Participants:
Series Code: MIW
Program Code: MIW000068A
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00:01 Hi, I'm Dr. Kim Logan Nowlin, I'm Arthur Nowlin.
00:04 And welcome to Making It Work. 00:05 ¤ ¤ 00:37 Arthur, when you think about someone who's gone the distance 00:41 and someone who has an undying commitment, I'm talking 00:44 about to parents, what does that say to you? 00:48 It says that there's a strong commitment of love, 00:53 appreciation and that you're at a point where you feel that this 01:02 is something you have to do. 01:03 OK, so that bond goes beyond that actual love that something 01:07 I'm committed to do. 01:08 Yeah, I have to do this. 01:10 Well you know today we have a special guest who's come back. 01:13 She was on a few weeks ago with us a season before, sorry, and 01:18 she's come back to tell us part two. Now in the previous program 01:22 Joanne Fuller talked about her relationship going the distance. 01:27 She had lost her father, pastor within the Lake Region 01:29 Conference again. We have several divisions in the North 01:34 American Division itself but the Lake Region Conference is made 01:38 up of five states and her father served as one of the pastors. 01:43 When I was a little girl growing up in Detroit he was one of our 01:48 pastors. So today she's come back to talk about her 01:51 relationship with her mother, undying commitment. 01:54 Welcome Joanne Fuller. 01:56 Thank you, thanks for having me back. 01:58 You know if you watched our previous program Joanne, does me 02:03 hair. You know she gives me a different look. 02:06 Thank you Jo. Your so welcome. 02:10 I think that was a compliment. Of course. 02:16 People tend to recognize, Joanne that I change my hair too much. 02:20 They can't keep up with me. 02:21 You got to keep them on their toes. 02:23 Do I keep you on your toes. 02:24 You keep me on my feet. (Laughter) 02:28 Joanne, thank you for coming back. We want to talk about 02:33 your undying commitment. We want you to tell us the story 02:37 about what you went through with your mother. Times were very 02:41 tumultuous, it was very difficult, but you were still 02:44 committed till the day she passed away. Tell us your story, 02:48 tell us why you stayed committed. 02:50 You want me to start with the Alzheimer's or you want me to 02:54 start with before. 02:56 Before way before. Yes Yes. As a little girl. 03:00 Oh my goodness. Well that was as the word you used, 03:05 tumultuous. The relationship was a different type of relationship 03:16 To me it was not a typical mother-daughter relationship. 03:21 I was closer to my dad than I was to my mom and we just never 03:27 saw eye-to-eye. For her, I was too independent. I asked too 03:33 many questions. I was the why child. There has to be a reason. 03:39 But that was me. I just wanted to know why. I was not the one 03:44 if you just told me don't do it, but why. There has to be a 03:48 reason why. So that really got under her skin. And she told me 03:53 many times you are so independent. But I thought that 03:56 was how they were trying to raise me, especially being the 04:00 only girl. You know, my father was like well I want you to get 04:04 married and everything but I don't want you to ever have to 04:08 depend on a man, which is different than being committed 04:12 to a man. And he explained that difference. So I was raised to 04:17 to be kind of independent. I was raised to know how to take care 04:22 of a car, I was raised to work with him in his carpentry 04:26 business so I'd know how to paint, I'd know who to lay a 04:30 work floor, I'd know how to lay tile, I'd know how to do all of 04:33 that because he taught me. Where with my mom, I don't know 04:39 if she wanted a prissy girl, because I wasn't prissy when I 04:43 was younger. You know, I was out there playing football with 04:48 the boys in the neighborhood and basketball and softball and 04:53 fighting, fighting my brother's fight. My older brother was five 04:58 years older than I. I was the one that was taking up for both 05:02 of them. You know, just crazy. 05:06 Who did the spanking? 05:08 They both did. They both did. She was very, what's another 05:21 word besides hothead. She was... Aggressive? 05:25 Kind of, sort of. My dad if he was going to spank you, he would 05:31 talk to you first, put you over his knee and spank you. My mom 05:36 the extension cord and the (giggles) Yeah, try not to cry. 05:42 You remember those days. 05:45 So both your parents were the disciplinarians and they spanked 05:49 you. Oh yeah, oh yeah. I didn't get 05:51 a lot of spankings. I wasn't crazy. I didn't like that. 05:56 Your mom was the stricter parent? 06:01 Yes she was the stricter parent yes. I couldn't go a lot of 06:05 places. I couldn't spend the night over at anyone's house. 06:09 You know, even if there were like slumber parties, I could go 06:12 but then she would pick me up at either 12 or 1, whatever time 06:17 she decided to pick me up and I would have to come home. 06:20 No spending the night? 06:22 No spending the night. I loved my mother though. I did. My 06:27 mother was very funny, very funny. Musically talented. I 06:32 used to love hearing my mother play the piano and the pipe 06:38 organ. I mean, she was so talented and gifted. Gifted as 06:43 far as... I think I got my sewing and stuff from her 06:47 because she could sew. She was really gifted and I loved her 06:52 but we didn't have the relationship to me that mothers 06:56 and daughters have. She had it more with my brothers I think. 