My Miracle Year: Sandy & Me

"We're on the verge of something,

Something greater than we know.

Something that will rise above the ashes

Of the old, old where all things change.

Where no one, none of you are ever

Going to be the same."

Kan'Nal: Dreamwalker, All Things Change

(To the left: my Aunt Rhoda on the left, my mother on the right) Two sisters, best friends and confidants, each had a girl, the first of the Husom cousins, Sandy, daughter of my mother’s sister Rhoda, was born first, then me 10 months later. Technically, I guess, we’re really #2 and #3 as my mother gave birth to a baby boy in 1947, two years before I was born. My brother Arthur William, a “blue baby,” only lived 3 days; the technology that allowed blue babies to survive wouldn’t be invented until 1952. My mother’s heart must have been broken.

(To the right: me, Great Grandpa Butler & Sandy) I think it must have been several years before any of the brothers -- several still in high school and one in grade school -- had children. So it was just Sandy and me. Me ‘n Sandy. Doted on by our Husom grandparents, we were also the darlings of our great Grandma and Grandpa Butler who hailed from Bristol, England, birth place of Grandma Husom.

Things kind of went south for both Sandy and me around the same time.

My Aunt Rhoda left Sandy’s abusive father and Sandy ended up living with our Husom grandparents for a while. And my mother died, my father left with a 2 ½ year old and a new baby. Shortly after, my father moved us to Washington where he had sisters, then to Oregon where he also had a sister.

(To the left: back row, from left - my father, Grandpa Husom. front row, from left, my brother Steve, me & Sandy) Dad remarried, a hurried affair to “provide a mother to his children.” Of course, it wouldn’t last. My brother Steve and I ended up back in Minnesota, living with my paternal grandparents.

To be continued…