Master of Disguise

Halloween has always been a favorite holiday of mine. I think the combination of getting free candy and dressing up to be someone else has always appealed to me. As a kid, the candy part was definitely my favorite. I don't think I realized just how much I liked being someone or something besides myself.

You see, as was the case with most things in our childhood, we didn't do Halloween the way most kids did. When we were younger, we would go trick-or-treating with our church group around the neighborhood near the church. But as we got a little older, we were driven to houses by our mom. However, we didn't actually get to go out until after the normal posted trick-or-treating hours because we had to do our nightly chores first. After we did our chores, we would rush to the house and quickly change into costumes, usually the same costumes as the previous year, and then go around to the houses of family and friends to get our candy. The next day, we would go to school thinking we had gotten a lot of candy only to realize that nearly every other kid received twice as much as we did - which made us feel like losers.

My whole childhood I just wanted to feel like I was normal and like I was doing things other kids were doing. Halloween seemed like the perfect opportunity to disguise myself and fit in - even if just for a night. Instead, it simply highlighted how different I was - and not in a good way.

Daddy's Little Helpers

When you're 4 or 5 years old, there aren’t many things you can do to help out around a dairy farm - and there aren't many things you should be expected to do because they just aren't safe. Unfortunately for my siblings and I, life was rarely the way it "should" have been.

In order to have a lucrative farm, things need to be run a certain way. For the first year or so after moving to the farm, we kids weren’t required to do much of the farm work. Instead, our parents and newly acquired grandparents (who lived in a house next to our trailer) would handle most of the day-to-day operations. During the busy months of summer when we also had fields of corn, soybeans, hay and straw to maintain, they would enlist help from some of the other farmers who lived near us.

While the adults worked on the farm, Fred, Tracy and I were in the house with a babysitter. I don’t really remember too much from that time other than we liked her and we looked forward to the time our mom and “dad” would come back to spend time with us. We especially looked forward to seeing our new dad, whom we liked to call the “Tickle Monster” because he loved to tickle us and make us laugh so hard.

After about a year of living in our new house, we started spending more time going to the barn and learning to do chores. Fred started going out before Tracy and me because he was a year older. They wanted to get him started before us so he could show us the ropes. The first thing we were able to help with was sweeping hay. We had to keep the area where we walked clean and keep the hay in front of the cows so they could eat. Along with sweeping the hay, we were tasked with cleaning out the piles of poop from behind the cows by hoeing the poop into a gutter. This job was scarier because cows are big animals that like to kick, but it was one of the jobs we did like more. Our other main task was to hold onto the cows' tails while the adults milked them so the adults wouldn’t get smacked in the face. Out of all of these jobs, holding the tails seemed to be the hardest because the cows had a lot more strength than we did as kids and we didn’t want to upset the adults by letting them get hit in the face with a tail. But, sometimes it happened because those tails were just so fast!

We did this work for several months before we started to get any kind of compensation. But after awhile, we got paid for some of our chores which made us work even harder. Our first monetary compensation really doesn’t seem like much, but we were so excited to be getting paid anything that we didn’t mind. We were tasked to count each pile of poop that we cleared from behind the cows into the gutter, so it taught us counting as well! I would always try to get more poop than Fred or Tracy, and sometimes we all kind of fibbed the numbers to get more. It made it kind of a game for us to see who could get the most.

Always trying to compete with Fred and Tracy and trying to impress the adults with my willingness and ability to do the jobs given to me did have some drawbacks. I vividly remember one unfortunate experience that took place when I 5 years old. I wanted to prove that I was ready to get the work done and went out to start chores early, all by myself. Once I got to the barn I got a hoe and started my normal task of cleaning up the poop behind the cows. There was one cow, #9, that was very skittish and quick to react; all the adults told us kids to be careful around her. Well, that fateful day of trying to get things accomplished for the adults went awry. As I was busy cleaning up, I didn’t pay much attention to which cow I was behind, and before I knew it, I was cleaning up behind #9. She was not OK with me being there and hauled off and kicked me right in the nose! I went flying across the aisle and to the ground.

I jumped up as quickly as I could, but by that time, I was freaking out and crying and the blood was down to my feet. It looked as if I had been in a terrible accident. The first adult to see me that day was my grandma, who raced to get my mom and clean me up. My mom rushed me to the emergency room to see what kind of damage had been done. It turned out that it wasn’t as bad as it looked, just a lot of blood and tenderness. Cows have holes in the bottom of their feet and that was where my nose went, so it wasn’t even broken. However, to this day, my nose is still pretty tender.

Trying to do the jobs of adults is no joke, and it's not all that fun. This was just one of the many times my siblings and I were injured because we were expected to do adult work as kids. And it was one of many proofs that our lives were far from normal.

The Unwanted Ones

Being as young as we were when we moved to the farm, it took me awhile to realize our lives weren't like other kids’ lives, that they weren't how they should be for a child.

The moment I stepped foot on the farm, I began losing my identity. The fact that Tracy and I were twins made it automatically hard to tell us apart. Our new "grandpa" - a man who saw us literally every day once we moved there - NEVER learned our names. This guy always gave me a weird vibe, and I never really liked him - but he never even tried to learn our names, let alone tell us apart! Granted we had similarities for sure, but we are fraternal twins! This means we are technically no more alike than any other siblings. But because most people didn’t want to take the time to get to know us we just became “the girls.” There were so many times on the farm when we were called to do something and it was just, “Fred and girls, come here.” Of course back then it annoyed me, but I never realized just how much that made me lose my own, personal identity. I was constantly in need of having Tracy there with me because when she wasn’t I didn’t feel whole.

