Let Go

Dori Oneill

Description

An honest messy memoir: murder to marriage, mothering to medical drama, missions to mayhem, and midlife changes to mentors & more.
Author Dori Oneill, writes her honest and messy life memoir. It includes her 46 year nursing career. Her background and childhood took her through: murder to marriage, mothering to medical drama, missions to mayhem, midlife changes to mentors & MORE. Her journey in life gave her bigger adventures than she ever dreamed of, and more life experience than she ever thought was possible. She believes there is much more ahead.

Sujets

• Personal Memoirs
• Biography
• Autobiography

Informations

• Publié par: iUniverse
• Date de parution: 09 novembre 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781663247551
• Langue: English

Extrait

LET GO
 
 
 
 
Dori Oneill
 
 
 

 
LET GO
 
 
Copyright © 2022 Dori Oneill.
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
 
 
 
iUniverse
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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
ISBN: 978-1-6632-4754-4 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-6632-4755-1 (e)
 
Library of Congress Control Number: 2022920656
 
iUniverse rev. date: 11/08/2022
CONTENTS
Dedication
Preface
PART 1: CHILDHOOD
Parents
Childhood
Elementary & Middle School
Work & Entrepreneur
Family Trips & Church
High School
Barbie & Murder
PART 2: CAREER, MARRIAGE, SONS
Nursing School & Specialties
Marriage & First son
Cedar Ridge & Back to college
Second Son & Alaska
Year 13 - 20 & Divorce
Phillipines & Honduras
Career & Sad relationship
Sons
My Baby sister
PART 3: TRAVEL NURSE ADVENTURE
Hawaii, Seattle, North Carolina
Seattle Life
Trips: Europe, Hawaii, Nepal, India
Life and Death
Revolving doors & Florida travel nurse
Stress, Medical issues, Decisions
PART 4: NEW BEGINNINGS
Florida 2018
Covid / Bruna 2020
PART 5: FUTURE 2023
Dedication
For my two strong sons: Nate and Brad
To show them that life brings constant choices and consequences.
To accept and understand themselves, where they came from, what has shaped them, and to help decide what they create their lives to be.
To always be problem solvers, and teach that to their children.
To let go of their mistakes, learn, and move on.
To remember “attitude of gratitude” & “we have a good life, don’t we”
My oldest always made me laugh “sweet one who birthed me”, and has grown into the finest organized military man I could imagine.
My youngest blessed me with peace and contentment, and has continued to amaze his employers with his IT skills and organization.
Both are good men, good fathers, and excel in their careers. They are my heart, and I’m honored and grateful to be called their mother.
I am grateful to the many influencers in my life; too many to be named.
I am grateful to my cousin, Carlos Rosado, who counseled all the women in my family, and is part of my Anabaptist upbringing. We can probably thank him for this book, he insisted it was worthy to share.
I am grateful for spiritual leaders: John Rosenberry in my youth, Bill and Elizabeth Mitchell, pastor of the church I attend currently: Boca Raton Community Church.
Preface
I never imagined murder or medical trauma would be part of my life. I wanted 7 sons, a large family, order, routine and no surprises. All my life, I’ve made lists of my goals, and what I wanted in a partner. In my young mind, I was not adventurous or risk taking, and certainly knew I would not be divorced. I was prepared to be submissive, would follow my path of upbringing, always do the right thing, and create the best life ever. I was self disciplined, and immersed in my faith. I was so naive.
Every new day is a choice to let go: of expectations, fear, control, anger, depression, jealousy, resentment, self pity, addictions, envy, gossip, vindictiveness, and of all the things that seek to destroy us.
I have purposely omitted many details, changed names* to protect the innocent and the guilty. I have let go of some secrets, to further illustrate my own humanity. In life, most of us are good people who make some mistakes. I am forgiven, and I look forward to my future. Jeremiah 29:11
Every person in my journey: my sons, my living sibling, my extended family, and my relationships, all have their own perceptions of my life. I’ve made mistakes, and I’ve had accomplishments. I’ve loved, and I’ve failed. I’ve hurt others, and I’ve been hurt. I am a constant work in progress.
The role of nurturer is in my DNA, and I resented it for so many years. It felt like a burden. As I gained more understanding of my own childhood, and my parents childhoods, I was able to let this resentment go. I now embrace the qualities I have as gifts given to me: peacemaker, fixer, mediator, planner, the caretaker, the dependable and responsible one.
