Alcohol, Guns, Love and Hate, in 150 Square Feet

             OK, you have to know a bit about those first six years and how I was protected, and by whom.  I could have died several times. That would have been the end of me and my life. Then and there.  But it wasn’t.

            We lived on the third floor of a very old and rundown apartment building in downtown Chicago. It was so small it only had one room and a tiny kitchen and an even smaller bathroom. We had no fridge. Back in those days we bought everything fresh daily, including milk. Here’s a layout of the apartment as I remember it. It was probably about 150 square feet at most. It’s amazing to me how my brain always remembers floor plans of all the places I’ve lived even at this early age. That's dozens of places (like other nomads) and you can count them in future entries as I go. I don’t remember a dresser, closet or where they kept the clothes. Just the things that happened there.

           So the story? My mom was a nurse and she was 34 and that was 20 years younger than my dad. Mom worked to buy food while my dad, a travelling salesman who had been married twice before my mom, used the money she made to buy alcohol. He was drunk many, many times.  He also kept guns in the drawer by the door. That was pretty scary to me.

These early years were spent in poverty, drunkenness, emotional and physical abuse. They were years of hungering for people to love me and finding both love and hate in action. My dad would even hit my mom when I was in her arms. She tried to protect me.

But the reality? Here’s where my story gets really, really good. Every time there was yelling and fighting in our apartment, my Heavenly Father did something significant to protect me. I’m going to tell you about a few things that happened and changed me and influenced my life today—some negative or traumatic, but always accompanied by something and Someone good.

Born to Be a Nomad

April 30, 1945 

               Today I was born to be a nomad. Well, today I was born—left one world and place and came to another. Different food, different bed. New sounds, sights, smells, tastes and touches. The only thing the same is my mother’s calming voice and the city noises of Chicago, Illinois.

                Today a madman died, one who killed children. Adolf Hitler was not a nomad—simply mad, at the world, at himself. And he had no calming voice. But he did leave one world behind and entered another, so I guess he ended up a nomad. Yet today the only voices he hears are the millions of those he murdered.

                So what exactly is a nomad? It’s someone on a journey, moving from place to place, looking for their next home, always seeking a country and place to call their own. A nomad’s home has no boundaries or walls, only people to love. So it’s important if you’re a nomad to have good strong relationships. That’s something a nomad looks for…always.

                Long ago a man named Abraham was a nomad. He didn’t know where he was going. First he traveled with his dad to a place called Haran and stayed their til his dad died. Then, because God told him to, he picked up all that he owned and kept on moving, over and over again. He would eventually settle in a place later called Canaan. But Canaan didn’t even exist when Abraham was moving over and over. The world then had no boundaries. Just people traveling from place to place, living and settling in places they could name and call their own.

                OK, so  there’s Hitler, Abraham and me—all nomads in different ways. Read on  to see if you can figure out the end of my nomadic journey, which will mirror Abraham’s more than Hitler’s. You can follow by email when you subscribe at the right.