Beautiful all the way:)
Our life:)/Viata noastra:)
Family
Carmen the…
First picture; left to right, me in my second or third grade, clearly uncomfortable:)
Second picture; Chet and I on our wedding day. The malnourishment made me light:)
Third picture; my family as of last week, Chet, Merrill, Alex and Meleah:)
Writing about one self its a bit deceiving; you’re either too biased or too hard on yourself and overall one sided.
I’ve had a few nick-names so its hard to pick just one. Is it Carmen the Dreamer, the Writer, the Fighter, the Captain or the Ice Queen? It’s all of them, I suppose.
Born the first of twelve siblings, my life was both wonderful and hard. My birth wasn’t without its challenges. Shots of Vit. D and Iron for the first year or so, along other health issues somehow gave the doctor the right to pressure my mother into killing me. It wasn’t just my health issues that triggered such a decision but compiled to that it was his deep hatered towards christians. You see, I was a seedling of a very hated group of people in my part of the world at the time and I was not alone. In an atheistic world, being born a Christian was dangerous, and we have the scars to prove it.
A “sensitive soul”, with an over-developed ability or gift of empathy I collected other’s pain in my heart as if my life depended on it. The society’s abuse towards us made sense to me- we were a moral danger to a movement that thrived on egocentricity and cruelty. But our father’s abuse towards us never made sense to me. In times when one must stick with each other in an environment called “home”, meaning “safe”, he became our number one enemy, burning all my ideologies on “safe home” right out of my heart. However, beyond reasons I couldn’t understand and logic I couldn’t explain, except to call it hope, with every rare smile, joke or laughter my father had, a fragile hope seed grew in my heart “maybe he’ll change”. The hope lasted no longer than mere fragments of time until the next wave of darkness took a hold of him. Books, that’s where I found my refuge, not church, society or social interactions. That’s where I could dream freely and imagine the world I wanted to live in. I think I was a bit of a loner, yet with a great deal of charisma.
Being the oldest, I worked constantly skipping on childhood and adolescence all together.
Right after high school, I began working twelve hours shifts, seven days a week at an ice-cream and soda-pop kiosk, very popular at the time. I was very greatful for my $6 a month salary, it was similar to my father’s salary. I was not allowed to go to collage, due to my gender and lack of money, something that made me very bitter at the time.
God to me was just another tyrant figure, unhappy, abusive, not nice at all, yet someone I kept on hearing that somehow “loved me.” I wanted nothing to do with this God but didn’t dare communicate that to my parents. A missionary changed all that. He brought along with him stories of a very powerful and nice God, similar to Jesus in the New Testament (the church loved the mean and angry Old Testament God) and I fell in love for the very first time with God. Willingly, I wanted to have a relationship with this new image of God, not the one in the church. I began a new walk, a happy and light walk with God.
After the 1989 fall of communism revolution in most of the Estern European block, charitable help came into the country in the form of clothes, shoes, and monthly food supplies. “If I ever get rich, I’ll do the same.” A prayer shot up to the heavens from a thankful heart and put in practice soon after.
In 1993 I was rescued by this super handsome and tall young man, Chet, who was part of a missionary team from America. The engagement and wedding was a big source of gossip and wonder. We married on August 15th, in Romania. A very unusual wedding since the bride and groom couldn’t talk to each other:) Leaving Romania and coming to America on October 15th, was one of the most stressful things I lived through. Not because of Chet, my new husband, but everything else: leaving my family, who I no longer could protect, entering a new land with new traditions I din’t understand and no one familiar to communicate with. Halloween was a weird and dark first impression of American holidays, only the small kids dressed in cute costumes brought a smile to my face, all other gore did not. My parents-in-law were a hugeeeeee support during that time.
I had my first born, Merrill, in 1995, followed quickly by my second, Meleah, in 1996 and then our surprise, Alex, in 1993, (I was pregnant with Alex when I flew back to Romania to see Fanu in the hospital, but I did not know I was pregnant). I had a few jobs: babysitting, sells rep at the Gap, preschool teacher, writer, real-estate agent, home design and massage therapist. I’ve never been more fulfilled in my work field, like when I’m writing.
Most of you know that in January of 2014, I fell ill, an illness that almost took my life and I’m still fighting it, getting better each day, with the occasional relapses, which are still far too often than I like to admit.
