I’m so very excited to sit down today with Rowena Carlson Kramer, a major character in three of my father’s novels, and get her story for my first ‘Character Confessions‘ article.
Scott: So Rowena, for today’s ‘confession’, I want to deal with a time you were afraid of something happening. Did anything like that ever take place?
Rowena: “Go Potty!”
Scott: Umm, of course. You know where the restroom is and when you’re done we can get started.
Rowena: It’s not that Scott. I was referring to what I said to my new father after he put me to bed the first night in Garwood.
Scott: Well, you’ve got my attention. What happened Rowena?
Rowena: After my mother died, my father had a woman friend who didn’t want me around so he arranged to give me to a family in Garwood, On our way, my father, “possessing the level of intellect he did, and being of the temperament he was, had given no thought to seeing” that I used the restroom “before or during the train ride.” “In the prevailing excitement” after leaving the train, “no one else had considered the matter.”
I was still asleep when we got home, so I never saw my new mother, but I did hear a woman’s voice, once in awhile. “It wasn’t as cold and harsh as that” of my aunt, with whom I had “stayed in those weeks following” my “mother’s death, but it lacked the melodic sweetness that lay in the precious memories of” my “mother.”
I can still feel the warm, fluffy nightgown being pulled over my head and then those huge, loving hands gathering me up and placing me gently into bed. “Fear held no power against the delightful sinking sensation,” as I “settled into the downy depths.”
It wasn’t long after when the urgent demands of my bladder brought me to the horrible realization that I had no idea of where a toilet might be or if one existed in the house I now occupied. I grew up with outhouses and chamber pots, and in the city with my aunt there was indoor plumbing, but I didn’t know anything about where I was that night.
I remember laying very still and concentrating on prolonging the inevitable. The room was not totally dark, but having no knowledge of my surroundings, I dare not get out of bed. I recall whimpering softly and “contemplating which might be the least traumatic; getting up, being unable to find a facility, and wetting the floor,” or staying where I was and wetting the bed.
Recalling all too vividly my father’s wrath at the occasion of my last accident, I was “certain that either would involve terrible punishment.”
Scott: I’m almost afraid to ask about the ending.
Rowena: That’s when ‘Uncle Jason’ came and asked me what was wrong and I blurted out, “Go Potty!”
Scott: Uncle Jason? I thought you were picked up at the train by your new father.
Rowena: Well yes, same man, but that’s a story better left for your First Acquaintance series. Before I knew what was happening, “the covers were snatched away, and those great warm hands whisked” me “from the bed with such speed” that I was forced to squeeze with all my “might to avert an instant flood.”
Everything he did was gentle and soon, the ordeal was over and I was “settled in the warm folds of the feather bed.'” He said he was sorry and that he should have had me ‘go potty’ before he put me in bed. “Hearing the deep masculine voice” repeating my “baby phrase was strange, almost comical, but at the same time very reassuring…and from that magic storehouse, from whence flows the wisdom of children, came the realization that there had been no need for” my “discomfort.”
Scott: Wow…that could have ended so differently, especially if you were still with your real father. It sounds like you went from fear to peace in a very short time. How old were you when this happened?
Rowena: I hadn’t celebrated my fifth birthday yet Scott and you’re so right about the ending. My new father, whose nearness that night gave me such peace and security, filled my life with a love nearly equal to that of my mother, a love I cherished, and returned, for the rest of my life.
Scott: Thank you so much for your time and openness with us Rowena.
Rowena: It was my pleasure Scott and I hope you’ll give me a chance to share some other confessions at a future date. There’s lots to tell.
Scott: If that gleam in your eyes is any indication, I’m sure my readers and I would love to have you share again.
