Francine Elizabeth - A-Z Blogging Challenge

Blogging from A to Z Challenge
April 2015
This month I will be participating in the “Blogging from A-Z Challenge”

What is it?

I will be Blogging everyday beginning on April First with a topic themed on something with the letterA, then on April second another topic with the letter B as the theme, and so on until I finish on April thirtieth with the theme based on the letter Z.   The theme of the day is the letter scheduled for that day.

My theme will be short fictional (well mostly fictional) stories about women.  Each woman’s name will begin with the appropriate letter of the alphabet for that day.
All of the women will have the common life experience of a loss of some type.
I invite you, Dear reader, to comment on how you interpret the loss.

Francine Elizabeth

August 28, 1965

Today was the hardest day of my life.  Even though I am only 17, I imagine that it will always be one of the hardest days of my life.    It’s hours later and the warmth of her soft skin on my bare chest lingers.

Funny, I was so afraid of the pain.  For the whole of the last three months I worried.  I listened to the others as they told stories of hours and hours of agony.   I would lay awake at night in fear until I cried myself to sleep, thinking how much I wanted it to be over. 

Before it happened I was thin, emaciated almost.  I wished I could put on some weight, actually.  People would always comment on how they couldn’t believe I was 17.  “You look like a twelve year old,” they would say.   

Actually, that’s why I was able to hide it for so long.  Six months had gone by before I told mom and daddy.  

J and I talked about it constantly before than.  He was scared.  

He said he loved me and all, but his mother and especially his father, well they wanted him to go college.  At first I was mad at him.  I guess I thought he would just say that of course we were going to get married.  

It’s what I  wanted.  I didn’t get it.  He said he loved me.  I just didn’t get it. 

I told mom first, of course.  She wasn’t as shocked as I thought she might have been.  She looked kind of sad actually.  I don’t know what she was thinking, she didn’t say much, but it looked like she was trying to figure things out.  

Daddy was so mad!  “How could you?”  “What’s wrong with you?”  “Is this how we raised you?”

“And what does J have to say about all of this?” he shouted. 

I stood there crying.  I kept saying “I’m sorry, daddy, I’m sorry.”

In the end, daddy decided that I was going to have to give it up. 

 “It’s best,” he said.  

“You’ll see, he said  it’s what’s best.”

I graduated with the rest of my class.  June 11, 1965.  No one knew.  I was barely showing.   I was terribly shy and didn’t have a lot of close friends.  Truthfully, not too many kids paid much attention to me.   I never even told my best friend Mary, though.

Mary and I, we usually hung out in the summertime.  Went for walks or bike rides.  But this summer she already had gotten a part time job.  She was going to go to Secretarial school in the fall.  That was a relief.  I wouldn’t have to make excuses about why I couldn’t hang out.  I was pretty vague, too, about what my plans were.   She kept asking and I kept saying that I wasn’t sure. 

J flew the coop.  He just stopped calling.  Good riddance. What a jerk!  I hate him! 

No one was in there with me when she came.   Just the nurse and doctor.  They kept giving me orders.  Sometimes they would shout “Don’t push, try not to push.”  Then after a while it was 

“Push, push.” “Come on now, you can do it, push, push!” 

“It’s a girl!" the doctor yelled.

Oh my god!  When it was over, I can’t explain the feeling. I felt a rush of desire.  I wanted to hold her, hold on to her forever.   They put her up on my chest for the briefest of moments and she wriggled and cried. Then they took her away.   I watched while they cleaned her up, and weighed and measured her.  “6 lbs 14 ounces,”  the nurse said.  “20” long,” she said.

They wrapped her in a flannel blanket and put the cap on her head.  The  one I had brought. 

“I brought two,” I said to the nurse.   “A pink one and a blue one”.    

“The hats,” I said.  “I made them myself.   Blue if it was a boy… a pink one if it was a girl.”
The nurse smiled at me kindly.

They were right. They were all right.  The pain is unbearable.  I don’t think it will ever go away.

Eve Lyn - Lost and Found Blogging From A-Z

Blogging from A to Z Challenge
April 2015
This month I will be participating in the “Blogging from A-Z Challenge”

What is it?

