Category Archives: family memoirs

Twin Abnormalities

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One of the most startling photos of my twin and me was taken when we were about 14 years old. It is included in my newly published memoir. The size difference between us is so dramatic that you have to see it to believe it. It’s almost laughable.

My sister and I are likely a case of Twin-Twin Transfusion Syndrome (TTTS) which is “a prenatal condition in which twins share unequal amounts of the placenta’s blood supply, resulting in the two fetuses growing at different rates.”

My parents never had official confirmation that their twins had that anamoly since ultrasound screenings and prenatal echocardiograms back in the 1950’s were non-existent. The tools had not yet been developed to diagnose such a condition.

According to the Fetal Care Institute in St. Louis, “the imbalance of blood flow starts to affect the the heart function in one or both babies.  This is seen in abnormal blood flow in the umbilical cords or hearts of the twins.” http://bit.ly/1dSHmEr. 

imperfection and delight

If you are a twin or know twins who are cases of twin-twin transfusion syndrome, my sister and I would be interested in hearing from you to learn whether you ever physically caught up to one another as adults. Please feel free to email me through this website and tell me your story.

Do return tomorrow. This blog is brought to you from the author of Gift of a Lifetime: Finding Fulfilling Things in the Unexpected, by Sue Batton Leonard.

 

Etching the Psyche

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“…realize that there is only one ‘race,’ – the human race, and we are all members of it.” ~ Margaret Atwood

There have been so many monumental national and worldwide historical events that have occurred throughout my lifetime – man walking on the moon, the Equal Rights Amendment, Watergate, the tearing down of the China Wall, space shuttle Challenger exploding, The Persian War, the collapse of the Twin Towers, just to name a few. But, none of these events have been etched as deeply into my psyche as the Baltimore riots following the assassination of Martin Luther King.

Indeed, “the sixties” was a time of revolution including trends in clothing, music, education and social order in general. Drug experimentation and rebellions on college campuses was indicative of the turbulent times.

I remember when I was eleven I thought that the arrival of the Beatles in the United States was newsworthy of unmatched historical proportions. But by the time I turned fifteen, I had matured in my thinking and I grasped the fact that upheavals in the political and racial climate were were hugely more consequential in nature. A national shift in culture far greater than the Beatles. I was well-tuned into the events around the death of Martin Luther King and tried hard as a teenager to understand the radical changes that our country was undergoing.

baltimore sun MLK headlinesIn one chapter of my memoir I recall the feelings I had one morning as I sat at the kitchen table reading the headlines and the reports in the Baltimore Sun Newspaper. I felt as if I was sitting amid a battlefield I had so many scary, anxious thoughts running through my mind.

Thank God my thoughts running rampant were very different than reality for me. But for so many people residing within the boundaries of the inner city of Baltimore my thoughts were a reality of their living conditions.

I have some fun things planned for next week  All Things Fulfilling on Monday. We will be celebrating twin week. Have a good weekend!

 

Baltimore Nostalgia Time

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Today on All Things Fulfilling: A visual look back at iconic images from my growing up in Baltimore.

Oriole CafeteriasReads drugstores

Berger cookies

Smyth

mary sue easter eggs

DR28_TimoniumAd

61outXDZsKL._SX258_BO1,204,203,200_welcome to baltimore hon

That was a fulfilling journey revisiting my childhood through images this morning. Last summer when I was back in Maryland for an extended visit, my mom bought me a box of Berger’s cookies. I thought I had died and gone to heaven!

As the stellar character in my memoir often stated to my mother after having eaten a box of  Berger cookies –

“Dem’s was da bestest, Miz Battoney!”

Indeed, being given a  surprise box of Berger cookies is as satisfying of being given a Gift of a Lifetime: Finding Fulfilling Things in the Unexpected!

In coming weeks we will be hunting down more images of Baltimore memorabilia… Stay tuned to All Things Fulfilling!

Pillow Dreams

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Every man’s life is a fairy tale written by God’s fingers. ~Hans Christian Andersen

The infamous Dr. Phil says that children should not have to bear adult problems. I admire my parents for they had plenty of adult stresses as a  couple who married quite young and  lived on pins and needles for many years due to “twin issues.” I feel throughout my life, my mom and dad did a fabulous job of letting us kids be kids, unburdened with adult problems. http://bit.ly/P3bMbE.  I am grateful for that.

The other day I was going through my baby book and came upon a letter that I had written to the tooth fairy when I was in elementary school. Here it is verbatim:

untitled (2)“Dear Fairy,

Will you Please keep the tooth under my pillow and give me monney. Wedesday I will put my tooth under my pillow and then you can take it.

From, Sue”

I wonder what my big dreams were for the money that I was expecting? After all it was probably a whole dime the tooth fairy was willing to give me- realize it was  the 1950s! It seems to me from the note, I needed to put my big fortune into spelling lessons rather than something sweet like candy to give me cavities.

