Tag Archives: essay about emotions

Seeing the Real Person

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            I recently saw a musical in which the teen suffers from an aging disease. It’s impacted the entire family, with the parents afraid to have another child in case he is born with the same genetic abnormality. As the character nears the end of her life, her parents decide the time has come to try again, in a way, replacing the teen.

            Toward the end, the teen sings about shucking off the ghost of the girl you wanted to really “SEE” the one before you. To appreciate their daughter for who she is, not for who she is not.

            The song struck me deep in my gut.

            I was not the daughter my parents had in mind. Even when quite young, I wanted to run and play with the boys. I was a pretty good athlete: not always on the varsity teams, but still wearing a uniform and competing.

            I hated dresses, but that’s what all girls wore to school in my town. At home I always wore shorts or jeans, t-shirts and sweaters. I didn’t “walk” like a girl, as my mom told me many times. I had no skills or interest in painting my nails, wearing makeup or styling my hair. I had no interest in learning to cook, something that annoyed my mother, as she claimed to have given birth to me only so I’d take over household chores. And be around to watch her when she grew older.

            I did have assigned chores. One that I hated the most was cleaning my older brother’s bedroom. Why did I have to pick up his dirty underwear? Change his sheets? Clean his bathroom?

            My mother’s excuse was that he needed to spend his time studying so as to go to college.

            I wanted to go to college as well, but that wasn’t important to her. She wanted me married as a teen and producing grandchildren, one after another.

            I wanted out: out of the house, out of her life, out of the family. The only way I could see to make that happen was by getting into college, earning a degree, and then being able to support myself.

            My brother was allowed to study from the moment he came home from school. I couldn’t study until all my chores were done. He finished his schoolwork by dinnertime: I began mine around nine o’clock, or later.

            Because I graduated from high school without a boyfriend in tow, I was a lost cause. I hated dating. All the sweaty hand-holding and sloppy kissing and front seat make-out sessions. I had been told repeatedly that I wasn’t pretty, that I was unlovable and so I couldn’t be picky,

            I was picky. If I married, I would choose a man who respected me for who I was, not who my mom wanted me to be. Therefor in college I dated a series of men. One, George, I thought I loved. Until he insisted that I change faith once we got married. End of that relationship.

            By the time I graduated from college, marriage became an actual thought. I dated a guy I met at the bowling alley, a too handsome guy who probably only took me out expecting something in return. He didn’t get it, therefor, no more dates.

            A couple of years later I walked into my new office to see a tall, smiling man who immediately warmed my heart. We worked a few cases together and had time to get to know one another.

            In time, we began dating. Then I enlisted in the Army Reserves because I wanted to go to the Monterey Institute of Languages, run by the military. I was sent to Alabama at the end of August, where the humidity was miserable and the constant drilling oppressive.

            I was only there two weeks, and was allowed only one phone call. I didn’t call home, which angered my parents. I called my beau, who met me at the airport with a hug and a kiss.

            Our relationship was sealed.

            We’ve been together 50 years. He’s always “seen” the real me. He’s never tried to make me into someone I didn’t want to be. He encouraged me to return to college to get my teaching credential, even though it was a financial strain and it meant he had to put the kids to bed.

            He’s my best friend, my partner, my fan club, my everything.

            If years ago my parents had seen the real me, I wonder if things might have been different. If our relationship would have been more amicable. If I wouldn’t have been a disappointment to them.

            Although I wasn’t the perfect parent as I made plenty of mistakes, I always tried to encourage our kids to be the person they wanted to be. As long as they kept their grades up.

            So this is a cautionary message to all soon-to-be parents out there: give your kids room to grow, to explore, to discover who they are supposed to be.

No Regrets

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            When my mother slipped into the depths of dementia to never return to her former self, I didn’t cry. In fact, I struggled to control my glee, to hold it inside whenever I spoke to my siblings or was around my dad.

            Finally, after years and years of manipulation and emotional abuse, her voice was silent, her disapproving glare gone. Never again would I hear all the ways in which I had disappointed her, how I was not the daughter she wanted. How she never cried when I left for college or when I got my first apartment, never moving back into her house.

            I’d never be chastised for not cleaning my brother’s room, for not wiping down each leaf of every houseplant, for not standing by her side and learning how to cook. For not dressing in the girlie clothes she’d sewn for me. For looking and acting like a boy. For being uppity because I loved learning, reading books. Real books, not the household tips magazines she skimmed through and kept piled up next to her chair.

            She’d never be able to guilt me into calling, having her over for dinner, for taking her “shopping” which was really an excuse to pawn through discount racks while she lectured me about my faults.

