums of money stashed.
The police continued to prod my parents and inquire about my own well-being. They asked whether I was on drugs, have my parents noticed any mood changes or differences in me, have my grades dropped off, etc. After their insistence that I must have something to do with this, or how would I know, my parents finally allowed them to question me. Their eyes said it all. Do I have anything I needed to tell them? Even as I write this, my eyes well up with tears and my heart grows heavy. There is nothing like the feeling that your parents might believe that you robbed them. That I would plot to devastate my family and steal my parents hard earned savings, was beyond my capacity to hold pain. It took my right up and over the edge of sorrow; feeling not only my own pain, but also my parents as they suffered such a loss.
It knocked me into a despair I couldn’t quite recover from.
~”Just tell us Gloria” the words echoed down the halls of my conscious and dropped like a lode stone through my soul and anchored me into the shadowy depths of a world I only prayed did not exist.
Several days later, while at my school locker in that numbed and heavy state; a student came walking up to a friend of mine who was also at her locker. She said, ‘Hello Gloria’ and that simple greeting ran through my like a racehorse trying to get out of the starting gate and out of that stirring came a voice. It rose up inside of me very faintly at first but grew louder and louder as I tried to dismiss it. “She robbed your house” the voice whispered. “She robber your house” it grew louder. Still I tried to shove it back down while sneaking glances at this girl, whom I barely knew through this friend of mine. I grabbed my books and walked in the strangest state of mind to study hall. I tried to sit quietly and study, but the words on the page just swam in front of me, as that voice rose up louder and louder, until it was clanging like a church bell rocking me from the inside out as it gonged: “SHE ROBBER YOUR HOUSE!!!!”
I couldn’t take it anymore, and I was growing concerned that it was so loud and had me so shaky that people would notice. Soon that concern was turning into a rage like I had never felt before. Something took over my shaking body and then like a guided missile I got up, went to the office where my other friend Debby was sitting at the front desk alone and inquired; “Do you know what class Tammy S is right now?” Debbie responded: “No, but I can find out for you Glo”.
Debbie went to the tall oak file cabinets lining the walls, their darkened and scarred bodies holding so many lives over the years, now ready to offer up the whereabouts of the girl who had hacked into my life and forever changed my world.
In no time at all, Debbie returned and excitedly told me: “She is in Biology class with Mr. Diuto on the second floor Gloria.”
I raced out the door while exclaiming, ‘Thank you Deb!’ my feet clapping on the marble floor echoing in the empty halls as I ran towards the steps. Two at a time I slid my feet onto each grooved step, slip, slip, slip. In what seemed like seconds, I was standing outside the Biology class peering in. What luck, no teacher was present. I saw Tammy right away, her being a tall girl of unmistakable appearance. I called to her, “Tammy, can you come out here for a minute?” Tammy responded; “Sure Gloria” and with that was outside in the hall with me, just the two of us.
I looked at her, trying to search deep into her eyes for any sign that might give up the truth. “What is it, what do you want?” She said in a pleading tone.
The long empty hall gave way to such a focus on this exchange of energy between us, it grew like a
cacophony again in me; “SHE ROBBED YOUR HOUSE!!!” in a split second, the words were leaping from my mouth. “YOU ROBBED MY PARENTS HOUSE!” Tammy shrunk back to the wall of metal lockers, shaking her head at me and exclaiming; “No I didn’t, why are you saying that?”
But her eyes gave her away, she looked like a wild animal that was caught and trapped in a corner with no way to escape. I repeated the words: “YOU ROBBED MY HOUSE!!!”
To which she again shook her head, but I was on her like a tiger who had caught her prey, shaking this much taller girl against the lockers and screaming the words over and over through burning tears; “YOU ROBBED MY HOUSE, YOU ROBBED MY HOUSE, YOU ROBBED MY HOUSE!!!!” All the rage and hurt and anger screaming out of my body looking to finally escape and landing on this girl I barely even knew, and never really cared to know either. This moment brought us together in a compressed heat that had taken me like a prisoner, a loyal subject that had no recourse but to respond in complete obedience to a power greater than my own.
Soon the rest of the class came scurrying out shouting; “Fight, O’Neil has Tammy against the wall!” The doors began slamming open with big booms one by one down the hallway and soon there was a crowd of students and teachers all thronging towards us.
Several teachers pried me off and semi broke the spell of all that pain trying to find its freedom from its awful anchor inside of me. Down the halls we went as they escorted us to the Vice Principals office. We were instructed to sit in two worn light maple chairs while the Vice Principal walked over and shut the heavy Mahogany door in front of him and took his seat behind his desk that had several messy piles cascading over its top.
“Now, what is all this about? Who started this fight?” He asked us. “She robbed my house!” I retorted.