07:00 What was it that you were looking for from her? And I 07:04 would assume that as you matured into being a young woman that 07:10 you recognized that you needed something more from your mom. 07:16 What was it that you were really looking for? 07:19 (Deep sigh) You know what, I think I wanted that... You know 07:23 how you have those friends who have that relationship and they 07:30 can talk to their mother, and then they go shopping. I think 07:34 that's what I was looking for. And the older I get, the more 07:39 I see, cause I didn't have grandmothers either. So I never 07:43 had that relationship with women My dad's mother died when I was 07:49 about one and my mother's mother died when I was about eight. So 07:54 I didn't have grandmothers growing up. Then not to have 08:00 that relationship. I always felt like we should be close and you 08:06 know when I had an accident in school where my finger got cut 08:12 off. She was not really supportive, not really there. 08:18 My dad was there, my aunt was there, her baby sister, but she 08:25 wasn't there. 08:26 She didn't show up. 08:28 No I remember talking to her on the phone and she was fussing 08:32 because it happened, and what were you doing, instead of being 08:36 compassionate. And I guess that was what I was looking more for 08:40 is the compassion. And when I look back and I think that's 08:45 what I wanted was somebody to care for me. I didn't feel like 08:50 I had that. 08:51 So after you recognized that that void was there how did that 09:00 motivate you as far as going into adulthood? 09:06 Well I moved out of my parents' home when I was 19 because 09:11 our relationship had really gotten to the point where my 09:15 dad was separating us when it came to arguments and stuff like 09:20 that, yeah. So finally I said well OK I'm out. And he knew it 09:25 was time and he told me it was time. So he sat down with me 09:28 and we did budgeting and all that kind of stuff. So I went 09:35 and got an apartment and from then on kind of just took it 09:41 one day at a time, still missing that though, that relationship. 09:48 Because even after I moved out, and I'm just being honest, but 09:54 she was still trying to control the situation in my home, in my 10:02 apartment, in my space. So you know having to respectfully say 10:09 OK, now this is my home, this is my space and you have to 10:18 call before you come over. It was hard and it was hard for my 10:27 dad to see that too. Then as I matured, I realized that that 10:34 was his wife. I felt like at one point that he should have taken 10:41 sides. But now I realize that I was his daughter and that was 10:47 his wife. I had to respect that even though he was my dad. 10:52 There were periods of time when we didn't talk for a long time. 11:00 For it could have been six months, a year. Part of that 11:05 was because of my lifestyle. She didn't care for my lifestyle. 11:10 And you know, I was not perfect. I wasn't in the church always so 11:15 But she always had an opinion about it but you know there 11:19 were times when we would head up, head up. 11:24 So moving out you also changed the way you were doing things? 11:30 You know so are we talking about going out, partying? 11:37 Oh partying, yeah and drinking, smoking. When I left I left. 11:44 Do you think she had a great impact on the way you changed 11:49 your lifestyle, being raised in the Seventh-day Adventist 11:54 church as a Christian to going to the opposite or was it just 11:58 a choice you made? 11:59 I think it was more of a choice. I think it was more my choice 12:08 than her pushing me out there. I can't put that on her. I think 12:13 it was more of my choice. 12:14 What were you looking for? 12:16 I think I was looking for love, bottom line. I was looking for 12:22 love. I was looking for somebody to love me. I realized that when 12:28 my drinking got to the point... I never got drunk out, like if 12:33 I was out clubbing or whatever. I could nurse a drink all night 12:40 long, but I would drink at home by myself. I'll never forget one 12:47 time I woke up the next morning and I had a knot on my head 12:49 and did not know where the knot came from and at that point I 12:55 realized, OK you know what. Like somebody told me you could have 13:01 killed yourself. I mean, literally knocked yourself out 13:04 and just been there. So I realized that there were some 13:08 issues and I sought counseling and stuff after that point. 13:13 Did you stop drinking? 13:15 No, but it slowed down a whole lot, it slowed down a lot. 13:20 So you don't really blame her? 13:24 I don't. Maybe I did then but at this point I don't. 13:30 We went through 13:34 Binding the Wounds at Burns. Our pastor, Julius Sanford, at 13:39 that time, brought that to our church. I can say though that I 13:44 did have a lot of animosity built up and maybe even some 13:49 hatred. It was to the point, I'll never forget, I was doing a 13:55 client, my dad had come down to visit and my client said when my 14:00 mother walked in the room she could feel it rise in me. She 14:05 said she didn't know what was going on but she was sitting in 14:09 the chair in front of me, but she felt something rise in me. 14:13 And that's how it always was with us. When she would come 14:18 into me space, I was very uncomfortable. I was just on 14:22 edge and just waiting for her to say something, or just 14:26 waiting for something to happen. But as we went to Binding the 14:32 Wounds it helped me to realize that some of those choices were 14:37 my choices. But part of that was that you had to write letters. 