In yesterday’s blog, I mentioned the medical bills my parents incurred as a result of giving birth to twins and my medical circumstances. Now that you have seen this letter, do you think I had an inkling that my parents needed some assistance, and I was going to try to help with my big windfall from the tooth fairy? Or do you think I was just being a kid knowing that the tooth fairy doled out money? I wonder. You never know about kids way of thinking.

This blog is brought to you by http://www.AllThingsFulfilling.com. See you back here tomorrow!

 

Originations in Baltimore

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“A kind gesture can reach a wound that only compassion can heal.” ~ Steve Maraboli – Life, Truth and Being Free.

dialing for dollarsWas Dialing for Dollars broadcast in your home town when you were growing up? This show originated as a radio show in Baltimore, Maryland and then became a syndicated TV show in cities around the country. The show had a run of 38 years and gave away $800,000 to suburban housewives who sat by the telephone waiting for the host of the show to call their number.  It finally terminated when more sophisticated game shows began to be aired and fewer households had stay-at-home moms who were in residence to answer the telephone. Here is how it worked, if you don’t remember it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialing_for_Dollars.

I know my mother wished upon a star many times that Dialing for Dollars would call 4-6750. It was our home number and those were the only digits you needed to reach our family back in the 1950s. Then as the population grew,  dialing VA4-6750 (Valley4- 6750) became mandatory. She and my father had medical bills they needed to pay from having given birth to twins – a not so common occurrence in the 1950s and they could have used the money.

The other day I was going through my baby book, and I found the obstetricians bill from when my twin sister and I were born.  There was a personal note on it from the doctor that said “I realize you have incurred very large medical bills with these births, I have tried to keep my charges as low as possible. Please know you can pay whenever or however it is convenient.” The bill was for $140. Seven years later when the doctors figured out how to give me a long and fulfilling life, much greater medical bills were added.  The bills became very staggering for a young couple who by then had three young children and were going through a very difficult time in life.  However, unexpected and more difficult circumstances occurred but that finally allowed them to financially rebuild their life a little bit.

Compared to medical bills in today’s world, my parent’s medical bills were a pittance. But with the wages of that era, everything is relative. Medical bills are a strain on all people who live within very tight budgets. The very technology that helps people to live long lives today is expensive to develop, maintain and use. I do get it, but our medical insurance system does need overhauling and I don’t think we are even close with a viable solution.

Come on back tomorrow to All Things Fulfilling. I will share with you a letter I found in my baby book that I had written to the tooth fairy. It made me chuckle when I read it.

 

Film Friday: Movies of the 1960s

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“Nostalgia is a file that removes the rough edges from the good old days.” ~ Doug Larson

If you remember shows like Mickey Mouse, Bozo the Clown, Captain Kangaroo, Ozzie & Harriet and Leave it to Beaver you are probably among the first generation of American children to be raised by television.

old movie projector from 1950s. jpg

You’ll also remember what it was like watching a movie back in the 1950s and 1960s. Just setting up the film screen and the projector in the living room was a big production. Then there were the challenges of the film getting messed up in the projector when it malfunctioned – piles of film, knotted and tangled on the floor.

It was a different experience than in today’s world of digital filmmaking, where watching a movie entails the ease of slipping a disc into a DVD player which projects a movie through a computer or television screen.  Convenient and hassle-free!

 

If you are a baby boomer, you can relate to some of my favorite movies from the 1960s like:

  • Lilies of the Field
  • To Sir with Love

Oh how I loved Sidney Poitier in those two films.

Then there were my Disney Favorites from the same decade:

  • My Fair Lady
  • Mary Poppins
  • The Sound of Music

Let’s not forget some of the Westerns that the boys and men in the family liked such as:

  • The Guns of Navarone
  • How the West was Won

And the Jerry Lewis movies brought us such memorable characters and silliness that the scenes will be forever etched in our memories from films like:

  • The Nutty Professor
  • The Patsy

Mills-Hayley-Pollyanna_04

Remember Hayley Mills in Pollyanna? Oh, how I have the most heartwarming memories of my cousin, my twin sister and me seeing that movie together with our mothers at the Flynn Theatre in Burlington, Vermont when we were on vacation.

I love revisiting the old television and movies from the era of my childhood – the 1950s and 1960s. When was the last time you stepped back in time and reread a book from your past or watched an old favorite movie? It’s a blast! Movies from almost every era can be located through the Internet Movie Database http://www.imdb.com.

 

Have a great weekend and do return to All Things Fulfilling on Monday.

 

Nature’s Healing Qualities

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“Reading about nature is fine, but if a person walks in the woods and listens carefully, he can learn more than what is in books, for they speak with the voice of God.” ~George Washington Carver

The image below looks like me as a little girl. Even as a little child who lived life on the edge with some serious health issues, I was not pampered and made to feel any different than my twin sister and brothers. Our home was surrounded by the forest with a leafy canopy of tall straight tulip poplar trees. A beautiful natural environment where fresh air and sunshine was plentiful. I played outdoors constantly digging for worms, making mud pies and throwing rocks in the streams that bordered both sides of our property. My parents insisted that I spend the days outdoors playing in the muck so I had little time to think about my miseries. For that, I am grateful to my parents.

