The only way to escape
24 November 2011 06:40 AM Categories: Childhood hangover
Where was I twenty-six years ago today?
At this point, I was probably in an ambulance on my way to Christiana Hospital, the baby’s dead body still attached via the umbilical cord, or maybe I was in triage, though there wasn’t much that could be done. I was answering that obnoxious doctor’s questions from my position of half-naked weakness. I really should do more to honor this day, to remember the child, to remember me, terrified and alone, with a lot more loneliness to come.
I hold my hand out to both of us. The teenaged me was strong (though she didn’t feel that way), scared (though she bluffed her way through it all), self-sufficient to a fault (though she crumbled whenever she let someone in). I carry her self-sufficiency and the echoes, the shadows, the deep impressions, of being unwantable, unhandleable, not worth it. And the baby? I want to be free enough to hold him in my mind, to claim his as mine, to soothe him. I am not sure if I will ever be able to get rid of the guilt, for letting the pregnancy happen, for letting it go on, for being so angry and unable to care for anyone, not even myself, for being someone no one could take care of.
Writing about this is not wallowing in a sad past. I want to do it (myself?) justice. I don’t want to cover it up. I don’t want to pretend it never happened. I suspect I am the only one that thinks about it at this time of year, the last one holding the burden, and it is mine to hold. Maybe that ennobles me in some way. But mainly it feels like the continuation of a theme, the things I keep tied together or that I toss in the air and catch, one by one, mainly for myself, to keep myself vigilant, to remind myself that we must protect and take care of the powerless, that anger often means pain, and that our responsibility to our children is to not only give them the skills to live in the world, but to show them how to love – and we show them that by accepting them and loving them unconditionally.
It’s one of the few bonuses in a sad story. And I am thankful that I have been able to escape enough of my past to recognize it.
From the prompt "Thanksgiving dinner."
Image of the cornfield behind my grandfather's house taken by me on some late fall day in the mid-1980s. I've used it before in this post. I miss that landscape and wish I could go for a walk in a fallow cornfield, that I could take a late night stroll down to the river to skip stones.
I had a hard time giving this one a title. Wanted to call it untitled. Didn't want to make it too maudlin, either, or to try and hook readers by something slightly sensationalist.
And . . . Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
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