Stories about hope

My Mom and Dad met while Dad was serving in the army. 

They met at church, and he was smitten with my tall vivacious, talkative mother who had long legs & a big toothy smile.  

My Dad was 7 years her junior. She didn’t bother to find that fact out until it was too late.

The story is, when he would take a date out to dinner, spending his hard-earned money on a nice meal, his date would eat like a bird, and He would be in despair. He spent way too much money for a girl not to eat. When he asked mom out to eat, she thoroughly enjoyed everything, eating every bite. He had finally found his match. Ruth loved food as much as he did, and wasn’t the least bit concerned about her diet on their dates.  

A sharp dresser. She was a wiz at sewing and she always had impeccable taste. Those who live on the East Coast learn certain fashion rules that were not to be broken, and she nor her children were to break them. More on that later. 

Cecil was a mix of Scottish & English he had red hair & ruddy skin with a generous number of freckles scattered about. Mom was of English/German descent and her skin was a lovely ivory color. 

We Frost kids came out basically clear of melanin, except for the freckles. We had lots of the freckles. I, in fact won the freckle lottery. 

My brother Robert, older than me by 10 years. Had a shock of red hair & freckles. He grew TALL like his parents. Reaching 6’5”. Musically inclined he played guitar, piano and sang – oh man could he sing. He also loved roller coasters. I still hear his laughter when we would go to Magic Mountain, and I was old enough to ride them together. 

My eldest sister Dori 8 years older than me. Dori was gifted in the kitchen and at the sewing machine. She was flat out talented. She was particularly good with children; she could tell stories that were full of all the imagery, excitement and wonder that a young mind would want. 

Five years older than me is the next sister, Christina. Cricket as my dad called her, was a spunky little strawberry blonde. She loved laughter. She is a friend to all, a generous soul who loves to give. She tenderly creates things to give that are truly a blessing. She is also quite talented in music, sewing, cooking. She is one of the strongest most determined people I have ever known. 

Rebecca was daughter number 3 and 3 and half years older than me. She had a cute button nose, with a smattering of freckles. She had long light brown hair and was able to actually get somewhat of a tan. She was my dad’s – no doubt about it. Becky loved music, animals & babies. She was fascinated by native American culture as well. 

I was the last, the hen’s best effort (mom’s favorite thing to say). I loved all things that my siblings loved. I also loved all the things the neighbor boys loved. Including dirt. I loved being outside.

Being the youngest, I think my mom was a little worn out with Girl Scouts, piano lessons, dance lessons, sewing lessons. I did get to go to summer camp and learned to do all the outside things.  

Before I was born our family moved across the country several times. Two of my older sisters are true California girls as they were born in Southern California. I was born on the East Coast however, we moved back to Southern California before I was 4 years old. This time we landed in “The Valley”. 

When living in the San Fernando Valley lacking melanin certainly made you stand out, but not in a good way. All the cool kids had Farrah Faucette feathered hair, suntans, and strands of puka shells. They wore OP T-shirts. The jeans were Dittos or Chemin-de-fers & the shoes were flip flops or Vans. 

As for the Frost kids? We weren’t allowed to wear white before Memorial Day 

#BecauseEastCoastRulesOfFashion

That doesn’t mean we didn’t try to blend in. 

Our family of 7 lived high on the top of a hill with glorious views. In the backyard of our two-story house, we had an above ground pool (the doughboy) & and a patio with a roof that was perfect for sunbathing (read sunburning). 

Floating in the pool or laying out on the patio roof, is how we spent hours trying to get some color, so we didn’t look so out of place. 

Nothing more out of place than a girl with fiery red hair and skin the color of a tomato. But I tried. 

You could get to the patio roof one of two ways. Climb the olive tree or climb out my sister’s window. I loved climbing the olive tree. My sisters went through their windows. 

Dad loved gardening. Roses were his specialty. He had a beautiful rose garden in our Canoga Park backyard. However, he truly enjoyed planting fruit trees and flowers of every sort.  

There were several posts that held our patio roof up and at the bottoms of the posts Dad planted bougainvillea. Bougainvillea with their rich red/magenta hues are lovely to look at but a bear to keep tame.

After he passed away, the yard work was divided up among us kids. If you drew the short straw and you were assigned to “trim” the bougainvillea – you had to prepare yourself to get stabbed and scratched by gazillions of thorns. 

On the bright side, bougainvillea brought a host of winged guests to the yard. As we laid out on the patio roof, slathered in baby oil, glorious butterflies 🦋 would often float above and around us.

We also had hummingbirds visit on a regular basis. All of these winged creatures were welcomed visitors. Well, almost all.