“Well, this is a matter for the police to handle, not you.” He responded coolly.
Then he added: “This is no way for a lady to behave.” “You are not the authorities and all you are going to do is get yourself in trouble. Now how do you know that Tammy is involved in this?”
“I just do” I said.
“Well, the police are investigating this, not you.” He stated sternly.
“And I don’t want to hear another thing about this, and especially from you Gloria.” He admonished. “So I am giving you three days of detention, and I don’t want to see you back in here again and you are to leave this up to the police.”
So that was that. I was given three days of detention and Tammy was simply reprimanded for fighting and told to go back to class.
It was about a week later, that my parents were informed they believed they had caught the kids who robbed the house. A neighbor who was a police officer happened to be home that day, and saw kids running out the back door of our home. He helped identify some of the kids, who happened to be passing around old gold coins. The police followed up on the tip, and searched the battered Galaxy 500, where sure enough old silver and gold coins were laying around on the floor like trash, as if they had no value whatsoever.
Tammy was one of the kids identified. They were brought to trial where my parents had to take more time off from working at their store (something that never happened) and watch the judge slap their hands and give some of the repeat offenders probation.
That was it. No return of coins, no money, just a slap on the hands for invading our home stealing my parents hard earned savings and coin collection, and tormenting me in the fires of disillusionment and despair and carving a river of discord between my me and my parents.
Even though my mother had over the years, grown comfortable giving out commands of half-sentences that I was instructed to complete and did; and even though she insisted to me on occasion that she knew ‘I knew” and that I was reading her mind and many times I wasn’t able to, searched frantically through the attic of my being for the answers she sought: And even though her friends
would beg her to ask her mother to give them “Tea Leaf Reading’s” and even though she herself was often psychic. This one incident and the prodding of the Police who managed to strafe out clues that conspired to convict me on their scant little evidence scarred a shadow of a doubt into my mother and father. Me, who normally got straight A’s started getting an occasional B and I was experimenting with Marijuana, which was considered a hard gateway drug and it was completely a mystery to my parents who knew nothing about it at all. It was just one of the reefer madness doorways to hallucinations and whatever else their unwitting minds had conjured up.
My parents who worked long hours, were barely home anymore. It was often left up to me to prepare supper. Sometimes my mother would come home with a pot of food and go back to work soon after, leaving instructions and the threat to make sure we behave.
So I had ventured partially into a world that was forbidden, and that was enough to convict me in the jury of the mind, mine and theirs.
I didn’t have anything to do with that robbery.
I did wear nice clothes. I worked hard too, and between where my mother insisted we shop and what she wanted me to wear and my own taste for nicer clothes, I was labeled a rich bitch by some of the darker elements at school.
I was robbed twice and had the leather coat stolen that I worked hard for to save and by myself. That light tan supple leather with the white rabbit fur collar begged me to buy it. Once I saw it, I couldn’t wear anything else. It did stand out and so did I. I tried to walk the tightrope between following my own desires and fitting in with the rest of my classmates, but it was no easy walk.
That all started a few years back when I transferred from private Catholic School St. Patrick’s; to go the newly built modern public school with the tall glass window stretching up into the ruffled cement canopy that I learned was the library. Things changed quite a bit in my world.
The new school had both girls and boys attending and some of those boys were cute. It stood in stark contrast to the cold and ancient austere walls of the Catholic High all girls High School Magnificat that I was to attend. Even though I was always one of the best students in school, my habit for getting into mischief confused me. The combination and the knowledge that my friends who lived on my street, and my older sister who I admired also went, was enough to conspire against what was my better judgment.
I convinced my parents that the new school had curriculum that wouldn’t be available at Magnificat’s. They were simply too busy to really investigate my reasoning and it would save them a hefty tuition fee that Magnificat would require. So it was settled, I could attend the new high school down the street.
I was so eager and excited for my first day. I could wear my new clothes instead of the uniform I had worn every day of all the years before. I had my new suede shoes with the suede ties on the side, I felt like an Indian. My nice Brooks Brothers plaid suit and sharply pressed blue shirt.
My long blonde hair neatly brushed and clipped on one side. I nervously found my way through the throngs of children busily buzzing like a hive in the sparkling new surroundings. Glancing at all the new faces who were glancing back at me, I felt both invigorated and nervous at the same time. Many of the faces peering back at me also had an attitude and a toughness I had not encountered before. Kids were chewing gum and so many girls were wearing heavy mascara and makeup. They looked at me as if I were prey, something to be seized and taken down.
I made my way into room 108, my new homeroom. Sitting nice and tidy at my desk, eyes beaming with hope the PA crackled on and a student’s voice announced the Principal. The slight voice of a woman came on as she welcomed us all and extolled the virtues of the new school we were fortunate enough to attend.