To understand ourselves, we go back to our beginnings.
PART 1 CHILDHOOD
Parents
R ULES AND REGULATIONS - we had so many among the plain people of Central Pennsylvania. Our dress codes were very strict. My mother told me about her early years. She wore a traditional head covering, and a ‘cape dress’, as you see in pictures of the Amish. The coverings did not cover the whole head, or have strings, like the Amish wear. She wore the white mesh stiff covering that settled over her bun, secured in the center of her head with hairpins. The front and sides of the hair were pulled back tightly, and secured with bobby pins or clips. A black bonnet, slightly bigger, would occasionally be worn over this covering. A woman was not supposed to be a show-off, or fashion conscious. She later switched to a plain modest fashion of secular dress, but her white covering was always worn. Jewelry and makeup were not allowed, and the hair was not to be cut. We were to be plain, like our name. My father was allowed to wear the same thing that secular men wore at that time of life. As a child, I saw the dress code in our faith as a double standard. We girls could not wear pants, shorts, sleeveless tops, skirts above the knee, clothes that were form fitting, or showed our midriff or below our neckline. We were basically covered from neck to knees. Our hair was braided in two braids (we called them plaits), and then pinned, with bobby pins, to the top of our head. I began wearing a little white mesh covering on top of this in third grade.
Many things were sins: smoking, drinking alcohol, swearing, or even using words that sounded like swear words, such as darn, or heck. We could not participate in bowling alleys, movie theaters, roller skating rinks, or dances, including the high school prom. We did not wear bathing suits and swim with boys. We did not attend secular, worldly events that might sway us away from our faith. I’ve had friends in later years, say that I grew up in a cult, but it didn’t feel that way to me. My parents had life harder than I did.
The Great Depression, from August 1929 - June 1938, had a huge impact on my grandparents and parents. My mother was the second child of four, and arrived in 1933. She was born to Swiss German, hardworking, and God fearing parents, both born in 1900, and both died at age 90. They owned a little chicken farm on the outskirts of town, and Grandpa drove a bread truck until age sixty. Then, both grandparents worked at a local factory after hours, cleaning up clothing scraps, and sweeping the floors. This job ended at age seventy-five, but they continued to have a garden with compost, maintained their multi-acre property, and cleaned out their cistern water collection tank every year. They buried the garbage in the corner of the garden. In their mid eighties, they sold this property, and moved an hour northeast, into a double wide mobile home on my parents property.
This family was small and close knit, and we loved our aunts and uncles and cousins, and had family gatherings every year. My grandpa had been carting scraps of waste fabric home from the factory for years, and he was going to braid rugs when he retired. My mother, her sister, and I, worked on the attic after my grandparents moved. We threw those fabric pieces, tied together in bundles, out the little attic window, and into the rented dumpster below. We laughed like little school girls at how therapeutic this felt. We were sure Grandpa would be upset to know we were so wasteful with good material, and we paid to have it hauled away. This sticks in my memory, and I determined to let go of junk in life, live simply, and not leave a mess behind for my kids to clean up. Grandpa was medically sound, he had arthritis, his mind was sharp, and he wanted to live until age one hundred twenty. He had never been hospitalized, and died peacefully in his sleep at age ninety. Grandma had birthed all her children at home, she had one cataract procedure at a surgery center in her eighties, and had her first hospital admission at age ninety. Her diagnosis was CHF, or Congestive Heart Failure. The day she was to be discharged, is the day grandpa died in his sleep. She was kept a few days longer at the hospital, and sent home to my parents house. She lost her desire to live, and Hospice was called. She died three months later, also at age ninety.
My memories with Grandpa and Grandma are wonderful. They took my siblings and I, to the Hershey Zoo for several summers. We always had a lunch picnic basket, and they bought a strand of tickets for some rides, but the main attraction was the Zoo. My older sister Barbie and I, would spend several weeks each summer with them, separately from my brother. We went to the Waynesboro High School fireworks display, on July 4 ea