Recovery in the Bible (RIB)

JUST CALL ME QUEENIE

This is an example of Steps Eight and NIne, which I do one person at a time, wherever possible, even after the person is dead, which is the case with my who called me "Queenie" and did not mean it as a compliment. I was verbal as a child, I am told -- practicing the pronunciation of words like Mississippi at an early age and, according to my mother’s book of records, “singing Christmas carols et cetera exceptionally well and constantly.” It may be safe to say that I have scarcely shut up since.

My mother called me Queenie, in part because I exceed being just a general blabbermouth -- I actually command. It was learned behavior as I evolved from First Child to Eldest Child and Only Daughter. Also, in everyone’s unrelenting assessment to this day, I was the Apple of my Father’s Eye.

This meant things like never having to carry my luggage. Always having the door opened for me. Much done in my behalf -- either by my father or (and) my two younger brothers. I remember coming home from college after my senior year, having requested that my bedroom be transformed from girlish pick to Flemish Blue. By the time I arrived home, the room was completely refurbished -- trim and all -- ready and waiting.

Multiplying things like that times a father whose nickname for me was “Darling Sweetheart” and who wrote me daily when I went to camp and said he missed me after I spent just one night away at my next-door neighbor’s house for first sleepover. 

No wonder my mother called me Queenie.

This photograph is by Eric Jonas Swensson of Sound Shore Media.