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.

My Doctor Visit

Yesterday as I sat across the room from my Dermatologist I observed his pen a paper as he scribbled down notes of answers to questions he was asking me. You know, the questions like have you ever had children? Is there heart disease in your family? Then I finally spilled out the five words that always seem to scare or shock a doctor. “I have Congenital Rubella syndrome (CRS)." He dropped his pen and his jaw quickly went to the floor. He looked at me and said, “You are one smart lady and you have had five kids?” The sentence that came out of his mouth next was words I have heard several times over the years, by other doctors. He crossed his legs and grabbed his chin. “Wow, I have never met anyone like you before. He looked at me like I was some weird freak from a circus. Then he jumped up pressed a button near the door-frame  A nurse and an intern came in, but right before they did, he asked me to not tell them that I had CRS. He said with a firm smile. Let’s let them guess as to what you have. I gladly agree to entertain the doctor’s game.

The intern looked at my eyes as the doctor said, “You will never ever met someone like her in your lifetime again.” I felt like a specimen on a table ready to be cut so they could find out what was wrong with me. The nurse and the intern looked closely at my blind eye. The doctor motioned with his hands. “It’s caused from a rash and it can do horrible damage to a fetus, if not kill the fetus. This young lady is blind in her right eye, was diagnose with mircocephaly, but she is very intelligent. She was born with a heart murmur and she was hospitalized for months after she after birth. Then he said. “Remember… you will never, in your lifetime meet someone like her again.”

The doctor asked them if they knew what I had and both of them shook their heads no. HA… they couldn't figure me out. The nurse and the intern left the room and the doctor smiled as he looked at my forehead and said, looks like you have cancer we need to cut it.” Finally after he spoke I felt normal again. He spoke to me like he does with all his other patients’ and I didn't worry about the cancer, because that is what anyone can have written in the chart, but to have CRS is not one thing I know any of his other patients have in their medical folder.

Even though, deep inside my soul, I know I’m not an ordinary person. I came from a mold that finally broke when the MMR shot was born back in 1969. I am different; I am a person who doesn’t feel whole or equal to anyone, but I tell myself there are others who feel just like me. Even though they don’t have a physical appearance that makes them feel different, they can still feel out of place, not feeling like they belong anywhere or with anyone.

I have learned to look at my deformity as a reminder that I survived and won the fight with Rubella. 

How We See Ourselves

I think all females hope for a flatter stomach, skinny legs, beautiful smile, and sparkling eyes. I know for me I wish I had the sparkling eyes. I have noticed over the years and since writing my novel that I take my appearance as a measure of my confidence. When I drop a dish on the floor because of not realizing it was placed on the counter to the right of me. My thoughts turn to how horrible I am for not seeing it before it hit the floor. It breaks my confidence and waxes my thoughts of ever feeling normal. At first I tell myself how clumsy I am, then while I sweep or pick up the pieces I wonder how I could of avoided from it hitting the floor.

 

I have lost count of how many things I have swept or accidentally brushed off the counter, but items I can remember are a microwave oven plate, a pitcher for the blender (my mother-laws), four bowls, three plates and a large pizza that I had just baked. My son wasn't happy when I told him pizza wouldn't be on the menu for dinner.

Being blind in one eye has hindered me in many ways, but at the same time has strengthen me to see how valuable vision is. This journey with limited vision has helped me to go the extra mile and learn different ways to function as a mother.

Not a day goes by when I'm cooking for my family that I don't think twice before I put something on the counter to the right of me.

Even though I have had to pick up lots of broken pieces over the years I have continually told myself I'm not broken.

 

Remember you are valuable. No flaws should ever pull you down and destroy the person you are meant to be...We are shining stars.

Summer of 1993

My journey through life has been filled with questions, lots of questions. I wondered if I asked for them in heaven before I was born. Experiences of being blind as a baby, toddler, and then after I had three beautiful children. Not able to see. Not able to see a smile that stretches across my children faces. Not able to see if there is a stain on their clothing or if the girls had appropriate outfits on. 

The summer of 1993, will be a summer I would never want to relive, even though I learned a great deal .A summer that taught me how valuable it is to see. To be able to see if there is a bug on your food or to look into your children's eyes.To be able to see the sunset or rain that I could smell. It was the first time ever in my life I craved to stare at my self in the mirror, and be reminded of the deformed eye that was a product from Congenital Rubella Syndrome. My deformed eye always awaken me to believe that I'm a one eyed freak. It was a nick name I was given as a child.  I hoped and prayed  that the surgery I had would help the glaucoma that has pierced my life. Daily eye drops that sometimes seemed like a waste. The challenge of making sure I aimed the eye drops seemed like a over rated trial, but one I deal with daily.