I’m very happy now, even if in pain most days. Every day I’m greatful to God for allowing me another day on this wonderful planet and among my loved ones. Life is very normal, and calm (I need to keep it calm and stress-free) and mundane but I love it:) Thank you God for my life:)
Oana the Baby:)
Number twelve, Oana is the baby and no matter how tough she presents herself, to us she’ll always remain the baby:) She’s the last one of the clan and my father’s weakness. Oana learned quickly how to work my father and did so without hesitation:) During his “angry episodes” she stayed away and kept quiet, avoiding getting hurt. I’m sure it wasn’t easy for her to see her siblings getting hurt, the way they did. Since early adolescence she became a mother figure in the house (since my mother lived mostly in Vilcele) taking care of the house, cleaning, washing, cooking and baking. She bossed her older brothers around any chance she had, standing up for herself or be left out in the dust. Oana learned at an early age to be tough and speak her mind- loudly:) She also had her older brothers there to protect her, if needed, which was a fantastic advantage.
After high-school Oana worked shorty as a waitress at a local restaurant, then went to Italy/Roma and helped out Delia, who worked long hours as a nurse putting long hours in. Oana took care of Delia’s children, cooked and cleaned. Eventually Delia found her a job taking care of an elderly lady, until she got married.
Oana met Alex, her husband, on the same Christian single site “Pom Verde” as her other brothers did with their spouses. The wedding was in 2014, a wedding I could not attend due to illness. Finding work, after the wedding, in Romania was tough and Alex looked for work outside their country’s borders. Eventually he found a job in Munchen, Germany and heavy hearted left a pregnant wife behind in Romania, seeing each other only through rare visits.
Alin, who lived on hour away, visited Alex when possible and upon seeing the shady neighborhood Alex lived in and the poverty level, Alin made its mission to find Alex another job. Eventually he did find one job in Ulm, Germany, and Alex moved in with Alin, able now to bring Oana there and reunite the family. Six months later they had twin girls, an excellent and positive surprise. You see, on either side of the families, we don’t have twins in the gene. The best moments in Oana’s life was holding her girls in her arms right after delivery and she fell instantly in love with her girls. Alex, who wanted girls over boys, got his girls:) Alin gained a family and young nieces as well:)
Eventually they were able to move into their own apartment and together they have a happy life. Alex works as a trucker and Oana loves being a mother and a housewife. Cooking and baking are her specialities and you can tell by the growing bellies of both her husband and Alin’s, who eats there almost daily:)
When I left, Oana was one year old and I only knew about Oana based on the information I received when I talked on the phone with my family or from the few visits we did to Romania. But I gained a lot of respect once I found out she was pregnant with twins. Somehow I saw that as a special blessing God put in her life. Seeing what a good mother and wife she is makes me a proud big sis and even though we haven’t spent a lot of face to face time together, I’m looking forward to do so in the future:)
What an awesome family I have:)
Thank you God for every singe one of my brother and sister:)
Joseph the Strong
First picture is of Joseph around one years old.
Second picture is of Joseph and Flavius.
Third picture is of Joseph and his wife Dana, this year:)
This particular blog is going to be emotionally very hard for me and you’ll find out soon why.
Between Delia and Joseph my mom lost another boy. He lived only five minutes after delivery due to heart complications.
Born the sixth child, I had a particular fondness for Joseph due to his sweet and humble nature. He did his very best not to cause problems into an already tumultuous environment and kept very quiet and out-of-the-way, often going without food until I would arrive from school around 2 pm. I would ask him if he ate and with the sweetest tone he would responded:
“No.”
“How come?”
“I didn’t want to bother mom.”
By now, due to the tole the pregnancies and the abuse from her husband took on her, my mother was very distant and moody. Thus, Joseph became my child and he started calling me “mommy” which made my heart radiate with love. I had a fearsome protective instinct over Joseph that pushed me into action. In my own way, I stood up for my younger siblings including my mother, in an effort to protect them. I felt responsible somehow for their safety. I was not 100% successful but something snapped in me one particular afternoon while on my way back from school. I was around twelve-years-old and Joseph around four-years old. I heard his painful cries all the way from the court yard; since it was warm outside the windows were open. The distance between me and him has never been as long as that particular day while I ran up the stairs and into the hallway of our apartment, where little Joseph had shrunk into a fetal position protecting his head with his little arms while my father hit him violently. Like a lioness seeing her cub in danger, and without hesitation, I ran between them covering his little body with mine, taking the hits for him. Shocked my father stopped- he had a weakness for his girls- and began yelling insults at me. I stood and faced him, chest high, gaze fixed into his with great determination refusing to move. I saw my father hesitate. Silently I was screaming at him: “Over my dead body.” Joseph was my child and suddenly my father became my enemy. I was determined to protect what was mine, no matter how big the enemy in front of me seemed. Even his slaps over my face and head or his crude insults didn’t make me flinch once as I turned my fixed gaze back at him, not one tear found in my eyes, simultaneously protecting Joseph behind me. Long enough I’ve witnessed this abuse without doing something about it. Long enough. From that day on a verbal war began between my father and I. For my remaining years in Romania I was the middle man in many circumstances. Also, from that day on all the twigs my father picked on his way home from work I secretly broke and got rid of.
