I can’t remember a day in my life before mom’s passing that I wasn’t fighting with everything I had to bring pride back to my family. The race to reclaim my dignity started with my father when I was quite young. Wanting desperately to win his approval, I went to degrading lengths to hear the words, “I’m proud of you, kid.” It took an eighteen- month drug bender on my part and the recovery following that near-death chapter of my life, to finally hear those words before my father passed when I was twenty-eight years old.
After losing dad, my brother and I pressed forward. Even with broken hearts, we were determined to change the legacy of our family. For a decade, my brother thrived in his career and with his family. In that time, I continued to search for the path that was meant for me. (I’ve never been good with directions.) While I looked for a new goal to surpass that of maintaining sobriety, my brother and mother became my biggest source of validation. I wanted to emulate the best parts of who they were.
Nothing made what my brother had to offer this world more real and present than his sudden passing in August. In an instant, the future I had created in my mind of us raising healthy, happy families together, was erased. More than that, my guiding light for all major decisions in my life was gone. Who would I turn to for answers now?
For eight months following the devastating blow of losing my brother, it was just myself and mom. Not only was mom in end-stage liver failure, but she was rocked to the core from the loss of her son. Taking care of mom and pouring every ounce of my love into her for the time I had left with her became my new mission. My new sense of pride to hold onto, if you will.
There was nothing prideful about those final months with mom. Mom’s final weeks and the torturous pain she endured during her final days will stay with me for the rest of my life. Witnessing my mother choke for each breath, as she slowly drowned in her own fluids was the only thing that made it bearable to let her go home to God. I never would have told her this, but I was more terrified than I had ever been of anything to be left here alone without my family.
When mom took her last breath, finally released from her agony in this world, I sobbed over her until the coroner came to get her. It was not until I left that building, and a new day began, that I realized how profoundly my life had changed.
I haven’t cried a single tear since I walked out of mom’s facility that day. That fact allows for no accuracy on measurement of the depth of my loss. I lose count pretty early-on in the day of how many times I feel the urge to pick up the phone and dial the phone numbers of my late family members. Sometimes I want to tell them about something interesting that happened in my day. Other times, I just want to hear them laugh again. On Memorial Day weekend, I was near-tears, just wanting to have a simple burger with my brother.
When that inner-longing that never seems to let go subsides some, I try to see what the best version of me looks like today. She’s often exhausted, achy all over and a touch jittery. What I have learned about me is that this ache I experience inside can often be relieved by progress. Working towards my degree, gardening and caring for my animals are all examples of ways that I can make myself proud; even when I feel like there is no one watching like there was before.
My progress in the face of so much adversity may look like that of some kind of recovery warrior from the outside looking in. For me, it’s about leaving each situation, and eventually, this world, in a way I can live with myself for in the end. The way I see it, we only really answer to two people in our lives: ourselves and God. Who do you aim to inspire pride in?
“You should have seen her back in the day,” I’d utter weakly as the nurses worked through their medical routine with my mother. Mom was having a bad day and the nurses had call bells screaming for them. Mom’s medical team hardly had the time to get her settled in, let alone reminisce about who she used to be before she got so sick. Each time as the nurses rushed off to their next task, I was left in the dust of those memories; as well as the reality of the now.
Mom on her wedding day (to my father) So young, so beautiful Mom and I at my High School graduation
Mom was in pain for the last twenty years of her life. In her last year, she suffered so greatly that I feel ill-equipped to try to do her pain justice in writing. The decline was swift and unforgiving. The results of her declining health were revealed to me, I know now, in doses as she felt I could handle them.
To what lengths my mother was willing to go to shield me from the worst of her suffering would not become clear to me until just two Sundays ago. Mom had been “holding her own” medically for several weeks in spite of being in both end stage liver failure and in the final stages of COPD. One day she called me on the phone, begging me to come see her. She said she was not feeling well, that she was having bad nausea. Sensing there was more to it, I went down to see her.
Once we were together to talk, Mom explained to me that she had been feeling quite sick during the overnight and that none of the comfort medications seemed to be helping her. When I asked her what she thought may be going on, she told me that she thought that “this was the end.”