I did not have any allergies as a kid. I would get one really bad cold a year and would inevitably develop croup or another upper respiratory issue. I did get my tonsils out to resolve constant ear infections. After that, not much aside from braces for awful teeth. 

My sisters on the other hand, they seemed to have “all the things”. 

One of my sisters in particular, would get horrible nose bleeds. (that’s another story) The story here is, she was allergic to bees. 

Deathly allergic.

Our mom often reminded her that “one more sting and it was off to the hospital or worse…”

Being 5 years her junior, I idolized her. She had strawberry blond hair and was able to rock a feathered hair cut that went perfectly with her puka shells. Knowing my idol was deathly afraid of bees often scared me as much as they scared her. 

Bees became my minuscule enemy.  A nightmare with wings. All dressed in a fuzzy little coat of yellow & black.

One summer day we were laying out on the roof. The radio playing loud enough to hear the classic rock but soft enough as to not awaken mom who worked nights at a local hospital. 

All the sudden several bees showed up. They surrounded us. 

Death on wings.

My sister, so terrified of being stung, jumped to her feet, and ran, flat-out-ran, off the roof. Over the bougainvillea she went. 

She jumped so far, she almost landed safely in in the above the ground pool. 

Almost.

Instead of landing in the pool, she landed on the grass below. A terrible thud & then silence. 

She could do nothing as the searing pain from what felt like broken ankle was overtaking her. She also smacked both wrists on the ground. One wrist was worse than the other.  

I climbed down that Olive tree as fast as I could to see if she was alright. 

She was not in fact alright at all. She didn’t scream out loud. It was a silent scream. 

The silence was so much worse than actual screaming. Tears, sweat, her face so pale it made me feel physically ill. I didn’t know what to do. 

I’ve only seen her one other time in that much pain and my heart was in my stomach at the thought of it. It was bad. I was sick for her. 

Thankfully our oldest sister had the presence of mind to rescue her from the heap on the lawn. She had me get a set of crutches from the garage, got her up, got her inside and got ice on her ankle and wrists. 

With our mom still asleep, and my eldest sister knew that the other might need actual medical attention.  Or maybe at least be able to explain why she was now using our dads’ old crutches. My two sisters devised a plan. 

You may be asking, “Why couldn’t she just tell our mom she ran off the roof?” There is a lot to unpack there so I’ll just say “Because it wouldn’t go over very well”.

So out of necessity and to avoid a lengthy discussion (read fight) about what might seem ridiculous-fearful-insane teenage behavior, they proceeded to create the great bumble bee coverup.

The eldest sister took one of her younger sisters’ shoes and dragged it through the grease on the garage floor. It was a dramatic streak of grease. It looked as if someone had actually slipped in the grease on the floor and fell. 

To continue the support of the cover-up a pair of her jeans (that were NOT Dittos) were also smeared through the garage floor grease. 

I’m not sure how they planned to explain how my sister got the jeans off with two injured wrists and a severely injured ankle, but they went along and did it. It was an elaborate plan and seemed to them an excellent alternative to “I ran off the roof because I didn’t want to get stung”. 

The story had some inconsistencies, and it was hard to remember all the details when mom peppered them with questions later in the day. 

As with all great cover-ups. The truth eventually came out. I don’t remember anyone getting grounded. I couldn’t tell you if there was any yelling. I know that moms have a way of figuring things out. 

Dad used to watch cartoons with us kids on Saturday mornings. His favorite was Coyote and Roadrunner. 

I remember when Roadrunner would run across the road high above the ground, there was always a gap. A cliff where he would stop midair and turn around waiting for Willie E. Coyote. When Coyote would finally catch up, he would also stop, he would look at Roadrunner and then realize he was in trouble. 

This realization that he has run out of road, inevitably leads to him holding up a sign that says “Bye” 

This is what I actually see when I close my eyes and think about the day my sister fled the bees by running off the roof.  

At the time it was not funny. I was really worried about her. It is, however, funny now. Although I’m not sure she would agree. I think we both CAN agree on one thing. 

Laughter is medicine for the soul. 

Laughter is a gift from our Heavenly Father Himself. It heals old wounds and binds up the memory of tough times. Tough times like are like sunburns, Bougainvillea & bee stings. They burn, scratch, and poke at us but eventually we fight them off or outrun them.

As I look back at all the things we went through, I get tears in with my eyes. I am not particularly sad. Sometimes I laugh pretty hard at the things we did.

We survived, and now somehow, we can laugh.

Laughter is good medicine.

 “A joyful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit dries up the bones.”

Proverbs 17:22