Dedication
To my Stevens sisters
who were,
and continue to be
HOW THIS BOOK CAME TO BE
Some years ago I was watching television when Nancy Grace showed a clip on her TV show of a prominent judge beating his teenage daughter. She strongly conveyed her horror at the images and spoke convincingly of the necessity of stopping this man and bringing him promptly to justice. Seeing this segment on her show was a major turning point for me. Although it was painful to watch, it was also strangely healing as well. You see, I was the girl in the video. Although my father wasn't a judge, he was a well-educated professional who had routinely done to me what I was now seeing on my television set.
I had been told over and over again that I was such a "bad girl" that I constantly needed to be disciplined. Spankings were necessary for a person like me who couldn't seem to learn any other way. I was "bad" when I was a child and got even worse when I became a teenager. I was never too old for a good spanking, because I hadn't yet learned how to behave. I wasn't being beaten; I was being disciplined. Poor, uneducated parents who lived in trailers beat their children. Parents with college degrees who lived in the suburbs "disciplined" theirs. I believed that lie for a long time.
Another lie I regularly had been told was that I would never amount to "a hill of beans". I would never finish anything I started, support myself financially, marry well, or make any kind of life for myself. In short, I wasn't worth very much. I believed that lie, too.
I am telling my story so that those who have been told the same lies can see that life can change. We don't have to live in the lies. There is hope for those who have been scarred by physical and emotional abuse. There is truth to be found by those who have been fed lies by parents, teachers, co-workers, and perhaps even religious leaders. This truth will not be found by denying what happened, excusing it, or ignoring it. It begins with facing it.
When I began to face the lies and substitute truth in their place, I began to heal. I am much more than "a hill of beans". I am made in the image of God, and this is His story as well as mine.
BEGINNINGS
THE LIE: "You were trouble from the very day you were born."
THE TRUTH: " … You created my inmost being;
You knit me together in my mother's womb.
I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
Your works are wonderful,
I know that full well." Psalm 139: 13-14
Just as many babies do, I arrived in the middle of the night. The way my mother told the story, I came into the world at the most inconvenient time possible—during a terrible blizzard when the streets were covered with snow and ice. That's to be expected in the suburbs of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in late February. It could hardly be seen as my fault. Yet somehow, it was.
My mother often told me how my father returned home from the hospital after my birth and could only manage the raging wind and thick coat of ice on the front stoop by getting down on his hands and knees to crawl into the house. Of course, one of the neighbors saw this and immediately spread the story around town that my father had come home so drunk from the local tap room (bar) that he couldn't even get up the front step. I had ruined my family's reputation before I even got home from the hospital!
From the beginning, I was the "different" one. "We don't know how you got into this family," Mother would say. "You're not anything like the rest of the family." Everyone else in my immediate family was far-sighted. I would turn out to be near-sighted. It was just the first of many signs that I didn't really belong.
Another early theme of my childhood was a sense of constant confinement. In fact, my earliest memory is of sitting in my high chair, wanting to get out. I was old enough to sit up well, but not yet talking. Trapped behind that aluminum tray and unable to move very much, I amused myself with looking at my reflection in the tray. I can still remember what I looked like as I gazed at myself, fascinated by my ability to change the image as I alternately smiled and frowned.
My first home was a row house on George Street in Norristown, Pennsylvania. Although my brother often said that Norristown is a good place to be from, I have mostly good memories of my years on George Street. We lived next door to an eccentric, but kindly old gentleman whom I knew only as Mr. Hallman. Mr. Hallman always seemed to enjoy spending time with me, telling me stories and showing me all the interesting objets d'art in his house. When he died, he left my parents some very nice pieces of furniture. Among them was a beautiful bookcase with glass windows and numerous hidden drawers. According to family lore, Mr. Hallman had told my parents that inside many of those drawers was money that he had put aside for our family. Of course, by the time the bookshelf actually came to us, there was no money to be found. My father was sure that someone had found out about the money and taken it before he could get the furniture. I, for one, have never been sure that there was ever any money in those hidden drawers. Mr. Hallman was always full of good stories (many of them apocryphal) and this may have been one of them. No matter, the windfall that was supposed to come to our family never materialized. My father talked about it for years. To him, this was the way things always worked out. Our family never had any money and we never would!
The 1950s were the heyday for small towns like Norristown. There was the Norris Theatre, where children could see two or three cartoons, the current newsreel, and the feature film as many times as they showed it that day—all for one price! I could walk with my mother to the local five-and-dime store, Spillane's, just a few blocks away on Marshall Street.
When the family needed to do some serious shopping, we headed "downtown" to Main Street.
As far as I was concerned, Main Street in Norristown was the center of the universe. One of my grandmothers bought everything she needed at Friedman's New York Store. (That was its name, even though it was located in Norristown. Nobody ever referred to it simply as Friedman's. Everybody always used the full name, Friedman's New York Store.) My father and brother got their good clothes from Gilbert's Men's Store. There was a Woolworth's, complete with a lunch counter serving comfort food all through the day. My personal favorite, however, was Chatlin's, one of those wonderful old time department stores which carried everything from clothing, jewelry, accessories, shoes and toys as well as scout uniforms and supplies. I loved walking on the old creaking floor boards and can still remember that distinctive smell of freshly-oiled hardwood floors of Chatlin's Department Store.
Although the shopping was good, the best part of growing up in Norristown was the food. The entire Philadelphia area is a treasure trove of good eating and Norristown was no exception.
This was long before strict food labeling and health-conscious choices became standard fare. Our only concern back in those days was taste, and judged only by that criterion, Norristown led the world! My personal favorite was the "zep"—short for zeppelin—a sandwich resembling that dirigible airship commonly known as a blimp. Zeps are known by many other names: hoagies, grinders, hero or sub sandwiches. They contain a variety of ingredients such as meats, cheese, tomatoes, pickles, olives, onions, etc. They come in a long, oval-shaped bun. Back then, one could get a zep at any deli, lunch counter, or family restaurant in Norristown, but I remember one place in particular where we usually got ours. That was Borzillo's on Main Street. Borzillo's was a well-known Italian bakery which had absolutely heavenly bread. I have ordered hoagies from many other places since then, but I have never found any even approaching those delicious ones we used to