After she allowed me a moment to recover from the reality she had just hit me with, she continued. Mom told me that she was tired, that she did not want to fight anymore and that she was sorry. As if reciting a list she had rehearsed, she then told me that it was okay to be sad. A single tear rolled down her cheek. One tear told me everything I needed to know about how serious she was about what she had said. That one tear was all mom had left. She truly was tired. Mom was a kind of tired that few of us will ever understand.
People who met Mom later in life truly missed out on the ride of a lifetime with my mother. The folks who met mom in her final years saw a woman who had been battling serious illness since her late thirties. She was sick enough to be deemed completely disabled by her early forties. Mom had really been through the ringer with medical professionals and with life in general by the time she was in her late 50’s. She was tired, she was irritable and most of all, Mom was sick of everyone’s shit. Every ones.
The medical teams in Mom’s life never could have known the true horrors mom had suffered at the hands of those who were disguised as helpers and lovers in her life. They definitely didn’t know that what came off as my mother being demanding and critical was actually my mother finding her voice and using it for the first time in much, much too long. They couldn’t have known that while I may have told mom to “be nice” out loud, I was silently cheering my heart out for her newfound emotional strength. Her body became terribly weak in her final year of life. My mother’s heart was as brave and fierce as it ever was. She was ready to show the world what her heart was stitched together with.
Mom passed away five days after she told my son and I that she would soon be leaving us. In those final five days, memories that she, my brother and I had shared together floated in and out of my mind in a dream-like haze. Dance recitals, school proms, holidays. On the fifth day, mom left these memories safe with me and joined my brother and my father, in heaven.
About a week after mom passed away, I opened mom’s journal for the first time. I had gifted mom this journal shortly after my brother’s passing in August. I hoped that writing would help her process and cope with the loss of her son. The journal was titled, “A love letter to my daughter.” The leather books contents consist of pages upon pages of her thoughts of love and concern for each person in her life. My mother wrote about me in nearly every passage.
I was humbled to the core at the notion that someone, anyone, would hold me in that kind of regard in their lives. With all of mom’s health problems, the pain she endured every day, while facing the end of her life; all mom could think about was her love and concern for those who had loved her. Suddenly, I wished desperately that the world, especially those who had seen mom at her worst, could see mom as I did in that moment. I knew right away that it was too late for them. As for me, I’ll keep telling everyone who will listen. Love has been described in countless ways. In songs, in letters, on banners in the sky. If you truly want to know what love in the purest form feels like, a mom-hug is the closest thing.
Winter in Maine, 2019. I know I’m not supposed to mention the “W-word” this late in the season in these parts. The belief around here is that the W-word is a cuss-word after April the first of April. For us here in The Hills (and I assume, many others) winter came on aggressively and didn’t seem to want to let go once it had us in its grips. I am not a fan of the cold, but this year, I agreed with mother nature’s plan for me. I was ready to allow the harshness of the air around me to match what I felt inside.
I had spent all of last summer in my new gardens. My fiance and I had built seven flower beds by hand. Transforming our yard into a flower-filled heaven designed to attract birds to our newly hung feeders became our new passion. I would start my morning coffee and head outside to check on my gardens before it was even done brewing.
I adored those mornings outside. Very often the first to wake up in the morning, I began to look forward to the two hours before everyone else in the house woke up. Just my birds, my flowers, my dogs and a cup of coffee. Life was perfect.
It was on a morning much like I am describing, August the 15th to be exact, that I was standing in front of my main garden, waiting for my coffee to brew. Before I could decide what kind of day it was going to be, my phone rang. From that phone call, I learned that I had lost my brother from a heart attack. He was 42.
The last time I touched those gardens was a few days after his passing. I made a bouquet of the very best flowers left in my garden and I brought them to my brother when I saw him for the last time. After that, any vibrant colors that were left with the incoming fall season seemed to mock me. Secretly, it was almost a relief to watch the gardens grow weaker, then go under for their winters sleep.
Their leaves wilted, dried up and then began to fall. Foliage from the trees above began to drift from the trees and cover the garden beds, creating a somber glow over the back yard. I made halfhearted attempts at pulling out some of the old plants in preparation for the next gardening season. Soon I gave in and allowed snow to blanket them, too.