Then she started listing some of the new students, and to my surprise, she stated: and we are pleased to have Gloria O’Neil from St. Patrick’s, an honor roll student….the words hung in the air as I felt the rest of the students turn their gaze towards me and the taunting began. “Gloria an honor roll student, Oooooh!”
That was the beginning of a whole new world. The girls, who wore the heavy makeup and dressed quite a bit differently than I, would gather in groups and purposely bump me in the halls, ask me to fight them (yes, strange as that sounds) and ask me if I thought I was special in my perfect clothes? They would insist I dressed ‘queer’ and that I was so uncool. Heading into gym class was like navigating a mine field. If the instructor hadn’t opened the doors to the locker room, the girls were strung down the hall waiting, but around the water fountain this certain group of girls liked to gather and collect mouthfuls of water to spray at me as I darted into the safety of the locker room.
It wasn’t all the children who swarmed in these circles and searched for ways to tease me, luckily I found a few who were concerned about getting good grades and were a lot more like me. But for some reason, they hadn’t been singled out to be picked on.
It wasn’t long before I was trading in some of my matching outfits, for jeans and more ‘hip’ clothing. My mother seemed shocked that I wanted to go to one of the newer specialty shops in the mall, rather than one of our standby’s like Higbee’s or Halley’s. “These clothes are not very nicely made” she would say, after I would win her over enough to get her to go inside of one.
Eventually, she caved and didn’t mind saving the money and I started to buy my own clothes too.
Soon enough, a blonde boy named Walter caught my eye and apparently, I caught his too. We passed each other notes that we were interested in each other, “Hey, I like you, do you like me?” as the method went back then. He was so cute, I was on cloud nine. Of course, we barely talked except about homework or what happened in class, but just holding his hand seemed like a dream. His wide, moist hand holding mine while walking down the halls felt like a stamp of approval and an arrival. I felt safe and protected too, he was a wrestling champ!
Apparently this was cause for distress in one of the girls in the ‘gang’ though. One day in gym class, the instructor had stepped out and left the class at the tumbling mats. One of them, a large girl with freckles and long stringy red hair named Cindy came strolling up to me. “I’m calling you out O’Neil” she exclaimed. “Why?” I replied. “Because you stole my boyfriend, he is mine!” she huffed with her hands on her hips. She kept coming towards me, and just in the nick of time, we heard the sounds in the hallway signaling the return of our gym teacher. “I’ll see you after school” Cindy shouted, “you’ll see, I am gonna kick your ass”.
Well, I managed to sprint like a gazelle that day and made it safely home. What was she talking
about anyway? Walter wasn’t her boyfriend. When I spoke to him about it, he made a disgusting gesture and added a ‘yuck!’ so apparently, it was only a relationship in Cindy’s head anyway.
Still, the next day during recess, I was gathered around the pool table with some other girls and Cindy came strutting up to me and gave me a hardy shove. “You think you can get away from me!” she shouted. “I am going to kick your ass right now, fight O’Neil!”
Just as I started to gear myself for the inevitable, strategizing in my head how I would go about fighting her, another girl from the bad girl group came up and got between us. Donna was a smaller girl, but always managed to find a way to sneak a smile towards me. Now she was standing defiantly between Cindy and me, and she looked Cindy dead in the eyes and said: “If you want to fight Gloria you are gonna have to fight me first”.
What, I thought to myself. Why is she sticking up for me? I can’t believe this!
Cindy apparently was taken aback by this too. She looked confusedly at Donna and asked her, “Why are you gonna fight for Gloria?” while she shook her head in disbelief.
Donna simply replied calmly and coolly; “If you want to fight Gloria, you are gonna have to fight me first, I’m just telling you. She didn’t do anything to you.”
Cindy looked at me wide-eyed and then replied to Donna, “OK, I didn’t know you two were friends.” And that was it. Cindy never called me out again, and neither did anyone else from that school. Donna M had come to my defense and no one messed with Donna M.
So I managed to find my way. It wasn’t until I transferred to High School, that it all went sideways again. For some reason, the infusion of new people into my world had decided that I was exactly the person to pick on and I looked naïve enough to rob on more than one occasion. I was one of the shortest people in school; did that have anything to do with it? I wasn’t sure.
It took me a while to harden my image up a bit more, but apparently that was somehow still not mask enough to Tammy and her band of thieves that there was something worth stealing from my home. Who knows how kids talk to each other and what they say. We did own one of the latest models of stereo colour TV’s. But that was not touched. (thankfully)
This all lead eventually to my Near Death Experience, but that will have to come later...to be continued...
