Living Like A Winner

Pedie Pederson

Chapter 1: My Early Years

I was born on July 9, 1960, at St. Mary’s Hospital in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota. When I was born I weighed 5 pounds, 1 ounce, and I couldn’t breathe for 11 minutes because the umbilical cord was wrapped around my neck. I didn’t know that this had happened to me until I was researching this book. When that happened, the part of my brain that controls the motor skills was damaged. That’s why I have cerebral palsy. Cerebral palsy, or CP, is a condition that causes you not to be able to talk or walk or use your arms and hands like most other people do.

When my mother found out that she was pregnant with me she hid it because she was not married. She was living with my grandma and grandpa at the time and she didn’t want anyone to know that she was pregnant. Plus, she already had a little girl. So she would wrap herself up in shawls so no one could tell her size.

You might think that what she did was bad, but at that time there were no programs to help her, and in those days pregnancy out of wedlock was not acceptable. She had planned to give me up for adoption even before she found out that I had a disability.

In those days, children with disabilities were often put into a state hospital, because the community didn’t know how to take care of them. They didn’t get to go to school nor were there any day programs for them, and when they grew up no one would give them a job because they didn’t think that they could work well enough.

During my first year, I was first kept at St. Mary’s, but I don’t know how long. Then I was moved to the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, but I was brought back to St. Mary’s because they couldn’t help me at the University. I was really sick, but I never really found out why.

When I was 1 year old, I was transferred from St. Mary’s to a home for kids with disabilities in Roseau, Minnesota. A woman named May owned the home. It was a big white two-story house by the river in town. About a dozen kids lived there at the time.

May was in her mid 40’s. She had short black curly hair and was a really nice friendly lady. Before May had opened the home, she had taken in foster children. May was a farm lady, and she knew how to run our home. Everyone knew that she was the boss, but she would let us know by the way that she treated us that she really cared for us. It was like we were her own kids, and she seemed like a mom to us. As I got older I learned to respect her. She told us many times that she loved us, but that she also wanted us to learn to be good kids.

May had women who worked for her in caring for us children. When May first opened the home she had about 5 ladies who helped her. She had a worker to help her during the day, but at night she would be at the home alone. She had a room upstairs so if one of us started crying she would hear us. If she went out of town, she would have one of the workers stay overnight, but they didn’t need to stay awake. They could go to sleep, but they needed to be ready to get up if one of us started to cry. The workers really liked working at the home, and May was good to them. At that time there were mainly older workers. There were some high school girls too, but they only worked on weekends and when they were not in school.

I was very young when I was brought to May’s, so my memories of the home are mostly from when I was older. I don’t remember the room that I lived in very well, but I know that it was a big room at the top of the stairs and that I had four roommates. We were in cribs. I remember being in my crib and looking up at what was around me. They put some padding on the side of my crib so I would not hurt my head on it, but I could still move around. I could see who was walking by, and I would want to be picked up. There was a rocking chair in our room, and sometimes the worker would rock me in it. I really liked that. It made me feel good inside. I also liked getting out of my crib because I was in there a lot.

Our room had a really big door. My crib was near it. I was afraid that someone might shut the door and make it dark in the room. I didn’t like the dark. I liked when one of the workers was in the room because I was afraid of being alone. Sometimes I thought that there was someone under my bed or in the next room waiting to come and get me. Sometimes I would cry when I was scared and then one of the workers would come and tell me that everything was going to be okay. On the weekends when the young girls worked, they would sing to us. I really liked that.

When I was in my crib I couldn’t see very far down the hall, but I could see another room. I’m not sure what that room was for. Workers would go in and out of it and I wondered what was in that room that made them go in and out of it all the time. Sometimes when I was on the floor, I would try to get to the door of that room so I could find out what was in there, but the door would be shut. One of the workers told me that I couldn’t go in that room because there were things in there that might hurt me, and not to go by the door because I could get hurt.

At that time I must have been 3 or 4 years old. I was starting to learn to talk. I was hard to understand, but I could say some words.

I remember the workers at the home being very kind. There was a little table downstairs in the kitchen where they would take us to give us our bottles. It was by the window, and in the summertime when it was nice outside they would open the window. Sometimes after it rained and the sun came out, the air coming in would smell good. Also, when the sun came out it would brighten up the room, making us feel happy.

I drank from a bottle until I was about 4 years old. Then I wanted to learn how to drink from a cup, because I saw the grownups drinking from cups and I wanted to be a big boy, so the worker would fill a cup half full of juice and help me hold it. Sometimes I got it all over myself, and they would have to clean me up.

Most of the workers had a favorite kid. One of these workers was Trisha. She was a friendly, heavyset woman. You could tell that she was happy to be with you. I was one of her favorite kids, and she would do things for me. One night she took me home with her and I got to stay with her all night. She put my crib by her bed so if I started crying she would hear me. Sometimes when Trisha was working she would take me downstairs to the kitchen and give me my bottle. She would talk to me, and I would feel safe.

The workers wore white uniforms. They looked nice and clean. I only saw them in their white uniforms, not with their street clothes on, so I thought that everyone wore white uniforms. I didn’t know that outside of the home, people wore street clothes. When someone would come see us and I saw them wearing street clothes, I would wonder why they were not wearing a white uniform.

