CHAPTER 147. WHEN THE FLOODS RISE. 1980-1981
Do you believe in miracles?
If not, then come and speak to me for I have seen many miracles, large and small, in my life.
I’ve never seen a miracle without God involved in there somewhere and with a purpose. Sometimes the miracle even seems to be a curse, until you can see the purpose. The seven babies that died may not seem miraculous or purposeful, but they were not a tragedy. Those babies simply took a short cut to the Lord, but it was through them I came to Jesus as my savior. I took the scenic route with all its potholes and stormy days.
in the wings ready to sweep his scythe. My grandmother was in great pain and in and out of the hospital. She couldn’t eat and couldn’t sleep. She was 81 years old.
At the same time, Lois had given birth on December 12 to a daughter, who was several weeks premature and whose weight quickly plunged to just over three pounds. Today we can read many stories of infants born weighing in at only a pound with good survival chances, one more argument for saying conception is the beginning of life. In 1980, a newborn as light as ours was at high risk and the doctors who delivered her honestly expected she would be dead by sunrise. If not, they predicted a very bleak life for her, one of blindness and mental retardation.
We hadn’t expected her so had no name planned. We named her Noelle since it was so close to Christmas. We gave her the middle name Suzanne to match the French of her first name. Suzanne means Lily. It kind of ties things together for a Christian, Noelle means “Christmas” and Lilies are often representative of Easter.
Noelle was taken over night from Delaware County Memorial Hospital to the neonatal unit at Fitzgerald Mercy. She was placed in an incubator with a dozen tubes running from her obscuring the sight of her. We couldn’t even touch her or hold her she was so delicate. After a few days some nurse would bring her to the window in the door to hold up for us to see.
After several more days Lois was allowed in to hold her in her lap to bond, and finally was allowed to do the same.
In order to touch her we had to scrub, then dress in a gown and
stretchy hat and latex gloves and surgical mask. It was a stressful time. Every so often a nurse would enter the ward and jab Noelle’s tiny foot with a needle. She was placed under special lights because she got jaundice. It was discovered my wife and I had conflicting RH factors in our blood, resulting in Noelle having to endure a complete blood transfusion.
Then her conditions began to reverse. She started gaining pounds. Some of the tubes came out of the incubator and at long last she came out as well into a regular little crib. They let us bring her home on New Year’s Day, 1981, giving her to us in a big red Christmas stocking. The only problem they were concerned about were her eyes.
At the end of 1980, my grandmother was in much distress. She was home from the hospital, where they had her in the coronary unit, but the exact nature of her problem still had not been fully diagnosed. Her daily suffering continued.
On New Year’s Day, 1981, her back was hurting. She slept the entire day of January 2. She was brought down to see Noelle on the third, but went home exhausted. She couldn’t pull herself up on the 8th. Now she went into a period of being unable to stay awake during the day. On the 14th, she got herself up off a chair by herself, walked from the kitchen to the living room, then fell and hurt her stomach. A nurse was visiting regularly and told her she needed to drink more. Problem was she didn’t feel like eating or drinking.
She felt better on January 19 and did drink more while the nurse was there, but by the 25th she was sick again and in lots of pain. A troublesome itching began on February 1, and by February 3rd both the pain and itching had grown worse. This continued through the 16th.
And then everything improved until May 7 when she got a new pain in her back She was up and down with pain and sleep difficulties throughout May until the 20th, then after that she went back to her old self for the remainder of the year. Her pain and suffering left her as mysteriously as they had first appeared. (Left, my grandmother holding Noelle.)
On March 3rd, my family, Mr. Heaney and Evelyn Weinmann were at our house for Laurel’s 3rd birthday. Lois and I began leaving the kids with my parents at times so we could go away or have celebrations on our own. We took Noelle to the doctor for her regular checkups on March 30. She now weighted 11 pounds and 9 ounces.
On this same day, President Reagan, along with three others, was shot in an assassination attempt.