I will be Blogging everyday beginning on April First with a topic themed on something with the letterA, then on April second another topic with the letter B as the theme, and so on until I finish on April thirtieth with the theme based on the letter Z.   The theme of the day is the letter scheduled for that day.

My theme will be short fictional (well mostly fictional) stories about women.  Each woman’s name will begin with the appropriate letter of the alphabet for that day.
All of the women will have the common life experience of a loss of some type.
I invite you, Dear reader, to comment on how you interpret the loss.

Eve Lyn

The sign on the wall next to the door read “Finders” - “An Investigation and Location Service”.
After extensive googling and yahooing, I selected Finders because of their claim:   “We Care About Your Loss”.
I needed caring.
“Evelyn?" the young woman at the desk called out.  Since there were only two of us in the room and the other person was a he, I knew she was referring to me.
 I went up to the window.
“I think you might be looking for me?  But, it’s Eve Lyn, not Evelyn,” I said, noticing her name tag, which read “Lisa”.
How clever of my mother to make that little change in the spelling of a common name.  She told me that she thought it would set me apart from other girls named Evelyn.
Perhaps it did in some ways.  It certainly drew attention to me every time I had to correct my new teacher, on every first day of the new school year.
And so it went, on and on, all during my life.
"No, that’s Eve Lyn, not Evelyn. “
Sometimes, I wouldn’t bother.  If the person was someone I most likely would never see again, I would just stay Evelyn.
But today, they had to get it right.
I sometimes wonder if having an unconventional name affected me in a significant way.
From early on I  felt different.  But was it because of my name?  Perhaps it was one of those nature or nurture dilemmas.
Teachers would write comments on my report cards and mention it at conferences.
“She’s well, she’s a little shy,” they would say in a hushed voice.
“If she doesn’t come out of her shell, she is going to miss out on a lot.”  They would advise.
Had I missed out on a lot?
Anyway, now, along with my distinct name, physically, I was also quite noticeable.
Nearly six feet tall, I was a ginger with thick wavy red hair, fair skin, and a face dotted with tan freckles.
“Since this is your first time here, I need you to fill out this form, the receptionist said.”
The form had questions about family history and what the purpose of my appointment was.
“Why was I here today?”  Or rather the question should have been “How did I wind up here today?“
There wasn’t enough room on the form to totally explain why I was here today.
I handed the completed form to Lisa.  She looked it over and told me to take a seat.
I generally find it hard to sit still, some part of my body is always in motion.
While I waited, my anxiety intensified. I sat on the edge of the chair, one leg crossed over the other, kicking my top leg back and forth.
I reached down to touch the box, making sure it was still down there on the floor, by my side.
An old red tin box, it was lithographed in gold with Asian designs of women in kimonos and ornate pagodas.  It was filled with trifles and bits of clues hidden in odd novelties.
I had found it in the storage space above the garage while I was sorting through my mother’s effects. It was amongst old toys and other containers.
Strange, I had probably passed by that box dozens of times, looking for this or that.
That day there was a glint of rainbow light coming through the small window, playfully bouncing on that box.
When I took a closer look,  I noticed my name in tiny letters on a piece of masking tape stuck to the side of the box. “Eve Lyn” was written in faded black ink.
I moved an old doll carriage and a crate of unused mason jars out of the way to get the box down.
I had to tug on the top to get it off. Then I spent the next four hours examining the contents.
After pulling out some official looking papers, a baby hat, which was knitted in blue yarn, a hospital wrist band,  and a plain white legal sized envelope, I spotted the journal in the bottom of the box.
The book was leather bound in black with gilded page edges.  The front cover was embossed in gold lettering.
A Line A Day.
The diary had a latch with a key hole, but it was not locked.
I opened it to the first page.  I recognized my mother’s handwriting.  It was dated January 1965.  Underneath the date was my mother’s name, “Francine Elizabeth Padora”.
The receptionist was calling me,“Eve Lyn?” Mr. Spade will see you now.