14:44 Or even talk to her. Well at this time she had just started 14:50 into the Alzheimer's. So I didn't get a chance to really sit down 14:54 and talk to her. But I did was I went to her sister and I told 14:59 her what I was doing and what I was going through and this 15:04 process and just asked her some questions and she gave me some 15:10 history on the family. My mother comes from 12, six boys and six 15:15 girls and I think she's the third oldest. So when she gave 15:20 me that history, it was like okay, wow, very eye-opening. 15:27 It really helped me see that this wasn't just her and that 15:35 we do things, or sometimes our life goes because of what 15:41 happened before us and the things that happened to us. 15:47 When she started talking to me about the family history that 15:53 really gave me some empathy for my mother and that's when things 15:59 for me started to change toward her. Because now I had 16:03 understanding. It's not that I felt like she hated me or didn't 16:12 like girls. This was how she was raised. Some of the _ 16:18 and how they treated them as children. Just one story she 16:23 said, she was telling me that one time they were sitting on 16:29 the porch and a couple of my great aunts came to visit and 16:33 they said hello. Well I guess everybody didn't say hello loud 16:39 enough, so they got slapped. I mean that's just one example. 16:45 So it's like wow. So this stuff didn't just start with her. It 16:51 was a history of things, a history of abuse and that 16:57 really, really caused me to really think because I really 17:00 did not like holding on to that. I really didn't. I don't like 17:07 holding onto grudges, I don't like holding onto stuff. And I 17:14 really thank God for the Everett's for bringing it to Burns because 17:18 I know it helped me and I know it helped some other people 17:21 know that it wasn't for that I'd probably be holding onto a 17:26 lot of that. But that really caused me to do a lot of soul 17:32 searching and just asking God to help me to take it away even 17:36 thought I couldn't talk to her and couldn't get some of the 17:40 answers but it helped to take a lot of that animosity and hatred 17:45 away. Well we talk about our different 17:48 churches and Seventh-day Adventist circles Burns Seventh 17:52 day Adventist churches where you and I grew up in Detroit, MI. 17:56 and that's where you had this experience of Binding the Wounds 17:59 and Dr. Everret. Let's talk about your son and his 18:05 relationship with his grandmother. 18:07 What was that like for him? 18:09 Um, well because we lived in Detroit and they lived in 18:17 Chicago it was different. It's funny because grandparents 18:23 treat their grandchildren so much nicer than they treated 18:27 us. The stuff that we used to get in trouble for, they let 18:32 them get away with. 18:34 So you think that things that you did that you got whippings 18:38 for or punishment, but grand children they get away with 18:43 everything. Oh yes, she loved her grand 18:45 children. She had two grand children and she loved her 18:47 grandchildren very much. 18:49 Even during the time when you noticed that she had a different 18:55 relationship with the grand children, did you kind of reach 19:00 out to her or were thinking that this is the type of relationship 19:04 I would have appreciated? 19:08 You know what, maybe, but I think I thought because he was 19:12 a boy. Because I always thought she had issues with girls and 19:17 maybe because it was me. Because my mother also was a 19:20 foster mother, a foster mother for years. But most of the 19:24 foster children that we had were boys. So I always thought it 19:30 was an issue with girls. So maybe because he was a boy, you 19:35 know. But I never kept them away from them. Even when we 19:41 would go on cruises, my husband and I, Rick, and they would come 19:46 down from Chicago and keep him while we were gone and get 19:50 him ready for school and everything. So I never tried to 19:55 keep them away, because she really enjoyed her grandchildren 19:59 Well how did this impact you as a mother, you know, being raised 20:04 by the mother that you had and her personality and raising your 20:09 own child? Well I'm more like my dad 20:14 because I'm more laid back. Everybody says that. My mother 20:18 used to even say that, you're just like your dad. But I really 20:23 made a conscious effort with my son to talk to him and let him 20:28 and let him talk to me respectfully. But I did let him 20:34 talk to me. He's 21 now, he'll be 22 in July. 20:36 I can't believe that. Little Ricky. 20:41 But I always let him talk to me and it's funny because I 20:47 used to just listen when he was in grade school and high school. 