I welcomed the first snow and then the second. Soon I deemed it acceptable to make like a perennial plant and participate in my own long-winters sleep. Fortunately, my hibernation doesn’t take place under a four-foot pile of snow. Instead, I put my best effort into participating by making a blanket fort, a bag of gummy bears and comfy pajamas my norm.
I learned that when you’re resting up to become a beautiful flower in the spring time, you’re actually working pretty hard. As it turned out, four months in a blanket fort with gummy bears for company is a fine place for inspiration but it does very little for motivation. By February, I had about as much gumption AS a gummy bear. The green ones that no one likes. Hardly a recipe for a beautiful, strong flower.
I silently started to wonder if I had become a permanent hermit but Spring did finally come. Slowly, I started to come out of my blanket fort for short periods. The first sign of Spring in my yard besides the abundance of birds at the feeder was a patch of sweet Williams peeking out of the snow. I recall becoming quite emotional when I caught sight of the ragged looking plant, even hugging my fiance with joy. Spring had finally arrived. We had made it and man, had it been harder than I could ever express in pounds of gummy bears consumed. (A+ for effort on my part, though)
Then a day or two later, because we live in Maine and because it fit this winter’s Up off the Mat theme of repeated face plants; it snowed. The poor little vibrant, brave Sweet William plant was once again covered with snow. It would have to fight it’s way back from the disappointment and I would be returning to the isolation of my blanket fort.
The come-back Sweet William
Once the temperatures went up above the air outside pisses me off, I decided that I was finished with letting mother nature and her six inches of ice push me around. For the next two weeks, I took to the back yard with a metal shovel with the zest of people who get paid for it. I broke the ice away from the patio rocks, feeling farther away from “blanket fort girl,” with each block of ice that broke free. If my neighbors didn’t think I was completely crazy before, they must be well on their way now.
It was during one of these back-yard therapy sessions this morning that I saw it. Four of them actually. Four pathetic, slimy, nearly drowned Sweet Williams that had quadrupled in size since last year. I stood there with my best friend of two weeks, a metal shovel screaming for a break, and admired what it took for these sad little plants to recover the way they did from the brutal Maine winter.
Only then did it occur to me that maybe we should all consider lending ourselves the same pat on the back that we do to nature for coming back from what’s meant to break us. Maybe it’s the challenges of a long Maine winter that knock you down for longer than you think you should be. Maybe you struggle with mental health or a loss that plagues you in your day to day life. Whatever it is that knocks you down, consider giving yourself the same understanding and patience that we are able to give nature as it fights its way back in the spring time. After all, we are both just trying to survive. If we’re lucky, we get to grow from the learning experience.
There is something you should know about those who don’t belong here. The little girl who lived in The House with the Red Door knows all about what it means to not belong. She knows the secret you should know about others like her, too. She would tell you with her words but it’s imperative that she remains silent. Invisible children do not speak. Everyone knows that.
It could be said then, that the first thing you need do to know the important secret about those who do not belong is that you must listen. Once you hear the silence, you are ready for the next part, which is to simply watch them. That’s right, just watch.
If you observe a soul who does not belong closely enough, you will see that they divide their time evenly between failed attempts at disappearing completely and admirable efforts at perfection. After all, even kids know that people will take the most notice of your existence when you make a mistake of some sort. A mistake will get you notice every time. A mistake when you don’t belong there in the first place? Well, then you’re in real trouble.
The House with the Red Door: Make No Mistake
It was dinner time and the whole family was home. For the most part, all four family members seemed to be at ease. This was surely not always the case but today, the often-troubled family enjoyed a meal together. It was not often that Dad was home for meal time and it was even less often when he chose to join his family at the dinner table.
Sometimes Dad would be in a good mood and the kids could always tell because he would take good natured jabs at mom while she worked in the kitchen. The kids giggled uncontrollably when dad would wait until mom’s back was turned to toss a morsel of food to the family dogs. Both the dog’s hungry scarfing and the kid’s mischievous giggles would inevitably let mom know. She would try to scowl at her husband’s offense, but she could never resist the laughter of her children. It didn’t happen enough.
