Dear Mickey and any other friends interested,
Thank you for all the good wishes, Mickey! :-) Yes, I did write quite a list of troubles all right!
Although I even forgot to tell about Ben's having diphtheria. How they nearly killed him. When they carried him out to hospital he croaked to me, "Mary, ask the Baha'is to pray for me." This was from a man who didn't believe in prayer, or hardly in God. So I did. They did.
The doctor who diagnosed him told me not to go out of the house under any condition, because if a child in the neighbourhood got diphtheria the people might stone me in the street. How many women in Canada do you think have ever been told by a Canadian physician that they could be stoned in a Canadian street?
So I was under quarantine in our little home, with a diphtheria placard on the door to tell everyone to stay away. Even my parents only brought food to leave it outside the door and my only outside contact was by phone. A Baha'i friend who had two children was the only one who said I must let them in, because I shouldn't be all alone. I refused to even consider the idea because the person had two children, but I have never forgotten that brave offer. I spent my time making an album of pictures of my dear Ben.
I was quite pregnant, and nauseated, you know. We shared that bathroom with the old French Canadian lady in the apartment on the other side. She kept putting pots of evil-smelling decontaminating liquid in there to protect herself.
The doctors were bringing people in to see Ben as the first case of diphtheria in our province in twenty years. He kept getting worse and worse. Finally, from that big hospital they sent specimens to a huge hospital in a very large city. When the tests returned the decision was that Ben had something very close to diphtheria, but not exactly diphtheria. Then they had to reverse much of the treatment to save him, as it was killing him.
I received phone calls every day while Ben was in hospital, from people nagging to get Ben to finish their house or pay some bill. I thought to ask my father's lawyer for help and he generously and so kindly told me to refer all future phone calls of that time to him. I will never forget that.
Later when we had moved to another city Ben got a job for an Italian bread company. Very long hours and an old truck. On a lonely road coming back to the bakery one evening he hit a pothole and the steering mechanism broke. His nose was broken and a tendon in his leg torn. He would have been more damaged if he hadn't flung himself sideways across the seat. He came home very late with his hand over his nose, and clumped up the stairs. I had been praying for him for hours since he was so late. His leg was in a cast. He had no crutch. We had no car. We had to walk several blocks for groceries. Some people along the way gave Ben a crutch so he didn't need to lean on my shoulder. I was by then very pregnant with the same pregnancy. It was the black family named Mr. and Mrs. Plato who lived across the road in the old house, with all their children, who offered to drive us for groceries in their old car No one else helped. I have never forgotten that kindness, either. Ben's jacket was stolen from the bread truck. As I said in an earlier post, I didn't tell my parents much of any of this and they lived in another city. Ben was charged with going too fast for the condition of the road. There was a "governor" on the truck that would not let it go over 40 miles per hour and the speed limit on that road was 60 miles per hour, but the law say if you have an accident due to road conditions it is proof you were going too fast. So I went to court with him, hoping the judge would have sympathy when he saw how pregnant I was. The police officer stood up and said that Ben had been very cooperative and they recommended lenience. So we had a fine to pay, and had to pay for the telephone pole that was broken off when the truck hit it, too. You can imagine that we had very little money at the time. Unemployment insurance did not come to Ben because he had been self-employed, and there is none for self-employed people.
The next thing that happened was that we went to the library one rainy evening because we didn't have any other recreation, and we both like books. When we came out, Ben courteously opened the car door on the passenger's side for me. Then went to the driver's seat. He had noted in the rear view mirror that the light down the street behind us was red, so cars weren't coming. He started the car and pulled out, just as a black car came rapidly from behind. That car hit our car. No one was hurt, but the police had to come. When we went to the police station I was astonished to hear the policeman read Ben his rights. This is done before they charge you. I wondered how they could charge him when the other car hit us? It is because he pulled in front of them, even if they were going very fast and jumped the light.
There was a man in a tweed jacket there, smoking a pipe. I noticed that the policeman was very smarmy and extra polite to him. He turned out to be the Deputy Chief of Police. The car that hit us was driven by his son and a girlfriend, returning from a funeral for a fellow student who had drowned. A legal paper advising Ben that he was charged came in the mail. The next night the Deputy Chief came to our little house to say that he would withdraw charges if we would pay to have his wife's car fixed. The son was driving his mother's car. This was actually corrupt. We had to agree to it. I was actually very shocked that a Canadian policeman would do such a thing. The times were different then.