20:52 I would just let him talk, talk. You know inside you're like 20:55 what, what. And I would just let him talk. He used to tell us 21:02 stuff all the time. But I made a conscious effort to allow him 21:09 first of all to be who he is and of course to direct him, but 21:15 also to have an open communication, open relationship 21:19 with him. 21:20 After Binding the Wounds, that program that you participated in 21:30 in Burns, do you see now like people that may have been in 21:35 your position, family, young women or young girls that may 21:39 be having difficulties with their family of origin. Are you 21:44 drawn towards that or?... 21:45 You know what, I am and it's funny. I have a few people 21:49 now who are dealing with that who for some reason always want 21:56 to talk to me. I do share my experience with them and even 22:03 how I had to go within myself and ask God to help me get over 22:10 this. Because you only have one mother and you only have one 22:15 father. That's it. And I can't go through the rest of my life 22:21 with that built up. And if you have opportunity to talk to, sit 22:27 down and talk to them if they would allow you. Now some have 22:32 tried and you know they shut them down. So that's to me where 22:38 you have to do that within yourself like I did because I 22:41 couldn't talk to my mother so I had to go within and ask God 22:45 to help me get rid of this, get rid of those feelings, get rid 22:50 of that animosity and that hatred. 22:51 Can we talk about the Alzheimer's What was that like for you and 22:57 explain to our viewers what your mother went through. 23:03 That's a hard illness to deal with because you see them 23:10 leaving you. They're there physically but you see them, 23:15 they're like in their own world, in another world. So as they 23:21 start going further and further I say, into that world or into 23:26 that realm, it's like wow. I hate to see that with anyone 23:33 and especially you know with my mother. I'll never forget the 23:39 last time I saw her and my sister-in-law also was there 23:44 and we were washing her and getting her ready for bed and 23:49 everything and we looked at each other. We could tell that she 23:55 was just getting tired. When I put her to bed... She did have 24:01 those moments that she would be clear. One time, I'm going to 24:07 step back, but one time they brought her to Detroit and my 24:12 dad wanted to hear the CD that I was working on. So there was 24:16 a particular song that he wanted to hear. It was funny. She was 24:20 sitting there and I couldn't find the song and she said 24:24 Joanne would you hurry up and find that song so we can go. 24:28 So all of us, my brothers, my dad, everybody just looked at 24:34 me like... I mean, so that was a moment. But when she heard the 24:39 song you could tell it just kind relaxed her, it just gave her 24:45 this calmness. So back to when we were in Chicago the last time 24:50 I saw her alive, we got her ready for bed. I got her in bed. 24:54 My sister-in-law went on down stairs and I'm talking to her 24:58 in bed and cutting out the light and I kissed her and she kissed 25:04 me on the lips and she said I love you and my mother didn't 25:10 say I love you. And I said OK good night. She said good night, 25:15 be careful and that was the last time. She died two-and-a-half 25:20 weeks later. But I really believe that she knew what she 25:26 was saying and she knew what she was doing. I really believe that. 25:30 I know you miss your parents but we are the body of Christ. 25:34 See Joanne and I grew up in this church as children and there are 25:40 very few of us that are still in this church and when I say the 25:45 church, the body of Christ, salvation. Because Jesus is 25:49 coming and there's nothing in this world more important than 25:53 your salvation. For you to be lost and to know that there's 25:58 a Savior and to know that Jesus is coming again and for you to 26:02 be out in this world doing things that are taking you away 26:07 from Christ. You've got to come back while you have time. God 26:11 called you back home. He called you. You came back to Christ. 26:15 You came back to the blessed hope. 26:16 I guess that was what I was waiting for. I wanted to hear 26:20 what was the motivation, what brought you back. 26:24 (Deep sigh). Oh that's another story. Oh wow, just being out 26:32 there so much happened. I mean I've had guns in my face, I've 26:38 had... And I guess just tired of that lifestyle. Just tired. 26:46 It's so much. Literally I've had guns in my face, I've had... 26:53 Oh you don't want to know. But you know what I just thank God 27:00 every day for his grace and his mercy and I ask God to 27:04 sometimes just remind me of where he brought me from 27:08 because that gives me empathy to work with others. I also want 27:13 to say that my mother was not a bad person at all, at all. She 27:19 was a very loving person. It was just our relationship. Neither 27:24 one of my parents were bad people. They were good people. 27:27 God fearing people. I just thank God every day for his grace and 27:34 his mercy. I just got tired of the lifestyle, tired. 27:37 Well it looks like you have to come back for part three. 27:40 I'm so glad that you were able to come and share that because 27:44 it's going to save someone. Well listen. Undying commitment. 27:48 But most of all let us have an undying commitment for Jesus 27:52 Christ so that we all will be saved when he comes. 27:55 I'm Dr. Kim Logan Nowlan. 27:56 I just want to say trust in the Lord with all your heart just 28:00 like you did, Joanne. 28:02 And lean not unto your own understanding. 28:03 Yes, yes, and I'm Arthur Nowlan. 28:05 See he does that to me sometimes. God bless him. |
Revised 2018-01-30