A lot of my experience in the orphanage is lost in my mind, and I think that is for my benefit. I think my brothers had it worse than I. I was the kind of little girl that you would look right passed, and look at the wall. I wasn't noticeable, had no interesting qualities. People just ignored me, including the nuns. I do remember the few times Mom came to see us, always promising that it wasn't going to be too much longer.
Every child at the orphanage had their own chores. My chore was washing the stairs. I hated it. I would wash it, and people would go up and down, up and down. I was too young for that. But you had to do something. They did give you a small allowance, and that was to buy yourself treats. One year, they bought a soft ice cream machine, and I spent all of my money on a vanilla ice cream cone. That was my favorite treat. I didn't see my brothers much. My brother Johnny was in the older boys' unit. My brother Mikey was in the younger boys' unit, and I was in the younger girls' unit.
I remember getting up every day, and you had to kneel in bed to say your prayers. You then got up, cleaned yourself up, brushed your teeth, went to breakfast, and had oatmeal and hot chocolate every morning. The hot chocolate always had a layer of goo. I loved my layer. Johnny hated it. Whenever he saw that layer, it reminded him of the orphanage. After breakfast, we had to again say our prayers.
In the summer we were allowed outside to play. In the wintertime, I would go to school. I would say my prayers again before school started and after school was done in the morning. We would then have lunch, which was always peanut butter sandwiches. We would say our prayers before and after lunch. We would either go back outside to play or go back to school, saying more prayers before and after class. A lot of what else happened was hazy. In the evening, all of the children would sit together and watch a small black and white TV. We had our evening meal, saying prayers before and after. Bathtime was before bed, where we would say our bedtime prayers.
The prayer we always said was the Lord's Prayer. I always said it, but I never prayed to be sent home, I never prayed for a better life. Why didn't I pray for that?
This was my life for what I thought was two years, my brother, Johnny, saying it was four or five. There was one Halloween that the older girls decorated the halls for us littler kids to walk down and feel "spooky". My mom never came for the holidays. She always promised, but she never showed. Maybe that's why I don't remember them. Families would come and take home some orphans for the holidays, but my brother would always say no, that our mother was coming for us. We would stand and wait but she would never come. One winter, we went to a cookie factory, and once to an Aunt Jamima Pancake Festival. We all recieved a present, and mine was a small iron. I loved that thing. I received two presents the entire time I was there. One was the iron.
When my mom didn't show up the last year at Christmas, my brother told them at Easter-time, yes, to let me go with a family for the weekend. I remember them coming to get me. They were in a little waiting room. I was so shy. I had to force myself to speak, "Hello." What I saw in their eyes was as if they were saying, "that is pathetic." They were very nice, but I just knew in my heart that they felt sorry for me, and if they wanted a child in their life, it wouldn't be me. They said, "Susan, look around the room! We brought you a present!" There I found the biggest Easter basket I had ever seen. I picked it up and said, "Thank you, thank you!" I was very polite. That was beat into me by my mother and the nuns. They took me home for the weekend. I don't remember anything but eating Sunday dinner. I do, in a small part of my brain, remember getting in trouble with one of their children. I don't know what it was for, but I knew I didn't do it. They didn't believe me, and that really hurt. They made me go back, and I felt unloved and unwanted. They told on me, and one of the few nice nuns told me that she didn't believe me. They tended to look down on us because, if your parents didn't want you or couldn't have you, then you didn't belong in society. This nun I liked a lot, for whatever reason, but that day the way she looked at me, I just had to do something to get her to love me. Inside the Easter basket was the softest chick. You could turn the handle and put it on the floor and it would hop and peep. I loved it, especially being one of the only gifts I had received in years. I had wanted this nun to love me so much that I gave it to the nun. She asked why I was giving it to her.
"Because I want you to have it." Inside I wanted this chick. You don't really need a nun to like you, but she was the least cruel of them all. There was a lot of hitting, slapping across the face. If you were ever labeled, like me, not pretty, no talent, I was worthless to them. When you're worthless, they tended to not believe anything good about you. If you were in their way, they would slap you right down. When you were viewed this way, you had no way to defend yourself, no one to stick up for you. It was scary, not having anyone to protect you, no one to love you, hug you, or kiss you. They never did that.
One day the nuns took us to the beauty parlor. They were having a treat and they let all of the girls get their hair done. My mom had always liked my hair long. She had always told me, "never let them cut your hair." Well, they wanted to cut my hair and when I told them no, I was called selfish and could see the hate in their eyes. I changed my mind and said, "Ok, please cut my hair," to avoid getting in trouble. I did, however, get in trouble when Mom saw it. She was very angry. But that's how it was. You just accepted it as your life. I was lucky that I was in the little girls' ward. Michael was lucky that he was in the little boys' ward. Johnny wasn't lucky at all.
In the big boys' ward, they had to say prayers just as much as everyone else, however, when the boys were kneeling on their beds, their pajamas had no covering on their genitals so that the nuns could detect any impure thoughts. If they were caught, they would get beat on their genitals. The things my brother has told me about the orphanage sickens me. The beatings he took, the hard work he did, but nothing compared to what we had to tend to at least once a month. This place was also an old folks' home. And what do old folks do mostly? Die. We had to go to a funeral about once a month. The caskets were always opened and we would be forced to walk by. One woman, they made us kiss on the cheek. These bodies were ugly, pruney, and we could see where their faces were stitched during the preparation for the funeral. Johnny, as an alter boy, would sometimes have to get the bodies dressed. Being unwanted and unloved by our families, at first it was hard to get used to, but after awhile, you got used to the disrespect. If you're lucky, you get to go home, but that isn't always lucky. We got to go home.