During this time we fell behind one payment to a finance company that held Ben'scar loan. It was coming close to time for the next payment when a man came to our house at supper time. We had nothing in the place to eat except cottage cheese. We kept it cold in the little snow that blew in a crack in the door.It was on the table. As I said, I was pregnant (still), with the same baby, as always, as this all took place within a six month period. That is why it is astonishing. That's why I said I could have won the Queen for a Day contest!
The man came in. We said we didn't have the money. He looked at the cottage cheese container sitting on the table by itself and said, "You're still eating, aren't you?! How shocking! In fact, if we had complained to the company he would have been disciplined or fired. But we didn't know that. I was very young. Ben was inexperienced in Canada, as an immigrant who had always been employed, and never had any trouble before in any of these ways.
I saved our bacon when I decided we should go to the Credit Union (my father was a founder of it and held book 6.) I work there during a summer holiday when I was in school. They listened to our story and immediately gave us a loan to pay off the finance company. The loans officer said, "It makes us very happy to grant loans like this one!" He meant to get someone out of the clutches of a finance company. We eventually paid that off.
Stress and so on caused me to bleed, so that it appeared that I was losing the baby. The bleeding was frequent. It was an infection and the child was safe. The physicians said I would have trouble from it all my life. But I didn't.
This kind of thing went on and on constantly, from two weeks after we were married near the beginning of January, until that summer, at the end of July. It may sound very peculiar to you when I tell you that it stopped immediately we became Baha'is that July. We both knew a lot about the Faith and believed it, but we had decided that we wouldn't be Baha'is, because we felt that it was too much hard work, since we were friends with some very active Baha'is. We agreed with each other that we would remain friends with all the Baha'is, but not become Baha'is ourselves. We decided this two weeks before we were married. I remember exactly where we were, what we were doing and what everything looked like as we decided this. As I said earlier, Ben didn't believe in prayer, or much in God.
Through having all this hard luck we came to another conclusion. It was because we were softened up by the troubles, so that we thought much more seriously about everything. Ben believes he did have diphtheria and that the prayers made something strange happen that changed the situation. Ben became a very firm believer in prayer for ever after that time. We both are. Anyway, we decided to be Baha'is. I decided first and waited for him. Finally I made him talk about it with me, he was ready, and we applied together.
At that time you had to read certain things and write that you understood them. Then you had to be interviewed to be sure you really understood and believed.We were interviewed under the trees at an international Baha'i picnic that's always held in a beautiful and historic place at Queenston Heights. When they came back from considering the interview and said we could be Baha'is I burst into tears, and a dear and wonderful big, buxom old black lady took me in her arms and gave me a big hug. I was so glad they had accepted me. That's why I cried.
Anyway, that's when it all stopped, and we have only had progress ever since,except for the time our eldest daughter got the platelet problem from the fluwhen she was about three. She was bruised all over and the thought was that she had cancer of the blood. She didn't. It was a platelet problem. She was completely covered in bruises. I was sick in bed and hadn't noticed them come until I changed her clothes to give her a bath. There they were, even in the skin of her scalp under her hair. For a little while I imagined I had gone crazy when I was sick and beaten her!
There was also the time our middle daughter, about seven years old, nearly got killer pneumonia because she breathed in a piece of raw carrot which had to be removed immediately before it festered. Raw vegetables are dangerous inside in the warmth of the lungs. The only specialist available, one I had heard bad things about, put an instrument into her, hunted for it and removed it. They hoped they got it all, and thankfully they did. He did a good job for us. Both children recovered without incident.
There have been many years when we were short of money, and so on, but we have never had any such continual run of a large variety of dire occurences ever again, and I hope we never shall.
No Baha'is ever told us life would change if we became Baha'is. We just found that out for ourselves by looking back through the years on the situations of life.
I told one dear friend this story, and he said his life had been smooth until hebecame a Baha'i, and *then* he got all kinds of tests. I guess we get the tests we need, when we need them. Ben says everyone has a load to carry and everyone's load is different. I think I prefer ours, to anyone elses!
I hope you will have much joy in your own lives, and only the tests you need to teach you, so that your lives will become better. You can see from my story thatlife can change radically. I only told part our difficulties before, and I believe there are still a few things I could have included, but I won't. This is certainly enough for now! "Riches turn to poverty, and poverty to riches" is a very true statement. This saying is about more than money or troubles. It has to do with inner wealth, too. :-)
It is possible for life to change, even in material ways, in directions you would never imagine or expect.
I consider myself to be a very rich woman. Although we aren't financially rich we have all we need, and each other, and a fine family and interest in life. What could be better?
Warm good wishes to you Mickey, and anyone else reading this, from Mary