            I didn’t cry at her funeral Mass. A friend, sitting near me, commented about that. I shrugged. How do you explain how wonderful it felt to have the black clouds not just lifted, but blown away? How do you tell someone how freeing it is to no longer have to listen to her tales of woe, of all the injustices done to her over the years, of course, by me. Not by my siblings.

            Never by them, for they were perfect and I was not.

            When the Mass ended, my sister yelled at me, accusing me, in front of the few who were in attendance of never loving our mother. I walked away.

            There was a time when I wanted to love my mother, when I yearned to feel her arms around me. A hug. A nice, warm hug to greet me in the morning and to put me to sleep at night.

            My sister knew that love. So did my brother.

            That’s why they cried.

            While my mother was disappearing, my father became a kinder man. He smiled more. Laughed more. Was easier to be around.

            One day as I was leaving after visiting my mother’s body, lying in a hospital bed in their front room, my dad opened his arms wide. I froze, not knowing whether it was some sort of trick.

            I couldn’t tell by his face what his intentions were. Was it a real invitation for a hug? Was it a trap? Since I became a teen and my body changed, he’d looked at me with what I later learned was lust.

            He’d touch me, inappropriately, when I got near. I’d learned to sidestep, to take roundabout ways, to hide in my room until he was somewhere, anywhere else.

            It creeped me out. And it only got worse after I married. By then he knew I had become a sexual being. His looks became more suggestive, his comments more lewd.

            So, when I didn’t want his hug, he asked why. I couldn’t say the words. My feet felt glued to the floor, my brain stopped functioning and my heart thumped so loudly I thought I was going to drop dead right there.

            Only when his arms dropped and a despondent look came on his face did I have room to scoot past and escape.

            I wish I could have told him why. But I’ve never been one to confront others. I was an emotionally and physically abused child. I’d worn the bruises of confrontation. Why would I want to do that to others?

            Not too many years after my mom died, my dad remarried. And then he had a stroke. I visited him in the hospital, out of duty, not of love. I never sat by his bedside. I never touched him. If he was awake, I’d talk to him from the other side of the hospital room. When I left, I’d simply walk out.

            This “new” dad was jovial. He laughed and smiled. He nodded a lot, as if he understood and agreed. His wife placed him in a home, then asked me to visit.

            Once a week I steeled myself and walk into the home, pretending that I really wanted to be there. I only went when I knew his wife would be there. My dad had his own room. Even though he couldn’t use his hands, I still feared his touch. Even though he couldn’t remember what he’d just eaten when the empty dishes sat in front of him, I still worried that he’d hurt me with words.

            His condition worsened. He had more strokes, leaving him more and more disabled. He still terrified me. I was in my fifties, but still impacted by how he’d treated me throughout my childhood and into my twenties.  

            At some point his wife called for a family meeting at the hospital. The Hospice contact was there. She explained that he was near death. Might go that day or in a few months.

            When the meeting ended, she told us to go to Dad’s room and say goodbye.

            I went into the room. I stood by his bed.

            My right hand rose. It neared his arm. It got close enough that I could feel the warmth of his skin.

            And then I started trembling.

            I walked away.

            And I’ve never regretted not telling either of my parents that I loved them, for that would have been a lie.

            I’ve never regretted not crying, for having them truly gone, was such a tremendous relief that there are no words to adequately describe.

            Both have been gone for many years, but what they did to me has never left me. I still carry it in my heart. Writing about it helps.

            So it is with no regrets that I put into words, once more, why I am the way I am. A person who refuses to regret the feelings that I hold even though I’ve tried to excise them from my heart.

            There’s nothing wrong with having no regrets.

Blood Red Days

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            Children aren’t supposed to get sick.  Romanticized images picture little darlings running, jumping, climbing, laughing, living life as freely as a butterfly flitting from flower to flower.  Even in prayer, when most solemn, those cherubic faces glow with rosebud color.  So it should be, forever and ever.

            Unfortunately strange diseases invade, causing any possible varieties of illness.  Most we understand.  Tonsillitis, ear infections, colds, cuts, bruises, and even the occasional broken bone fall into that realm.  Kids are susceptible to germs, primarily because they play with “germy” things, and so we expect them to fall ill. But we pray that those times are few and far between.

            When your four-year-old child’s urine turns the color of burgundy wine, however, the only normal reaction is fear.  So it was for my husband and I when it happened for the first time to our six year old daughter. 

            When it occurred, we tried not to panic so as to not alarm our daughter. What we did do was make phone calls followed by tons of doctors’ visits.   We began with our regular pediatrician who thought the bleeding was caused by a bladder infection. The prescribed dose of antibiotics seemed to work.

But then it happened again. More antibiotics were given. And then the same thing, over and over.

 We were referred to a urologist who was used to treating senior citizens who would willingly allow tubes and prodding. He had no experience with a five-year-old.

