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Mommy’s Piggy Tales: A Year I’d Rather Forget

12 Thursday Aug 2010

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Eighth grade was very difficult. Not academically; I was a good student and had good grades. I was still considered the “new girl.” For the first time in my life, I felt unliked. One of the friends I had made in seventh grade moved away. The other girls in the group I had befriended started giving me the silent treatment. I had no idea why, and it hurt. Was I too timid and shy? Or was I too bossy and a know-it-all? To this day, I don’t know why they rejected me. I started sitting with the “popular” girls at lunch, and they were cordial to me, but I never really felt like I had friends in eighth grade. After graduation, I went home and cried my heart out. My parents comforted me the best they could; their hearts must have been breaking for me. Part of me couldn’t wait to go to high school and start over.

The June after my graduation was especially hard. My parent told us some news; Mom, the mother of four children ages five to fourteen, had breast cancer. She was forty years old.

Last week, I told you that God must have called us to the suburbs for a reason. Mom had the best care at one of the best hospitals in the nation; the breast care center at this hospital now bears the name of her doctor. He was a wonderful man, and my parents had the utmost confidence in him. Mom was a breast cancer survivor of twenty-six years before this disease took her away from us.

Years later, when I was diagnosed with breast cancer, my parents wanted me to have the same doctor. He had already retired by then, but he referred me to one of his students. I couldn’t have found a better doctor. I am now fourteen years past that first diagnosis. The doctors that took such good care of my mom and myself were a gift from God.

When I was fourteen years old, there was no way I could have seen such a blessing for me in the future. I was more concerned about surviving a very large and intimidating public high school….


Janna of Mommy’s Piggy Tales began a project to share our youth with our children. Every Thursday, I will tell a story about my childhood as if I were telling it to my children. At the end of this project, I’ll have a collection of stories about my childhood for my children to keep, and hopefully treasure.

Mommy’s Piggy Tales: Country Mouse in the City

04 Wednesday Aug 2010

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In the summer of ’81, when I was 12, we moved from a small rural town of about 800 people to a suburb of Chicago. It amazed my mom that as we were driving into the suburbs, we still had 40 miles before we would reach our suburb.

Life was going to be very different.

Many people who live within the Chicago city limits are very irritated when people like me say I’m from Chicago. But when I rode my bike a few blocks east, I was in the city of Chicago. If I walked a few blocks south, I was in the city of Chicago. Technically, we lived in the suburbs. But it seemed very much like the city to me.

We lived on a main artery into the city, so I wasn’t allowed to cross the street on my own. The freedom of riding my bike all over town was gone. The parsonage in my old town had been built right before we moved there; it had central air, a dishwasher, and four bedrooms. The parsonage we moved into had only three bedrooms, so we had to convert the office into a bedroom for my brother. No air conditioning, no dishwasher, and faded pink paint on the wall of the bedroom my sister and I were to share. Not only was there noise from the busy street to get used to, but we lived very close to O’Hare. Jets took off and landed right over our heads. And the commuter train was just across the way. Lights were everywhere; it was never completely dark at night.

Life was going to be very different.

On the positive side, we were excited that we could walk to the public library. Our little town didn’t have a library. We lived at the edge of a large park, and at the other side was a playground and pool. We couldn’t swim very well, but we used the pool when we could.

Then school started. I made friends with some members of my class, but being the pastor’s kid in seventh grade was very difficult. Since I attended the parochial school that our church ran, many of the kids in my class had been together since pre-Kindergarten. I was definitely the newcomer; the outsider.

I resented this move, but some very good things happened because we were in this place. It would take me years to discover the reasons God called my father to serve at this church in the suburbs.


Janna of Mommy’s Piggy Tales began a project to share our youth with our children. Every Thursday, I will tell a story about my childhood as if I were telling it to my children. At the end of this project, I’ll have a collection of stories about my childhood for my children to keep, and hopefully treasure.