Thanks to Dr. Michael Conte. And My Mom.
Written by Helga
Monday, 27 June 2011 10:40
There’s a contest over at Uppercase Woman to win an iPad 2, sponsored by Buy More Contacts – head on over there for a chance to win one yourself! If you haven’t had a chance to get to know Cecily, you should. She’s an honest writer, even when it’s uncomfortable. I appreciate that.
She shared a story about getting contact lenses when she was a teen, which inspired me to share my story too.
If you haven’t been keeping up with Live Green Mom, I grew up in Texas with three sisters and a single mom that was all about being a Born Again Christian. She even became an ordained minister. I don’t know how to explain the whole thing well, but she believed in faith healing, speaking in tongues, and the casting out of demons.
If we were misbehaving, my mom would ask us if we thought our actions pleased the Lord. Once I was caught singing the lyrics to a Foreigner song and that really pissed my mom off. “Would you sing those lyrics to the Lord?” I bought Sweet Vally High books on the sly with hard earned money, she would find them and throw them away. “Those books do not uplift the Lord in your heart”. We went for long stretches with the TV in the garage because it, too, did not uplift the Lord, but it would come back again for whatever reason. Maybe with no books allowed or radio to drag our souls down, we could allow a bit of TV in there. Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley, OK. Three’s Company, not OK.
(I’m going somewhere with this, stay with me!)
Two of my sisters got braces when I was in elementary school. I needed some work in the dental department as well, though for some reason I couldn’t understand why, my mom said I was being vain when I asked when we were going to do something about my teeth in junior high. Weren’t braces for the same reason, to straighten the teeth, to make them more attractive? She said I needed to have faith that the Lord would just heal my teeth. (Why couldn’t my sisters be required to have faith to heal theirs? I never thought to ask.)
So I prayed. I had faith. We even went to an old fashioned faith healing with people passing out in the aisles left and right, crying and sobbing, people hollering that they had been healed! They could hear! They could sit/walk/stand without pain! And I swore I had enough faith, I believed, if the Lord could heal those people of their ailments, surely He could feel the utter faith I had! I ran to the front of the church, I stood in line for my faith healing, the preacher planted his palm on my forehead, threw me backwards into the waiting arms of the attendants who lay me down on the floor, yelling into the microphone “This child has been HEALED! Say AMEN!” And everyone in the church was yelling back ‘AMEN!’
When it was all over and we were walking out to the car I smiled a big smile at my sisters. “Well?” I asked in anticipation. One of my sisters just rolled her eyes at me. My mom said nothing. It wasn’t long before I figured it out.
As my disappointment sunk in, a few days later I finally asked my mom why…why hadn’t the Lord come through?
“Well, probably because you didn’t have enough faith.” I was dumbstruck. I couldn’t have had more faith up until that point. I had totally bought into it. I believe that is the point when I stopped believing and realized, I’m kinda on my own, aren’t I?
Fast forward a year or so to the summer of ’82, age 12. I was in Germany at a bus stop, waiting for one to take me back to my grandparents house. I asked an old man next to me as I saw a bus approach – “Is that the Wegzoll bus?” and he said, “yes it is – you cannot read that? You need glasses!”
The next three years were a blur, literally. You think I was going to tell my mom and get the whole ‘You need to have faith that the Lord will heal your eyes!’ routine? I wasn’t going through that again, once was enough.
The summer after my freshman year when I was 15 I got a job at Godfather’s Pizza, in the strip mall near my home - working hard, saving my money.
One of those contact lens stores had opened up a few doors down from the pizza place. Back in 1985, that was a new thing. And expensive.
So with all of $150, the grand total of my savings, I took a deep breath and went in one afternoon. There I met Dr. Michael Conte. He was young and clearly just starting out. I poured out my story to him, trying not to sob – I was so tired of not seeing. I couldn’t tell my mom about this. I clearly did not have enough money for an eye exam, contact lens fitting and lenses, not to mention all the solutions that go with it. He listened carefully and with compassion, gave me a thorough eye exam, figured out what my prescription was, and popped a pair into my eyes. I blinked.
