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Listening from the heart
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The next person who I want to give their fifteen minutes of fame for inspiring me is no longer on the planet. Anna Peterson was a part of my family for as long as I can remember. She was its cornerstone in many ways. My parents had six young children, all of us about a year apart. Anna came to take care of us when I was about 3 years old, so I really don’t remember life before her.
I am sure that at some point everyone has felt sorry for themselves until they became aware of someone who had much greater challenges in life. Suddenly your own problems paled in comparison, especially when that other person did not seem to see any adversity in their own life. Anna was that type of person.
As a little girl she’d had spinal meningitis which left her deaf. She’d lost her mother at a young girl. On top of it, she had a large “wine stain” on one cheek. She’d lost her only child in infancy. Her husband apparently was a very domineering man. When he died she was not left with much. My Dad was her doctor so he knew her well & wanted to help her after she was widowed. She was in her fifties when she came to help my mother out with a houseful of energetic Irish toddlers.
So many blessings and lessons came from growing up with Anna. Although she was deaf, she could read lips, so as children we learned to articulate our words. We didn’t even see the wine stain. Often people are uncomfortable being around someone who has some type of handicap or disability. Thanks to Anna, none of us ever were. She was comfortable with herself, so we were comfortable with her. You see, she didn’t have to hear us speak because she listened from her heart.
She was very honest & direct in everything she said & did. We’d often laugh at her simple wisdom. As children she taught us that everyone was equal. She did not believe in prejudice or discrimination against anyone. She grew up in rural
When I was in college Anna discovered she had leukemia and could no longer work for my family. Although she may have retired she was still a part of our family, still came to dinner, we still went to her house to visit often. She was a voracious reader, so we often discussed books. Her lip reading skills were often the source of comedic moments, especially when she’d be watching a football or baseball game. Sometimes she’d read the lips of players & knew when they cursed. She became a sort of “rock star” with all of my extended family—aunts, uncles, cousins, etc, everyone loved Anna because she was authentic.
She battled the leukemia bravely for about eleven years, never complaining, never feeling sorry for herself. One particularly touching moment came when I’d sent her a book called “You Can’t Afford the Luxury of a Negative Thought”. She wasn’t doing very well and it looked like she was going to die soon. She wrote to me & thanked me for the book. She said “I’m going to do what this book says because it makes sense.” Little did she know it, but she actually lived her whole life that way. That could have been the title of her autobiography.
After reading the book, her cancer actually went into remission and she was able to make it to my sister’s wedding that spring. She so wanted to be there for that & to see my older brother’s first child. She then lived about another two years, long enough to see my sister’s first child, Katie.
I still remember the last time I saw her. She was staying with family. She was bedridden & obviously in a lot of pain at the time. Still that did not dampen her spirits. We went to see her & she loved having Katie crawl around on her bed. I still remember the day she died. I felt a warmth come over me. I knew she was with me. Shortly after that my mother called to tell me that she had passed.
Looking back on it all, Anna was such a gift. It amazes me to realize that she never heard any of us laugh or cry, but she heard those sounds inside her heart. She could hear what was really going on inside everyone. That was what she taught us. Teaching others to listen from the heart was the gift that she gave to everyone.
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