The Start
I feel a need to start at the beginning. I feel it is important for me to express where I have come from. My hope is that it will speak to others. That they may recognize a glimpse of themselves. That they too may…just believe.
I was born on July 2, 1956 in the city that I still live today. I was the third child; the baby. Essentially my family was a good family. I had parents that truly did love me, who really had only my best interest at heart. I was raised with a strong belief in God and grew up in what many would label, ‘a sheltered life’.
Looking back I often wonder where it went so wrong? I had the security and love many only dreamed of having. I had an intact two-parent family who would do anything for their children. I had a Mother who believed the reason for her existence was her family. So why at the age of eight was my weight soaring? Why so often did I struggle with acceptance and confidence in myself? Why was there always such a fear of failure?
People have asked me, “What happened that you put on so much weight?” Even my Mother has asked me, “Were you raped as a child and I never knew it?” Those questions bloomed into frustration, confusion, doubt. I still find myself at times searching for that answer, trying to still make some sense of it all.
The Search
Looking back now, I am slowly beginning to understand that child. I am learning to appreciate and understand the stepping stones that have brought me to where I am today.
I have come to know a child. She was a shy, tender, sensitive child, woven with a thread of tenderness, a passion to relieve other’s pain. The pain of others would weave it’s fingers around the edges of her mind and hold her in a grasp that wouldn’t let go.
When I was seven years old my Grandfather was diagnosed with Kidney Cancer. It was the first time in my life where I was exposed to the struggles of this disease. I watched my Father wrestle with his Father’s impending death. I remember those days of struggle and questions. The lack of my understanding and the pressing need to know ‘why?’
When my Grandfather died I remember my Father’s tears so clearly. It is the one stark memory that stands out, even to this day. You know that memory still hurts and even all these years later it still weaves an uneasiness deep within my heart and soul. I cried so hard at the funeral. So hard that my Mother almost took me out of the church. It wasn’t so much the death of my Grandpa that brought me such deep sadness….it was my Father’s tears and the inability to make things “okay.”
I recognize that now as one of the turning points. The inability to express what I was feeling. The strong desire to take away my Father’s pain. I had few friends and I had no idea where to turn for comfort so I reached for food.
As I gained weight a wedge was beginning to be driven between me and my Mother. She struggled with her own feelings of guilt regarding my increasing weight. My weight became the center of our discussions and it over shadowed our relationship. Even though I know my Mother loved me I felt such a distance and so often it felt as if I was losing my Mother’s love.
Remnants
A child sits buried,
in the shadow of a school’s wall.
Her eyes veiled in dimness,
as her fingers trace
a rough concrete step.
The coldness of the concrete
sends shivers down her delicate spine,
jarring her to a momentary awareness,
of distant children at play.
Clad in remnants of a mother’s guilt,
for the birth of an older child,
whose physical form spoke of ‘difference’
in this often cruel world.
Left alone to develop her own strength,
on the playgrounds in her mind,
as confusion, taunted and jeered,
from its position as ‘King of the Hill.’
She frantically searches for an answer,
to why praises to her are so few,
when streaming rays of warm praises,
on the other so abundantly did shine.
Her mind racked with tormenting pain,
not understanding what she had done.
Wondering where had she failed
and what could she do to make things right?
Tears that gather below the surface,
are frozen by the penetrating cold,
and tightly packed around her heart
in an attempt to numb the pain.
Hungry for a mother’s loving touch,
a tight embrace to bring her warmth,
she wraps her frailties in layers of skin,
as she searches for answers to why
she lost her mother’s unconditional love.
©BAR 10/13/98
I did not hear the term ‘unconditional love’ until I was 30. I could not comprehend that it was real. I struggled with the understanding for a long time, until I noticed that it what I felt for my children. I had never had that growing up and know the (w)hole that it leaves in your life. I am now 55 years old and still trying to fill it. My surgery is scheduled for 6/9/08. I am beginning to llive.