I remember just a few of the kids from the home then. One girl was Sheila. Sheila didn’t like to eat. I never found out why, but it was hard to get her to eat, so May would feed her. When May would feed Sheila, she would talk to her about her life or her family to get her mind off eating. When Sheila was thinking about something besides eating she would eat just fine.

Sheila was in the room by mine. She was in a wheelchair, and during the day when we were in the playroom the worker would have her watch us. When the worker had to go do something, Sheila would talk to us, and sometimes when I was in my crib she would come and talk to me and call me her little boy. I didn’t really know what she was saying but I liked it anyway. I never found out what happened to Sheila. I think she passed away, but I’m not sure if it was while she was living at the home. I think Sheila was about 5 years older than I was.

Another kid I remember was Mike. Mike was a little boy with red hair. He was starting to learn to walk. He was a little heavyset and, unlike Sheila, he liked to eat. Mike was afraid of dogs and cats. Whenever he saw one he would start crying. I was afraid of them too. Sometimes we saw them walking by outside. Mike was my roommate. There was a worker who really liked Mike. The worker would do things for him. She said that Mike was her little boy. When Mike got bigger he was a big help to the home. He would clean the sidewalk and take out the trash.

There was also a little boy named Brian. He was one of the children who had to wear braces on his legs and feet. He didn’t like to wear them, and he would cry when he had them on. He also had to wear them at night. When he would cry the worker would tell him not to cry because the braces would help his feet get better. When he would cry at night it was hard to sleep, and I wished they would take the braces off so he wouldn’t cry. But over time Brian didn’t cry when he had them on.

Most of the kids went to the playroom during the day. It was at the other end of the hall from my bedroom, next to May’s room. It was a small room with two windows. We could play and watch TV there.

They would sometimes strap me on this cart that they had made for me. To make the cart move, I had to pull my legs up, then push them down on the floor. The cart was supposed to make my legs stronger. I thought that the cart was fun. At that time I was about 3 years old.

The most important thing that happened to me while I was living at May’s home was meeting my “Mom,” an older worker who became like a mother to me. One day when May was at the post office, she saw a lady who had once been her neighbor. May asked the lady if she would come and work at her home. The woman said that she didn’t know if she could do the kind of work that was needed there, but she would come and try it for two weeks. She continued working at the home for many years after those two weeks were up.

Whenever the woman felt sad inside, she would come and hold me. Later, when I learned to talk, I started calling her Mom. She was an average-size woman with short curly gray hair. I’m really grateful to God that He brought her into my life because I really needed someone who would be like a mom to me. Mom and I had a really special bond. It seemed like for the first time in my life I had someone who really loved me. Sometimes when Mom was working and she didn’t have anything to do, she would take me and hold me and talk to me.

When I was with Mom I was really happy because I felt that I was loved, but sometimes when I saw the other kids’ real moms and dads coming to see them it would make me wonder what was wrong with me. As I started to become aware of what was going on around me, I didn’t understand why my real mom didn’t come to see me, and I wondered what she was like and if she loved me. I wanted her to come and see me and pick me up and hold me and tell me that she loved me. I was told that she had come to see me when I was really little, and that I had talked to her, but I didn’t remember it.

At that time I also didn’t know that those of us who lived at the home were not like other kids. As I got older, I started to realize that not everyone liked us. One day I asked Mom why everyone didn’t like us, and she said that they didn’t understand us. So I asked her why, and she said that they didn’t want to. Sometimes Mom and another worker would talk about how some people would not even walk by the home because they didn’t want to look at us, and when I heard that it made me sad.

Even with Mom and the other workers caring so well for me, there were some things I remember about living at May’s that I didn’t care for. One was bath time. There was a big sink in the bathroom where they gave us baths. I was afraid of taking a bath because I thought I would get soap in my eyes, but the workers told me that they would make sure that no soap got in my eyes. They would hold my head up because at that time I couldn’t hold it up on my own.

Another thing that upset me was the fire siren. It blew whenever there was a fire in town. It also blew at noon and at midnight. The noise was horrible scared me The siren was near our home and it was loud, and I was so glad when it was done blowing. I didn’t understand why it was there, and when I asked one of the workers she told me that the siren was to let the firemen know that there was a fire, but I still didn’t like it.

There was a nightlight in the hallway, but sometimes it burned out and I would get really scared. I didn’t like it when the workers would shut our bedroom door at night because it would make the room dark.

The dark was not the only thing I was scared of. Church programs played on the radio every morning and I remember hearing the hymn, “The Old Rugged Cross.” I heard people talk about God and some of the workers would tell me about Him. It would scare me because I thought that if God got mad at me, He might come down and get me. I also heard that God was so big and that scared me too, because I didn’t know what He would do to me if He did come after me. After Mom told me that God loved me and that He would help me, it didn’t scare me as much whenever I heard someone talk about Him.

Once when I was laying in my crib, I wondered who this God was. I wondered if he could see me and, if he could, what he thought of me. I wondered if he was mad at me and that’s why I had CP, and if that’s why I couldn’t live with my mom and dad. Sometime later, I was talking to Mom and I asked her about it, and she said that she didn’t know why I had CP, but she said that God loved me just as I was, and I wondered why He loved me and what I had done that made Him love me.