The young girl, sometimes referred to as sister or daughter in The House with the Red Door, was old enough to know that she did not belong there. She was permitted by an unspoken law to speak when spoken to. The young girl knew it was almost always acceptable to laugh when everyone was laughing, but that it was never okay to cry. To speak freely, to laugh and to shed tears were privileges meant for those who belonged. The daughter knew that knowing her place meant the difference between survival mode and true risk.
Dinner was complete and soon she would be free to escape. Slipping into childhood daydreams, she thought to herself that maybe she would play outside when she was done with the dishes. As she allowed her mind to wander to childlike worries, she wondered to herself whether she should play in her treehouse or see what the neighbor kids were up to.
As she began to clear the table, her family roamed in and out of the kitchen, tending to other matters. She took a bowl with a spoonful of stuffing in it from the table. Seeing that there was very little stuffing left, she spooned the food into the trashcan and continued to clean the kitchen. A short time later, her father came into the kitchen to throw something away. It was when her father opened the trash can and then looked at her, that she knew she would not be playing outside today.
In an instant, she watched her father become red-faced and enraged at the sight of the wasted food in the trash can. She tried with everything in her to disappear and to make sense of her father’s words at the same time. She didn’t understand what was happening as her father continued to scream while he fished the stuffing out of the trashcan and put it into a cereal bowl. Before she knew it, she was back at the dinner table, the bowl of stuffing and a spoon placed in front of her.
She hated herself for the tears that burned the back of her eyelids, threatening to show themselves on her face. Her sinuses burned as she fought even harder to not let the fear she felt for the next moments of her life, win. She spoke harsh words to herself silently, willing herself to keep the tears where he could not see them. Then he said it.
“Eat it. All of it.”
Terror washed over her as she struggled desperately to think of what would make this moment right again. Visions of her plans to go play outside with friends that she had made just minutes ago taunted her. How foolish she had been to concern herself with such nonsense. As she honored the unspoken laws of silence, muted emotion and complete compliance, she thought for sure there must be a logical solution to this. There was now trash and cigarette butts in the stuffing. Surely, he didn’t mean it.
But he did want her to eat that trash-covered stuffing. As
she honored this demand, he reminded her to never, ever break the rule of
wasting food again. As she choked down the now rancid food, tears began to stab
at the back of her eyelids again. She had never been so relieved to see her
father storm out of the house.
With her father gone, she found herself on the floor of the bathroom, staring at the toilet. Her mother was now at her side, so she knew that her father had indeed left. The young girl said nothing, but finally let her tears betray her by streaming down her face as her mother coached her through purging the contents of her stomach. As she sobs loudly and vomits, she is only vaguely aware of her mother’s attempts to comfort her.
Instead, she is twelve years old and every part of her is aware of how euphoric it felt each time she heaved into the toilet. After several minutes, her mother repeated to her that she was done, that all the trash had been purged from her stomach. She heard her mother’s words of concern, but the pain of the dry-heaves was a euphoria she had never experienced before.
The young girl never made it to the other side of the red door that night. Instead, she cried herself to sleep alone in her bedroom. Following the release of the purge in the bathroom and the tears she shed in the dark, she was cast into a sleep only the truly exhausted will ever know. She had let all her mistakes out. She could start again tomorrow. Surely, tomorrow would be better. She would be better. She would try harder.
Stay tuned for the next installment of The House with the Red Door. Parts one through three can be found below.
I hope you are all enjoying part three of The House with the Red Door. Getting to work on part three of this series was a challenge, to say the least. Even the author of Up off the Mat has to pick herself up from a hard knock out delivered by life from time to time.
Admittedly, I could have taken my defeat with a bit more grace. It was the end of August, when I lost my brother, that I was technically knocked out. Not ready to accept the loss or the much-needed recovery time, I pushed forward.
To the outside world, my initial steps forward may have looked to the like a vallant comeback of sorts. I returned to college the week after my only siblings funeral. People suggested that a break may be in order, an idea I quickly dismissed. Much like someone who had suffered a blow-to-the-head in the most literal sense, I was far from at my cognitive best.
The truth is, I barely remember my entire fall semester. Somehow between supressed grief, the daily stresses of life and my mother going onto hospice care in December; I managed to complete twelve credits of my batchelors degree on the Deans List. That miracle was lost on me as the combined coldness of the winter months and my recent loss began to work it’s way into my soul.
