The Storm That Lived Outside

This last weekend I attended the ANWA 21^st Annual Writers Conference. I sat near a lady who looked about my mother's age. She asked about my book I had written and I told her it was about me living with Congenital Rubella Syndrome.

She jumped from her chair and came over to hug me. She revealed how she had the German measles during the time she delivered her baby and how the hospital isolated her because the German measles was contagious. She was shocked that I had survived though the German measles so early in my mother’s pregnancy.

Last night at three in the morning I felt warmth encircled me as I walked down the dark walkway to the bathroom. That conversation I had with that lovely lady two days ago lingered in my mind.  Her story brought a peace as I envisioned my mother pregnant with me. I was startled with thoughts of how the German measles came through the back door and entered the womb that should have shield me from any harm. Thoughts of how it could have done more damage than it did. I could have made me mentally challenge, completely deaf, and caused so many other dreadful problems that could have change my life even more than it did.

I have been richly blessed. Even though I only have vision in one eye; I can still see my children; I can drive, and function like anyone else.

I have witness over the years mothers trying to get the right amount of rest, eat healthy, and make sure to take care of the unborn child that is growing inside them.

How horrible it must have been for my mother to deal with this awful disease that was destroying her baby. She couldn’t take a pill, get more rest or eat healthier to make the German measles leave her body.

As I walked back to my bedroom I thought about how my mother’s desire to protect me from harm was one of millions of trials she had to deal with in her life. I slipped back into bed and pulled the covers to protect me from the chill in the air. I thought as I rested my head on my pillow that my mother tried to protect me, from the storm that lived outside the walls of the womb that was under attack from the horrible decease named the German measles.

Poems I wrote in my youth.

Understanding

 I do not understand

   Why friendships are so expensive?

   Why money attract a friendship?

   Why jealously is so famous?

But most of all I do not understand

  Why people have to argue,

   and always have to fight.

   Year after year hurt people lives 

   with anger and lies.

What I understand most are relationships

   With true love and happy times,

   faith with in the heart and,

   A smile that last a life time.

 

Written by Pamela Shelton 9-19-1982

 

 

I entered this next poem in a state poetry contest and won first place.

Who?

Who am I?

Not a person you see

and know.

I am an actor,

choosing my parts carefully.

Bright, friendly, happy

are the characters I play.

Your world is my stage, and

it is so easy to play my roles,

deny the real me.

I have an impregnable wall

Behind which I hide myself.

Sadness, despair, and hate

Raise their ugly heads

And parade my inadequacy

to the world.

Some actors are fulfilled,

someday I hope to be.

I'm not sure to have

a "real myself" to be.

Written by Pamela Shelton 11-1982

 

The poem below I wrote during a difficult time in my youth.

 

ME

Please God,

Help me never to rush the years,

and let my heart remain a little girls.

So that it may know

only April tears

with tiny rosebuds dreams

deep in it's ferns

Let my life be a brand new day

where ever I go

help me to keep my tip toes

Eagerness and be a place

Where loveliness may grow.

I guess one wish could cover

Every other.

If you would just help me

grow up to be

the kind of daughter

that my dad and mother were

dreaming of

when they first ordered me.

 

Written by Pamela Shelton 6-1982

 

Life!

 

Romeo...where did you go?

Sherlock Holmes who are you investigating?

Santa how many cookies did you eat Christmas Eve?

 

Life is filled with questions…guesses and thoughts of what next.

How did I end up where I am?

Why did my mother and father have to die?

Why did my mother have the German Mealses while pregnant with me?

Why do I have to live with CRS (Congenital Rubella Syndrome)?

Why am I blind in my right eye?

Why did I have five children and not 27?

Why do I love to soak my feet in a wintry creek?

How many of us picture ourselves differently than how we feel deep inside?

I know for me. I see myself as a sensitive soul who can’t stand the sight of an elderly person with run down clothes and their head drooping.

Each tick of the clock brings a new life, a death, a break up, and true love embraced in someone’s life.

I love how the wind blows against my face and brings a gentle sound to my ears.

I love how my flowers reach for the sky for a new adventure with the sun.

I love how my grandson’s smile reaches his ears
and a simultaneously giggle fills the room.

I love it when my granddaughter lays her head on my chest and sleeps peacefully.

My questions, thoughts, and guesses are what keep my life full of wonderful adventures.

I’m thankful for my vision.
 I’m thankful for the opportunity to be one of the few who survived from
Congenital Rubella Syndrome.

 I’m thankful for the time I had with my parents.

I’m thankful for the opportunity to write a novel.
It made me strip every fabric of my skin; it made me unveil my pain, my trials, but most of all it HELPED ME to feel a warmth of gratitude.

 It gave me a firm foundation that anyone can survive ANYTHING.

Mom I Miss You!

Ever since 2006 the date February 8th, chills my heart, a day that brings a memory of my mother resting peacefully on her bed. I can still recall the coldness of her skin when I gently pulled off her watch. I tried to block out any thought that my mother has gone home. A policeman touched my shoulder and brought me back to real life and his question pierced me with pain. “Is she your mother?"  My response escaped from my eyes as the tears cascaded down my face. Tears that flooded the room as I witness them carry her out.

Daily I try to replace that horrible memory with past experiences that have brought warmth. My manuscript is filled with her failures, secrets and long buried hurts from our dysfunctional family.  Stories I have edited and relived each time I read them. They have strengthened and given me the insight that life is a precious gift from God. I hope my story will bring as much comfort to others as it has to me.

Mom I miss you. Mom, thank you for giving me life.