Tomorrow:
F is for Francine Elizabeth

Dora - It’s The Season Blogging from A to Z Challenge

Blogging from A to Z Challenge
April 2015
This month I will be participating in the “Blogging from A-Z Challenge”

What is it?

I will be Blogging everyday beginning on April First with a topic themed on something with the letterA, then on April second another topic with the letter B as the theme, and so on until I finish on April thirtieth with the theme based on the letter Z.   The theme of the day is the letter scheduled for that day.

My theme will be short fictional (well mostly fictional) stories about women.  Each woman’s name will begin with the appropriate letter of the alphabet for that day.
All of the women will have the common life experience of a loss of some type.
I invite you, Dear reader, to comment on how you interpret the loss.

We had a weekly ritual.  My papa would pick me up from Sunday school and we would spend the next few hours together, just the two of us.  The first stop was Louie Streppone’s Ice Cream shop.  I would climb up on the bar stool and Mr. Streppone would always ask me the same question. “One scoop or two, young man?”
I would chuckle and say, “TWO!”
Chocolate on the bottom, vanilla on top.
Mr. Streppone saved a copy of the Sunday Times for papa.  The two men would discuss the day’s headlines while I savored each spoonful of Mrs. Streppone’s home made ice cream.
I would clink the long handled spoon against the tall soda fountain glass, scraping every last bit I could.
“Come on, pal, time to go.”
We lived in a small community in upstate New York.  Once we got out of town, my dad would pull off to the side of the road.  He would get out of the huge Packard four door sedan and I would slide over to sit behind the wheel.
Even though I was only 12 years old, papa thought I should know how to drive.  “Just in case of an emergency,” he would say.
“You never know when you might have to take over to be in the driver’s seat.”
How true that turned out to be.
Our final destination, before we would head home, was one of my favorite places.
Dora and her husband Schmuel, or Sam for short, owned and operated “Kramer’s Lakeside Manor Bungalow Colony and Kosher Kitchen”.
My great aunt Dora was my grandfather’s sister.  She was a short, plump, elderly lady with tightly permed gray curls.  She always wore what was commonly referred to as a “shmattah”.
In essence, it was a sleeveless housecoat,  with buttons down the front and large pockets on either side. That’s the way I remember her, standing at the kitchen table, in her shmattah,  stirring the cracker mixture for her lighter than air Matzo balls.
Papa would tell me that Dora was quite the beauty in her youth.
“She wore the latest fashions,” he said.
“She was dramatic and glamorous.”
At least she was in papa’s young eyes.  He recalled how she loved to go out dancing and would wear a sparkly tiara on top of her perfectly coiffed hair.
As soon as we came into the cabin,  Aunt Dora, who was already in her 80’s, would complain to my father.
“Manny,  Sam is fooling around with that chippie in bungalow number 2.”
“I know it!” she would cry.
Sam, who was a tall distinguished handsome man, was almost a dozen years younger than Dora and did indeed have an eye for the ladies.
When we visited, which was in the mid 1950s, the resort was run down and in desperate need of repair, like Dora, a faded queen.
Sam and Dora lived in one of the playhouse sized bungalows.  
The main building was a Victorian style manor house with clapboard siding.   It had a large staircase leading up to the veranda.  As you passed through the French double doors, the dining room was on one side and the lounge on the other.
I would imagine what it must have looked like in its prime.   I could picture large crystal chandeliers majestically hanging from the 12 foot ceilings in the dining room.  I could almost hear the clinking of glasses, and the lively dinner time conversations.
But, by then, the room only held a few wooden tables and chairs.
The “lounge” which probably doubled as a dance hall, had a raised bandstand.  In my mind I saw couples swaying in time to the big band era music.
All that was left in the “lounge”, though, was an old ping pong table.
Sam wanted to sell the place.
In fact the last time we visited them, my father, who was the Kramer’s attorney, had drawn up the papers for the sale of the property.
I will never forget that day.
Dora was sitting out on the stoop, just staring out at the lake.
“Where’s Sam?” papa asked.
“He left me, Manny,” she said softly.
I told him I wouldn’t sign.
“It’s the season.”
”We have to be here when they come for the season.”