The shock of the hard knocks of my life had begun to dissolve and the emotions that crept in to replace them were unwelcome. I was in pain. My head ached as each wound exposed itself in the form of once-fond memories that now taunted me. My heart, which had felt hollow for months, now flooded with what-ifs and could-be’s that would never be.
It was all too much. Instead of surrendering to the grief-response that my soul was begging me for, I told myself to continue to fight. The pep-talk to myself worked for a while. I registered for the Spring semester and finally started writing again. I told myself that being “okay” looked like making progress. As long as I kept motoring forward, neither the numbness or the what-ifs that made me suffer, could knock me down.
December was also the start of three major winter illnesses for me. I first became sick with the flu. Just as I was struggling to my feet from the flu, a respiratory illness took residence in my lungs. For weeks, and then months, I struggled with my health, often bed-ridden.
I could not figure out why I could not get “Up off the Mat.” (It’s been said that I can be a bit hard-headed.) Eventually it occurred to me that I might be a bit on the depressed side. Knowing what our emotional state can do to our physical state, (whether we choose to acknowledge it or not) I began to consider that it was the feelings I had first experienced following shock and numbness that had scared me into rapid progress.
I didn’t want to experience what it felt to recall memories from my immediate family that I would soon be the only one here to tell about. Most of all, I did not want to look ahead to all of the memories yet to be created that my family will not share with me. (Yes, writing that truth was painful.)
At some point a few weeks back, I started to take longer looks at how things in my life were…progressing. An honest self-assessment brought me to the realization that the outward appearance of “okay” had become a full-time job. Furthermore, I wasn’t fooling anyone.
My tenancy to isolate had returned during a cold-winter night when I had my guard down. Soon, I stopped attending classes at the college and started delay-viewing all of them at home. I let my phone-calls go to voicemail, often keeping my ringer off completely. Day-naps became necessity and eating became a chore. Any trip out of the house (known as “people-ing’ around here) was a source of dread.
Man, was I angry at myself. I felt I was losing a battle that I should have been strong enough to conquer. Not even sure who the true enemy that dealing me these damaging blows to the soul was, I silently began to beat myself up for not having the stamina to defend myself. Why couldn’t I just be happy? Why couldn’t I continue to evolve into the true-me that I know I am capable of? Why couldn’t I GET UP?
I decided to nap on those questions. (Hey, I was sick and tired.) Even as I write, I remember clearly a statement my brother made to me as I struggled with the reality of surrendering to my brain surgery (and the long recovery) only three years ago:
“Kid, you have got to stop viewing your brain tumor as something you are DOING to those you love. Stop apologizing for it.”
My brother sure did have a way of pushing me into a place of perspective real-quick-like. As I remembered this Big Brother advice, I made the connection I needed in order to move forward in a more meaningful way.
I admit to being guilty of pride. Many of us are prone to the tendency to want to project a certain image of ourselves to the world. It’s natural to want to be viewed by others as strong, brave, or even unbreakable. In my life, I have been blessed with the tenacity to overcome multiple obstacles and even a few traumas.
Recently, it has come into my awareness that I have developed a sort of craving or addiction to what it feels like to come out on top when life knocks me down. When darkness finds me, I long for what I felt like on my first day back to work four weeks after a craniotomy. Just weeks before, I had been on a hospital gurney with parts of my skull on a tray beside me. Now I was grooming dogs. I felt like super woman that day. What a rush.
Life is not all fluffy puppies with cute haircuts though. It’s not all being honored as a Deans List Student, gardens full of happy flowers or long days by the pool with the best big-brother ever. Those moments are the true blessings but they are not where we do our best evolving as people.
If we do our best growing through struggling, I was in a great place to begin. Maybe my grief wasn’t something I was imposing on those I loved, either. Keeping my brothers wise words in mind, I tried his theory out on my combination of grief and winter-blues.
Not only did I stop apologizing for straying from my previous-self, I started to open up about who I was now. I had honest conversations with my college-family about where I was both physically and mentally. I shared my darkest thoughts with my parter and even a few close friends. I started to write what was on my heart again, sans apology to the world.