And my world began again. I looked around, taking in the details of his office. I looked through the front windows and marveled at being able to read anything from afar. He gave me a lesson on how to care for the lenses and samples of solutions. I tried to pay attention but was still overwhelmed at being able to see. It came time to pay and before his receptionist could give me a total amount owed, he said something like, “That will be $100″. She nodded and started to write it up. I knew it was much, much more than that. Then he gently but firmly said, “I am glad to do this for you if you promise me you will tell your mother within 4 months. You cannot just rely on contacts, you need glasses too.” I promised and left in grateful tears. I walked the long way home and couldn’t stop staring at the grass, the highest leaves in the trees. The sharp details, reading license plates of cars as they drove by, it was as if I had never seen it all before. If you think I am sounding dramatic, it was dramatic. It was a great moment for me because I had a problem and I set out to solve it by myself, and I did it successfully. It’s a great feeling at that age.
It didn’t take but about two months before my mom figured it out, finding my contact solution under the sink one afternoon. She was disappointed in me, and let me know. I thought it was because I hadn’t had enough faith but she said it was because I felt like I had to do that behind her back. I honestly feel that if I went to her before I had gone to the eye doctor, I would have had to have faith to heal my eyes.
We went back to Dr. Conte not long after, and with pursed lips she discussed it with him. She got the written prescription, I got eyeglasses from Sears.
I contacted Dr. Conte again a couple of years ago to thank him once again, and he remembered me and my mom.
Before anybody blasts me on here, now that I am a mother, all grown up, I ‘get it’, I see my mom not for what she couldn’t do for me but what she could. She lived a hardscrabble life, barely made enough to pay the bills, and had no life outside of just scraping by and the church. What she did for me was provide a roof over my head, clothes on my back and food on the table. She made sure I was safe. She forced me to be independent, which at the time I didn’t appreciate, but I sure do now. I don’t hold any sort of grudge about it all, but I write about it because it’s an experience that shaped me as well as how I parent.
(When I was 17 we had my teeth fixed with the help of Dr. Jerry Dunn of Las Colinas, Texas. I highly recommend him, too.)
So not only do I want to thank Dr. Conte again, I want to thank my mom. I could never have raised four children by myself the way she did.
3 Comments
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Oh my goodness Helga. I mean. I can always count on you for coffee up my nose, but mama you’ve got me dropping tears in my joe here.
Faith is a critical component of life, but so is reading the signs and accepting the gifts. I wonder if your mom ever heard that old joke about the flood and rescue, it has so many variations, but it goes something like:
The town was flooded, folks evacuated their homes, were rescued and saved. All except Joe. He stood on his roof defiantly, hands clasped together in fervent prayer.
A rescuer in a life raft pulled alongside Joe as he perched upon the eave of his roof, “Jump in fella, I’ll take you to safety!” Joe scoffed at the rescuer “No! No! It is not necessary, I have faith that the Lord will save me!” The rescuer shrugged and paddled off.
The water was rising now and Joe was climbing higher, to the top of his roof, when a speedboat appeared with a rescue crew aboard. “Climb aboard fella, we’ll take you to safety!” Joe scoffed at the rescuer “No! No! It is not necessary, I have faith that the Lord will save me!” The rescuers shrugged and sped off.
The water had reached a critical level now, and Joe was dangling from his chimney, clutching to the bricks, calling out to God, when suddenly a helicopter descended from the sky and a arm reached out from the cockpit. “Give me your hand fella, this is your last chance to get to safety!” Joe scoffed at the rescuer “No! No! It is not necessary, I have faith that the Lord will save me!” The rescuer shrugged and flew off.
Well the water rose some more, and poor Joe drowned accordingly. He crossed through the pearly gates, stormed directly through the clouds and demanded “Lord, why did you forsake me? I had faith, undying, until my last breath.” God, perplexed at Joe’s outrage replied “Listen fella, I sent you angels upon a life raft, then a speed boat and even a helicopter…what the heck were you waiting for?”
Thank you for sharing such a hunk of yourself here Helga, it must have been a heluva thing to write <3
Thanks Petunia. It’s harder to write the personal stuff, but it sure helps to purge that side of my brain from time to time. Sometimes it’s about being a mom, nothing to do with being green. My mom did the best she could, and it took me a long time to figure that out. When you are a teen, it’s “all about me”.
Oh Helga – this is an extraordinary post…so heartfelt. You have a great way of looking at things though – our growing up years (good and bad) shaped us and shaped who we are! You are a wonderful person who I am so blessed to know
Beautiful…just beautiful – you’re mom must be proud!