https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/deep/awakening-in-the-deep-end/widget/video.html
I am 48 years old now and it is my understanding and best recollection that when I was I was 4 years old I was walking through the woods with my uncle Bob when I fell to the ground in severe pain in my hip unable to walk. He carried me out of the woods back to his house where my parents took me to the emergency room. The doctors checked me out, performed x-rays apparently At birth my left leg began developing a rare and at the time an incurable degenerative bone disorder called Legg Calve Perthes, actually one of the worst cases they had ever seen.
I remember the doctor putting me in an A-frame cast that weighed about 60 pounds. It was very discouraging for me at the time. I can recall my Aunt Marcia and Uncle Danny gave me a little New Testament bible and begun telling me about Gods love. I memorized John 14:1-6 and remember reciting that passage over and over again to myself trying to make sense of my situation.
At 5 I was also diagnosed with a lazy eye so the doctors put a patch over my one good eye attempting to get the bad eye to work. Well, I can recall one cool afternoon being outside in front of my home playing. I had my Matchbox cars and across the street I saw my neighbor Paul sitting on his front porch with his face in his hands crying. I stumbled over to him with my crutches. He looked up at me and I asked him what was the matter and he responded in tears you wouldn’t understand. I quoted John 14:1-6
“Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know. Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way? Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.”
When I stopped talking he just sat there looking at me dumbfounded because here is this little kid in leg braces and crutches with a patch over one eye telling him life isn't so bad, and then said “thanks Jeffrey, I needed to hear that”.
When I was six years old and pretty much until I was 8 I spent the better part of that time in the Shriner’s Hospital for Crippled Children in Springfield Massachusetts. It was an interesting experience. While there I underwent a long surgery on my left hip that put me in a body cast for 9 months and after the second or third surgery was told that I would probably never walk. My left hip had completely degenerated from the ball to two inches down the femur.
When the doctors finally came to the conclusion that there was nothing more they could do I was released from the hospital and put in leg braces.
The next several years were a blur. It’s difficult to explain. Almost as if that period was in black and white watching someone else’s life. I remember tidbits. One of interest was my dog; Whimpy. He was a Labrador retriever and very rambunctious. My father was in the Rainbow vacuum sales business and he traded some portion of the purchase price with a customer for the dog. My mom hated that dog. He was so crazy that my parents kept him chained up in the back yard. He really was the dumbest dog. Every evening he would get loose from his chains and it never failed that my father would have to come out of the house in the middle of the night due to him crying so loud from his entanglements with porcupines. My poor dad could be found standing out in the yard in his underwear in six inches of snow with pliers trying to get the quills out of the Whimpy's nose. The final straw for dad though was when the dog jumped through the basement window to get into the house covered in mud and ran across my mom's vintage gold colored Sofa and the havock he wreaked in the house trying to capture him. My dad gave him away that afternoon to some couple in the parking lot of the general store at the end of our street.
One of my other recollections while in my caste was sliding down the stairs from the second floor to the first at our home in Whindam, NH. My mom had to repaint the stairs about once a week as a result. The reality was that getting up and down the stairs was no easy feat when your legs were in braces .
Another little event was when Dad thought it would be a good idea if he wrapped my caste in a plastic bag he could allow me to float in a raft in the swimming pool. unfortunately the cast sunk with me attached. Dad had to rescue me off the bottom of the pool. That was a funny incident. My mom could have killed him for that little tryst. My caste nevertheless got completely soaked and as you can imagine was a 100 pound chunk of soggy plaster. I believe it was about that time that the doctors switched me from an A frame caste to A frame braces.
Soon thereafter winter came and in January 1976 immediately following a major blizzard my family moved us to Florida from New Hampshire. My dad decided that rather than renting a U-Haul he would purchase an old horse truck, loaded it up with everything we owned and left. That decision turned out to be a wise one. He sold the truck upon arriving to Florida for more than he paid for it.
I liked Florida and I remember being outside of our condo one Saturday morning while a gentleman approached me and began to talk to me about Jesus. I told him that I already knew all about him. I took my worn out little New Testament out of my pocket and showed it to him. My life would never be the same. It turned out that Jim was the person responsible for bringing children to a little church in town and invited me to Sunday school that Sunday. My parents happily allowed me to go since it would allow them a little rest on Sunday morning. I was thrilled.
Within a very short period of time Jim had me leading songs at the front of the bus. I joined him every Saturday in his visits to all the children to Sunday school. Within a short period of time we were running 2 busses full of children. I was still in leg braces but I got around as well as any of the other children I knew.
In 1977 we went to my annual check-up at the Shriner’s Hospital in Miami and again had the same prognosis. The doctors made it clear that even if I ever did walk again that my hip would be so deformed that I would have a severe limp and struggle later in life with arthritis.
The most intriguing part of this is that children rarely listen when adults tell them they cannot do something. This is a part of the story that I am grateful for not listening to adults regarding that matter. Something else was working in my life. Faith.