Lois and her father’s relationship had grown more strained than ever. It began to unwind when we moved from his home to Philadelphia back in the late 1960s. He accused us of stealing from him, which wasn’t true at all; meanwhile, he was snooping in our room and through our stuff. In the years after we moved, he began acting more irrational. He didn’t trust anyone and he expressed wishes about seeing the neighborhood kids dead. At the end of the ‘seventies he purchased a .45 Automatic. He kept a loaded clip in it all the time and slept with it under his pillow. “If anybody tries to get in, I’ll shoot first and ask questions later,” he told us.
By the ‘eighties he had taken Lois’ house key away and half the time wouldn’t answer the door when she came around. By that April he wasn’t answering her calls and she was getting very concerned about him.
knocking. Lois was scared because she feared if we tried too hard to get in he would shoot us. She went up the street to her Uncle Ed’s and he came down with a spare key and opened the front door. We found her father half unconscious sprawled across his bed. Ed called 9-1-1 and an ambulance showed up quickly. The paramedics took him to Delaware County Memorial Hospital.
He was in intensive care. An operation was performed on May 8 and during the procedure Harry Heaney suffered cardiac arrest and essentially died, but the Doctors brought him back from this death. He was technically alive, but showed no responses. He was hooked up to several machines that performed the essential functions of the body, breathing, nourishment, etc. The doctor informed us he had a number of lesions on his brain. Her father had emphysema, which was believed to have been caused by exposure to Asbestos when he worked in construction, whether this exposure had also caused the brain lesions, I don’t know.
Mother’s Day fell on the 10th.
My mom and grandmother came down to watch the kids. In the morning of the 11th Lois and I had to meet with a lawyer. Afterward, mom took me to Mr. Heaney’s to get his car and Lois to the hospital to be with her father. There was still no response on his part. My grandmother was experiencing back pains again and on the 12th mom took her to the hospital for back and knee X-rays. There were no broken bones. She was given pills and told to rest.
but they could not legally turn off life support. That choice fell to Lois. She says I went in and said to him, “The Phillies stink.” When he showed no reaction I said he was dead. I don’t quite remember doing that. I do remember that I went to him and gazed deep into his eyes and then told Lois there was nobody home. At any rate, she told them to turn off the machines during the afternoon of May 13. Mr. Heaney died that evening.
The next day my mom and grandmother babysat while Lois and I visited both the undertaker and then a lawyer the next day. There was no will and no siblings, so Lois was named the Executer and the estate, what there was, went to her. Apparently, Providence had brought us the house we were never able to purchase.
Perhaps now the bad things were over.
1030 Cobbs Street looked nice on the outside, but the inside was a mess. For some reason, although he had a garage in the back, Mr. Heaney chose to store most of his yard equipment in the dining room.
Lois and I began the job of clean up. In the process I tried shutting a drawer in a chest in the bedroom, but it seemed to be stuck. I pulled it and there were envelopes taped to the drawer bottom, and to the others as well. When I pulled off an envelope and opened the flap. Money fell out. There was over $4,000 taped in envelopes under the drawers. Boy, we checked everything carefully after that.
Besides work, I was still attending classes at Widener. Now I was spending all my spare time cleaning, repairing and painting at Cobbs Street. I finished this up on the 26th, but I had classes the next night so waited a day to bring Lois over to see how it looked. On the 28th Lois, holding baby Noelle, Laurel and myself stood on the front porch. I unlocked the door. When I shoved it open I heard a strange noise.
ceiling lay crumbled on the floor. I dashed in and through the house, down the cellar steps from the kitchen and plunged up to my waist in water. The basement was completely flooded. It’s a wonder I wasn’t electrocuted. I was able to get to the valve that shut off the water to the house.
appliances were ruined. The kitchen cabinets were warped. So was the hardwood floors. The wallpaper was either shredded or partially peeling. Basically, the interior of the house was destroyed.
Lois flopped in a chair to feed Noelle. Laurel sat on the staircase looking terrified. For years after she would panic whenever it rained hard.
A water pipe had burst in the bathroom upstairs. It had to happen on the one day in a last couple of weeks when I didn’t visit the house. It was a couple days until the beginning of June. We had to be out of our rental house by July 1 and here we stood in utter
devastation.
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