It concerns me that too many children today are nature deprived and become ill as a result of it. It’s important for children to get outdoors and explore the natural world. Here is an article from the New York Times that every parent should be aware of. http://nyti.ms/Nx7lVj.

Spring has sprung, and the warm-up has begun. Parents get your children outdoors as much as possible in the coming months. Take them to parks, gardens, nearby woods and forests. If that’s not possible, be one another’s walking partners. Hold each other accountable and trade off TV and video time for outdoors time. Enjoy the natural world that was given to us for a reason. Its good for the mind, body and spirit.

childs immune system

This blog brought to you by www.CornerstoneFulfillmentService.com. See you tomorrow on All Things Fulfilling.

Sharing Sisters

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There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”  ~ Maya Angelou

“Set still, chile,” said the stellar character that you will learn a lot about in my upcoming book as she fed our little brother his lunch. Our mother had run to the store to get a gallon of milk and the woman, the star of my story, had been given the task of watching over us kids as we ate our lunch.

“What did yo’ sisters give ya?” she asked my brother, “a bunch of dem squiggly wigglies in your pants? Dem girlies is always carryin’ around dem squiggly wigglies deh dig up out da Earf. Must be God give us dem creatures for a reason, but I ain’t knowd what it is. My preacher man ain’t read me dat part yet from da Greatest Story Ever Tole.”

What a character! She was talking about the worms my sister and I always dug up out of the garden and shared with each other.

When my twin sister and I were little we always thought everything should come in pairs like we did and like the animals in the story of Noah in the Bible. When we only had one of something, my sister and I always shared it. We’d pull a worm apart until we had two equal pieces. Yes, I know – how cruel! But give me a break – we were only two little children. All we could think was that it wasn’t fair if one of us had something and not the other.

My twin and I shared everything and had utmost trust in each other until we became teenagers and when it came to clothes. We never trusted that we’d get things back from each other in the same condition as when they were lent out. But, have there ever been teenage sisters who have been good at sharing clothes?

Trust, attachment and caring are all inside the pages of Gift of a Lifetime: Finding Fulfilling Things in the Unexpected. But, the real treasure in the story will come from the enlightenment you will find through the unique perspectives and colorful dialogue of the stellar character.

lifes a garden dig it

Don’t miss out on the MP-3 audio book version of “Gift of a Lifetime: Finding Fulfilling Things in the Unexpected” when it comes out! This blog brought to you by www.CornerstoneFulfillmentService.com.

Sour to Sunny Moods

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Julie AndrewsI am posting this image on the Vernal Equinox  for the benefit of my mother. Our family traveled many, many miles together on road trips. Most of them were pleasurable except when we four kids started fighting. Every time the mood in the car began to turn sour, my mother engaged us in singing songs from our favorite movie – The Sound of Music. Then the atmosphere began to lighten , better moods sprung up and we’d forget about our troubles with our brothers and sisters.

Ah, yes, as with every family there are instigators and peacemakers among us, but I am not going to point any fingers. Besides, “I can’t remember if I am the good sister or the evil sister.” Each of my siblings would probably tell you a different story! They all have their own  independent opinions, which was the reason the fights began in the first place. There isn’t one among us who doesn’t have a  strong view on everything in life.

Which do you think I might be? A peacemaker or instigator? Hey now, keep your opinion to yourself . Today is the International Day of Happiness and the vernal equinox is supposed to be about balance and harmony in the cosmos. Let’s not open a can of worms until Monday!

Do come back to All Things Fulfilling tomorrow – I’ll tell you about the road trip I am taking this weekend.

This blog brought to you by www.CornerstoneFulfillmentService.com .

St. Patty’s Day Creativity

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St Pattys Day Prompts..Happy St. Patty’s Day! Today we are going to have fun with a little Irish creativity. Are you ready to begin your story? When I found this image, I thought “Good lord – how appropriate each one of these writing prompts would have been for my recently completed publication Gift of a Lifetime: Finding Fulfillment in the Unexpected. Any one of them could have aided me in my writing.

In honor of St. Patty’s Day I am going to craft something that summarizes parts of my memoir but it’s different than from what’s actually written in it. These thoughts may give you a hint as to what’s between the covers.

Using the prompts you can begin to craft your own story.

  • At the end of the rainbow….. my heart echoed.
  • The day I met my leprechaun….I prayed there’d be another to follow.
  • The luck of the Irish wasn’t with me when… my story began.
  • I was just picking up the pot of gold when…I realized it was inside me all the time.
  • I opened my eyes to find a leprechaun…who arrived as a big surprise.

Happy Saint Patty’s Day to All My Beloveds!

“Love leaves a memory no one can steal.” ~from

a headstone in Ireland

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