It broke my heart when I had to leave Romania, after I married and today I just realized, leaving Joseph exposed and unprotected was a huge reason why. I felt secretly guilty about that for years.
Once gone, I heard Joseph and my younger brothers’s abuse doubled. Like I previously wrote, Marius had a very hard time through adolescence. I guess its as the saying goes: “Monkey see, monkey do.” Once that phase passed, Marius changed.
Joseph didn’t find refuge from the abuse until he entered college in Arad. I believe for a period of time he lived with Alin, who also went to collage, graduated and worked in Arad for many years before moving to Germany. Iosif also found refuge in the home of a young Christian family who sort of adopted him and cared for him greatly. Dana, who later on became his wife was the lady’s younger sister and that’s how they met:)
Joseph graduated college as an engineer and now works in a company run by his brother-in-law. Dana and Joseph have three fantastic children, one of them looks exactly like him. He’s involved in church ministry working with kids and even though it took him around five or six years, he built their home brick by brick, spending hundreds of hours in rain, cold and hot weather to finish. He pretty much built that house all by himself and they moved in it this year:)
With the exception of Alin, all my brother were and still are avid soccer lovers, spending many hours in the dust and confined apartment court yard playing.
Life was not easy for Joseph but God sure blessed him, just like he blessed the rest of us. I thank God for taking care of him when I could not. He was always God’s child above mine and God took and is still taking good care of Joseph.
I could call him Joseph the Builder, but I think I’ll call him Joseph the Strong.
Marius
Marius the Minister
Due to the age gap between us, I haven’t been too close to Marius in his youth and adolescent times, something I regret. I’ve gotten to know Marius better after we both got married.
Born the forth, Marius was abused the longest. To this day my father does not seem too fond of him. The reasons are personal. But what blew my mind and impressed me greatly, was how much Marius had to forgive. He’s forgiven a lot. In the face of violent verbal and at times physical abuse that continued right after he married, Marius’s attitude was that of calm. To this day I’m impressed with his cool collected way of trying to put a fire out. He became a fantastic negotiator pushed, I presume, by the circumstances of his life. He has class and is very successful in his negotiations. Mom lost a boy between Sergiu and Marius and the gap forced a sort of loneliness in Marius’s life. He found refuge in church and soon became very successful as a children’s pastor. That grew into a ministry of itself and soon he moved from overseer in one church, to overseer of the whole city (in the baptist denomination), then overseer in the entire county. He spent many hours helping the poorest of children, street children and gypsy kids. He met Veronica, his wife in the ministry field and together they have five children.
Unlike the poor fatherly example he’d experienced back home, Marius is a great father and invests a lot of time and money into his children’s education. His eldest, Maria, only 15 years old speaks three languages (German, English and Romanian) and his kids are A students- at lest the ones that go to school:) Few years back they moved to Austria, where they currently live and Marius just began selling his own line of organic honey.
I’m very proud of him and his beautiful life:)
P.S. Alin speaks three languages as well and Sergiu speaks two.
Uncle Stefan
He’s my mom’s younger brother, aunt Olga’s husband and now the proud owner of a successful back operation.
My uncle fell off a ladder a few days ago-work injury- and injured the lower lumbar disks of his back, more precisely, the jelly cushion known as intervertebral disks and their role are to absorb any shock from fall or trauma. He had surgery yesterday and everything went well:) Thank you, God:)
My uncle Stefan’s been dealing with severe asthma as far back as I could remember. This disabled him so severely, that his last year in Romania was spent mostly in the hospital. Through the help of Red Cross, he was able to come to America and settle in California where the weather is hot and dry and the medicine is far better than back home. The plane he flew on out of Romania was the last one to leave the country right as the revolution of 1989 begun. It was an impossibly hard decision to leave behind his beautiful wife Olga, and his five children. It would take about nine years (I can’t remember right the number so I may be off by few years here) until the family was able to re-unite. The paperwork process was long and dreary but eventually everyone was able to come:) Uncle Stefan’s health improved greatly here in America, especially in California due mostly to the weather, but also the medication. All his children (my cousins:) are married now, have good jobs and good lives, in California. I am so glad his surgery went well and his on the road to recovery now:)
So many times I get inspired by real people who endured hard times but succeeded in the end.
God Bless:)
Journey 