The birth of Wheeze

I'm a mother of two with one on the way. I'm happily in my 30s with a wonderful (not perfect) husband and a life that I've worked very hard for. My road hasn't been easy but it's the one I chose to take.

I had many nicknames growing up, being the youngest and only girl of three older brother's, having a nickname was no surprise. Wheeze, however, wasn't what I expected to inherit. There was piggy for gymnastics with reasons you wouldn't expect, Shorty for obvious reasons and other names my brother's used but shouldn't be repeated. My birth name is Elizabeth and at some point two of my brother's started calling me Wheeze. It was different, I answered to it without hesitation and none of us can remember when or why it started. Now my 6 nephews and 1 niece call me Auntie Wheeze. It's a piece of my childhood that stays with me...and it's a lot easier to say than Auntie Elizabeth.

I grew up in a small town with a blue collar, Irish Catholic family in Massachusetts. My dad liked his golf and his beer and my mother liked her prayer's. We went to church every weekend, did our chores on Saturday's and rested on Sunday's. I spent most of my summer's in Georgia with my grandparents while my brother's stayed home and worked on the golf course. People envied our family, we had a nice home and family dinner every night. I always thought it was more like a painting, real pretty from a distance but as you get closer you can see all the imperfections.

I didn't fit in at school, I was the girl that stood in the middle of all the groups and the girl the popular girl's talked about. I had Scoliosis, food allergies and an alcoholic parent and was convinced that I got my parents leftover genes. I had a bulls eye on my head and where I thought I would get sympathy, I was even shunned by some of my teachers. At home, I definitely didn't fit in with my older brothers and often heard the reason for exclusion "because you're a girl". Being daddy's little girl had it's perks, however, shortly after puberty kicked in the golf course became off limits. So you can see where the resentment may have started to boil over. What I did have were a few close friends, my animals and gymnastics. I've always been the quirky girl with little patience for stupidity and a strong sense of real friendship and family.

It took me many years to find my voice and my faith. My mother would say, "just turn the other cheek". I understand now what she really meant and accept that we are not the same person but at the time there was a lot of anger that I bottled up. Now don't get me wrong, I wasn't walking around waiting for death to cross my path. I had a childhood that I have learned over the year's to appreciate greatly, it has made me who I am today. I have a lot of compassion for children and I do not tolerate bullying, I have a great affection for animals and truly believe I missed my calling but that's for another post. I believe without a doubt that independence, communication, financial understanding and mutual respect are necessities in a marriage. And that saying "never judge a book by its cover" is mostly true, one should never assume someones personality by their appearance.

Needless to say, I made it through middle school and happily waved goodbye to go onto an all girl Catholic school. Dad had sobered up and mom had found her sense of direction. One month into my freshman year and it was time to pack up and move to Saudi Arabia. Things were headed for a really big change.