When our mom met our “dad” and moved to the farm, I was excited to have more family because my mom's family is pretty small. However, the large family wasn’t as exciting as I had hoped. From the day we became part of the family I felt like an outsider. It was like because we weren’t blood we were never truly accepted. We would attend family functions and events, but it always felt like I was on the outside looking in. Not to sound petty, but as kids, you notice things like gifts and personal attention. These are things that say to a kid, "Hey, you're important." And yet on birthdays and holidays, Tracy, Fred and I always got fewer gifts than our cousins. It was even worse for Tracy and me because there were two birthdays at once, and no one ever wanted to buy gifts for both of us; so we would just get less.

After living on the farm a few years and feeling really disconnected from the family, I found myself hoping something would change to make me feel more like a true member of the Ludwig family. Sometime between 7 and 8 years of age, I got my wish. Mom approached Fred, Tracy and me to see how we would feel about being officially adopted! This meant we would have the same last name as our mom and “dad” and could be a member of the larger family. We were beyond excited. We never knew our biological father, so we didn’t care if we had his last name or not. All we knew of him was that he lived in another state (Wisconsin) and that we went there once to see an aunt and cousins.

The Wisconsin family that I did know I mostly knew through packages I received in the mail. The sister and brother-in-law of my biological father were my godparents, so they would send me things periodically for my birthday or holidays. It was one of the times that I felt like I actually was someone special. I had to make a decision about losing these people as my godparents if we went through with the adoption. My mom wanted to cut off all communication with that family once the adoption was complete. I would get new godparents (the brother and sister-in-law of my new "dad”). Since I never saw my Wisconsin aunt and uncle anyways, I figured it would be fine to make this transition. Plus, I was hoping that being the godchild of an aunt and uncle who lived closer would mean I would get even more presents! It didn’t work out that way. These new godparents treated me the same way they always had. I was no one special to them.

With that, the paperwork was drawn up, and we were scheduled to officially be Ludwigs. I found out later that my biological father knew about this and had to sign away his rights to being our father. I learned that he felt like this was the best thing to do since he had issues with alcohol at the time and lived too far away to truly have a relationship with us anyway.

Our name change/adoption didn’t happen until a few weeks into the school year. I remember meeting with our teachers beforehand and asking to change the roster to our new names for the start of the year since we knew it would be official soon enough. So when third grade started, I was officially Trudy Ludwig! It was so amazing to finally have the same name as the rest of the family! But that excitement didn’t last long. Sure, it was cool to feel like I fit in, but a name change didn't change where we came from. I was still not a blood relation, and I still felt left out. About the only person that ever made me feel like I was part of the family was my cousin Joey. He was the son of my “dad’s” brother (not my new godparent’s son), and he was very close in age to us - only a week and a day older than Tracy and me. As we got older, we continued to be close and even deemed ourselves the “Ludwig Trio.” We were lucky to have him in our lives because he accepted us and just wanted to be friends - no matter where we came from. Out of all the people who should have cared for us, it was this kid our own age who gave us what no one else was willing to - an identity.

I Got Myself a Dad

Have you ever wondered how your life would have turned out if you had a different kind of childhood? If not, then you're most likely one of the lucky ones who had a good childhood - or at least a decent childhood. 

I believe it's important for children to have chores and learn responsibilities, but I don't think they should have so many duties that they can't enjoy just being a kid. Childhood is a time for fun, a time to be carefree. Or at least, that's what childhood should be. Children should be able to experience life and just have fun while learning basic skills and developing into caring, sympathetic adults. 

As a young child I thought I had that life. The first few years of my life seemed carefree, fun and much like those of any other child. I lived "up north," as they like to say in Michigan, on a tiny body of water called Dodge Lake. I lived with my mom, brother (Fred) and twin sister (Tracy). We didn't live right on the lake but rather across the street from it, about a quarter mile from my grandparents' place, which was right on the lake. I remember making that quarter-mile trek many times as a kid and even after we moved downstate walking around the lake. That was always one of my favorite things to do. Walking has been an important part of my life for as long as I can remember - and it's one thing I still love to do.

Sometime when I was between the ages of 3 and 4, my mom started dating this man, Loren, whom I was nervous around at first but soon grew to like quite a bit. It wasn't until I was older that I realized my mom had met this man through a classified ad in the newspaper. That seems like a strange way to meet a man with whom you plan to spend the rest of your life, but I suppose it's really no different than online dating today. I never asked my mom how long they dated or when we actually met him for the first time because that never seemed like important information for a kid to know. Looking back on things, I wonder how long it actually took them to develop their relationship. 

I do know that this man was at Tracy's and my 4th birthday party because he brought the cake and I know that was a big deal. It was a Bert and Ernie cake. I think that was when he officially won me over. Even as a young child I had known I was missing out on something, but I wasn't sure what it was until this man came into our lives. Once we celebrated our birthday, I knew I didn't want him to leave. He made me feel safe, like he could always be my protector. 

Later that year, I got my wish. My mom married this man and I got myself a "dad." They were married on October 18, 1987. I don’t remember exactly when, but sometime around that same time, our family moved about two hours south to live in a single wide trailer on the land where my new “dad” and his family lived and operated a dairy farm. The farm was called Sky Light Farms, Ltd., and seemed MASSIVE to me.  

I thought it was pretty cool to be living on an actual farm, somewhere with so many cows! Up until that point I couldn’t even remember seeing a cow up close. Granted, it was also kind of scary because cows are ENORMOUS (or at least they seemed that way to me at the time). However, the "coolness" of living on a farm was pretty short-lived. Not long after moving there we were forced to start working and putting in our time helping do all the chores associated with running a successful dairy farm. 

The downturn of our happy, carefree childhood had officially begun...