If you think that it was easy getting myself up in the morning with that disease, think again. My legs were in braces spread eagle. I had hoped and prayed that I would someday walk and new that if I had faith that I would.
Every day at school and the playgrounds was difficult for me. Children can be very cruel and I used to get beat up almost every day just because I was different. I tried to stand my ground but most of the time I couldn’t move fast enough with that big leg brace on so many days I came home from school with either black eyes or cuts and scrapes. It was pretty rough.
I remember one day on the playground a few of the neighborhood kids ganged up on me and decided to beat me silly because they could. The boys knocked me to the ground and one of the boys thought it would be funny to take is pants down and make me smell his but. I didn’t like that prospect and grabbed the nearest stick and as he stuck his bare backside in my face I quickly inserted the stick. He screamed with terror. He ran home telling me he was going to tell. I replied go ahead.
I went home pretty bruised and told my mom what happened. That night his mom showed up at our door threatening to sue because he had to have the stick removed at the emergency room. My mom gave her a piece of her mind about the fact that her boys and others had been terrorizing me for the last 2 years. Then my mom had me come out and talk to the lady.
When I came in the room and she saw that I was in leg braces and heard what her boy and others had been doing to me she was livid. The following evening, her son was dragged up the stairs to our door by his ear and ordered by his dad to apologize to me. He made him swear to never touch me again. I never saw him out of his house again until they moved away. Apparently the other boys faced similar fates from their parents once they found out how they had been treating me.
In 1978 we made the four hour trek back to Miami for my next check-up and something miraculous took place. The doctors couldn’t figure it out. They ordered more x-rays and tests. After 2 days of tests and x-rays the doctor came into the room we were waiting in and told us that I don’t Have to wear the leg braces any more and that some how I was cured.
He said my left hip was actually better than my right hip. He told us that I would have to go through a year of physical therapy to learn to walk. He then took the braces off my legs and told us we were free to go. I said ok, I picked up my braces, jumped off the exam table and walked out of the room. He cancelled the physical therapy.
On the way back from Miami dad and mom asked if there was anything I want to do, now that I can walk. I said yes. “I want t ride a bike” so we stopped at Service Merchandise on the way home and I picked out a nice yellow one with a banana seat.
When we got home my dad put the bike together and I anxiously waited for him to complete it. We then went outside to the sidewalk in front of the Condo. I’ll never forget the feeling the first time he pushed me off. I made it the entire length of the sidewalk roughly 100 yards. I fell down in the grass and cried. He walked over and told me that I’m going to fall. It’s a part of learning. So I guess you could say I learned how to ride a bike pretty much the same day I learned to walk. I was 10 years old.
That’s a bit of a reminder. Never tell me it cannot be done. I won’t buy it! You see… children don’t know it can’t be done only that they haven’t done it yet. Any one who tells me miracles don’t’ happen any more have never met me. I am walking, talking proof that they do.
The next year or two are difficult to remember clearly. I was a good boy but had been mixed up with the wrong crowd. I began experimenting with alcohol and pot and a few of the girls in the neighborhood. I also started stealing my parent’s cigarettes. By the time I was in 6th grade I had already been smoking daily. I got caught several times in school with cigarettes in my locker. I did join the school news team but that didn’t last long since I had to be there an hour before school which was next to impossible since I had to walk my younger brother to school a mile the opposite direction each morning. It made me late for school almost every day.
It upset me to the point that I decided to not show up for homeroom each day and decided to hang out at the baseball dugouts in the morning before school and smoke weed with the druggies.
My dad always kept my hair cut short so I never quite fit in with the druggies. I also was a little too rambunctious for the well behaved children to want to be around me much although I was very charismatic and got along with almost everyone. Well, Almost everyone.
There were a number of bullies in my school. I decided that I wouldn’t take their harassment any more so I ended up in a few high profile playground fights. I usually held my own but there was a couple of big kids that took great pleasure in making me bruise or bleed.
One day I skipped the first half of school and got caught by the principle coming back on campus. I got paddled hard that day by both the principle and my dad.
Back then corporal punishment was the order of the day. The principal was allowed to spank with a paddle. I believe now that we should go back to that based on how I see some children walk all over their teachers and parents. Any time I got paddled at school my dad told the principal to make sure to let him know how many swats I got because he would wake me up and double those swats when he got home from work. I remember many nights lying in bed waiting for my dad crying until he came home knowing I was in for it.
My dad finally had enough of me getting into trouble at school and decided to put me into private school. I guess he thought that it would be better to have a tighter structure. That turned out to be very detrimental to my life at the time. I didn’t need more structure what I did need was a more meaningful and free environment that my mind could be challenged and at the same time expand on my creativity. Back then they just wanted to medicate you if you were different.
During that period of time I witnessed a lot of inconsistencies on the part of my dad between what he said I should do and what he did. He also never really allowed me to open up to him without repercussion. So I refused to disclose my true feelings and never had an outlet to express myself.