I shouldn’t have been surprised, but people were prepared to accept the “messy-me,” too. (I have some seriously awesome souls in my life, for sure.) My college-family rallied around me, giving me slack where I needed it and a good push, too. My family and friends made their presence and support known to me by perfecting the art of giving space and offering comfort. With this, I allowed myself the fall that was needed following an impressive knock out.
I still do not know about the “what-ifs.” What I do know is that the hollow feeling the shock of grief created for me made way for emotions I was meant to feel. Once I allowed myself to be still enough, the pain washed over me in an uncomfortable, yet cleansing way. I did not drown, it did not last forever.
Pain, grief, anxiety and anger are emotions our bodies are meant to experience. We need not run from them, fight them or attempt to hide them. Let them wash over you, acknowledge the lessons that come from them and never apologize for your story on this earth. This is how genuine progress happens.
She startles from a tortured sleep as she becomes immediately aware of the tires of her father’s truck. The truck is coming towards the house, crunching over the gravel on the driveway. It’s early morning, after two. The young girl opens her eyes to try and make sense of the disruption of her nightmares. As she attempts to gain focus in the dark, the room begins to spin. Nausea fills her core but before she can acknowledge it, she hears her father’s truck door open, then slam shut again.
Silence fills the spinning room for ten long seconds, then she hears the red door open and slam shut. As she listens to his feet climb the stairs to enter the house, she closes her eyes, trying to make the spinning stop. The spinning and her nausea are abruptly replaced by a tightness in her chest that crept up to her throat when she heard the top door open. Dad was home.
Time was torturous as the adolescent girl laid there in her bed, listening to a tirade of ramblings she could not possibly understand. Dad was angry again. Real angry. Mom was silent again with the random murmered cries. Mom’s silence and the occasional anguish that slipped out made it hard to know what to expect next. The young girl had little choice but to wait for the next step in the building esculation while battling a bad case of fear of the dark.
The young girl could not recall how she had gotten there but she had left her bedroom that made her head spin and had ended up at a late-night family meeting. As her eyes adjusted to the lighting in the living room, she looked around from the old rocking chair she sat in to take in the scene. Her mother and brother were there. Dad was ranting loudly about heating costs, hard work and families who were useless.
Someone, presumably one of the four people in this 3am family meeting called-by-dad; had turned up the heat. It was not dad who had turned the dial up on the thermostat and mother, brother and the Girl, were not admitting to the offense if they had. All the young girl knew was that she had not turned up the heat and she did not want to know what the consequences were for who had. She sat there as quietly as she could, waiting for the leader of the meeting to tell her what to do next.
The Girl tried her best to pay close attention, but dad yelled about the heating situation for a long time. As he started in about the empty beer cans on the front lawn, the young girl began to doze off in the old, over-sized rocking chair she had now been sitting in for at least ninety minutes.
She was awoken from her near-sleep by the sharp jolt of the rocking chair being kicked. Before her eleven-year-old body could absorb the blow the rocking chair had taken, her focus had been brought back to her father’s angry gaze staring back at her. She began to cry, as startled children do. As she instinctively fought back the burning in her eyes and the lump in her throat, her father became enraged at her showing of emotion.
Oh, how she hated herself for not being able to hold it together. Her father leaned into his verbal assault on her, but his words dissolved into the faces of her mother and brother and into the disgust the young girl felt for herself as her father continued to rage.
You are nothing. You’ll
be nothing. You’ve never been anything. This year, no Christmas. Tree’s coming
down. Don’t ever turn the heat up. Ever. Forget Christmas. Go to bed.
Back in her spinning bedroom, the young girl was too stunned to cry. Far beyond getting emotional about “kid things,” like Christmas celebrations, she laid awake listening to her father tear her mother apart with all the liquor he had left in him. As her dark bedroom spun in circles, her mother cried and pleaded. As her father emptied his arsenic of verbal attacks on her mother, the young girl berated herself silently for all the trouble she had caused.
She could have stayed awake during his late-night lecture. Falling asleep had made him furious. Why did she always have to be so sensitive, anyways? Dad had only kicked the chair and no one else had cried. Why did she always have to be so weak and make him so mad?