Our daughter fought him with the strength of an army, clenching shut her legs and refusing to budge. I didn’t blame her. I thought the doctor a little too interested in seeing what was between my child’s legs.

At my insistence, our pediatrician referred us to a pediatric urologist/oncologist.  Imagine the fears those words triggered. Oncology. Cancer. Curable or not? We didn’t know or understand what was happening or what the doctor would do. How he was going to make the determination as to the diagnosis? The person setting up the appointment offered no reassurance, but because the bleeding continued, we went to his office.

By the time we finally got to see him, months had passed. The color of her urine had deepened to a deep, dark red. It was frightening, not only to us, but to our daughter. Even a small child understands that urine is not supposed to be that color.

            For my daughter’s sake, we put on happy faces, attempting to disguise our deep-seated fears.  When she was out of visual range, we allowed ourselves to cry.  Of course, we prayed.

            There were days when her urine was a healthy golden color and so we tried to convince ourselves that she was cured. That the newest round of antibiotics had worked. We wept with joy and gave thanks to the Lord.  But the space between those times slowly shrunk until it was pretty much guaranteed that we would see red, and only red.

            Even the strongest antibiotics had proved to be ineffective, and so the pediatric urologist ordered x-rays to search for the still unknown cause.

            We went to Alta Bates Hospital in Berkeley, California, one of the finest hospitals in the Bay Area.  For the exam, our daughter was placed on a cold, metal table.  She was given huge quantities of liquid to drink.  The x-ray machine was lowered until it hovered above her lower abdomen.  She was told to urinate, right there on the table, in front of five total strangers.  She couldn’t do it and I didn’t blame her.

            They inserted a tube to allow the urine to flow.  Pictures were taken.  We went home and waited, impatiently, to hear the results.  When they came, we were terrified and confused. Because of the way her bladder was constructed, it was unable to fully close.  Surgery was recommended to insert a tube to narrow the urethra.

            Shortly after the recommendation we drove to Children’s Hospital in Oakland, arriving just as the sun was beginning to peak over the hills.  It was a peaceful scene which helped to somewhat ease our nervousness. It was short-lived, however, for immediately after completing the required paperwork, our daughter was whisked away by an efficient, yet friendly nurse. 

            My husband paced the floor of the waiting room, talking to himself.  I prayed, placing my daughter’s life in God’s capable hands. 

            This operation was a success. Her bladder would now allow her to control the flow of urine. However, during the surgery, the doctor discovered that her ureters did not enter the bladder at the correct angle.  Not only that, but the flaps that prevented urine from moving into the kidneys were missing.  Another operation was planned.

            Despite the negative news, my husband and I eagerly took our little girl home, hoping that at least there might be some reprieve from the tinged urine.  It was not to be.

            Within hours after getting her settled, her urine had turned from a healthy golden hue to a blood red, bone-chilling liquid.  Several phone calls later, another trip to the doctor’s was scheduled.  She was again put on a regimen of antibiotics, hoping to stem off any invasion of germs that might interfere with the next operation.

            Good Friday found us, once again, in the waiting room of Children’s Hospital.   My husband paced while I pretended to read.  Both of us turned our hearts over to the Lord, begging Him to watch over our daughter. 

            In the midst of one of many recitations of the Our Father, I felt a gentle touch on my right cheek.  A calm washed over me, settling in my heart.  I nodded, and whispered, “Thanks.”  My eyes filled with tears of joy, and a smile burst through.  I knew, then and there, that everything would be fine.

            When the doctor came to us still dressed in his surgical greens, he was smiling. While he was looking inside our daughter’s bladder, he discovered a blood vessel that was weeping, something it was not supposed to do. He cauterized it, forever stopping the flow of blood into her bladder.

            Because of the severity of the operation, however, she had to spend a week in the hospital.  It was scary for us. Imagine how frightening it was for her, spending nights without her parents nearby. Our sons stayed with a relative so that my husband could go to work and I could go to the hospital.

Every day she got stronger and her urine became clearer.  I gave thanks to the Lord for giving my daughter another day of life.

            Those were trying times, for sure.  I had no choice but to rely on my faith, as even the most highly trained, respected pediatric urologist had had no idea what was wrong.

Even years later, I still believe that the Lord stood by, watching, whispering advice in the doctor’s ear.  How else did he find the exposed vessel, the incorrectly seated ureters, the missing flaps, and the enlarged end of the bladder?

            While the likelihood of her bleeding to death had been slim, she could easily have died of kidney failure.  If we had known about this earlier, we could have acted sooner.  For some reason, the Lord kept her alive long enough for medical science to rise to the occasion.

Faith kept me sane.  Faith allowed me to put aside my fears.  Faith was my constant companion. That operation solved the problem which allowed our daughter to grow up into a college graduate, wife and mother.