Finally, the house with the red door settled down. Mom had gone into her bedroom and her cries could only be heard softly now. Dad couldn’t be heard moving through the house and was likely asleep on the couch. The young girl was the last to drift off to sleep and as she did, she made a promise to herself to do better.
I will be good. I will be tough. I will be better. I will be helpful. I will be happy. I will be quiet. No, I will be invisible. Silent. Invisible silence…
The next morning day, her mother asks her if she and her
brother would like to go window shopping. The trio pile into the car, only a
few dollars to their names. As the miles between them and the red door carry
on, the memories behind it seem to fade into the rearview mirror.
Mom stops at a convenience store goes inside, leaving the girl and her older brother in the car. Mom says nothing as she exit’s the car, but the siblings know there is a surprise coming. Within minutes, the mother returns with orange sodas for both kids and off they go to their next adventure.
Mom never mentions the late-night meetings with dad on these rare day trips. That might be just what the Girl likes best about them. Dad never comes on window-shopping trips. He would think mom was foolish if he saw the way she laughed and goofed around with her kids when she took them on her rides to nowhere. Sometimes they would walk the Mall for hours and not buy anything. The small family of three would be gone for all day, all while spending less than ten dollars. A small price for a few hours of guaranteed peace, safety and free-spirited fun.
At the end of each adventure this bonded threesome took, it was inevitable that they would all return to the house with the red door. As mom’s car tires crunched up their gravel driveway, mom slipped further and further away from her children’s youthful banter. If dad’s truck wasn’t home, they could all pile up on her bed and continue laughing together. If dad’s truck was in the yard, it was best for the Girl to stay in the yard or retreat to her room.
Today, the truck was home. The Girl stepped out of her mom’s car and ran to the side of the house. She was greeted by the family dog. The Girl flopped herself on the green grass near the dog and began to stroke his black, silky fur. She started telling the old dog about the nausea in her stomach and the spinning in her head. The old Retriever gazed into her eyes with a love and understanding that she knew she could not get once she stepped behind that red door.
The young girl soaked in the feel of the family dogs’ fur under the hot sun as she continued to share her story with him. She liked the contrast between the cool grass under her legs and the dog’s hot black fur between her fingers. The Girl stole one more look into the dogs faithful, accepting eyes before whispering her own truth out loud for only the dog to hear: I don’t belong here. “I don’t belong here, doggy,” she whispers. “So just stay here with me, okay?”
Stay tuned for the next chapter of The House with the Red Door. This is a series, brought to you by Up off the Mat. The House with the Red Door is based on a true story and may include disturbing content for some viewers. The first two parts of this story can be found at these links:
“What happens in this house, stays in this house,” her father was known for bellowing. Well, it sounded like drill Sargent level orders to her but if the neighbors could hear him, they never said a word. They certainly never questioned him. No one did.
When she stepped outside the front door that was painted red, she closed it quietly, respecting the invisible do not disturb signs on every door and window. With each pace forward, her feet crunched across the gravel, jolting her ears with each step. She had learned early that being seen or heard could hold dangerous consequences for her. She suffered through each step as if a childhood monster were right behind her, ready to snatch her up if she wasn’t fast enough. Finally, she made it to the grass and gave way to a full sprint. With the monster in hot pursuit, she ran in a panic until she reached her finish line: the tree.
Out of breath, yet exilerated, the nine-year-old scans the perimeter of her property cautiously. Reasonably sure no one can see her, she hoists herself up onto the first branch she can reach and continues her climb to the middle of the tree. It’s a spiral motion, her climb. In what’s left of the innocence of her child-like imagination, she envisions herself climbing a spiral staircase in a fancy mansion. But this long spiral staircase with a view leads to only one room.
Once the young girl completes the climb her room, the monster stops chasing her. Maybe he’s too big for the staircase or maybe he’s afraid of heights but he doesn’t fit into the world she has built in the tree near the road in her front yard. No one except her does.
She settles herself into the only seat in the “room,” a solid branch to sit on with one behind it that serves as the back of the “chair.” She looks around her neighborhood, the occasional car that passes by, the random dog barking. and soaks in the safety she feels in this moment. She can see them but they can not see her. It is a blissful realization.
She liked to keep the room in her simple mansion orderly and quiet. To the left of her chair was a bookshelf. Two branches that sat closely together held a book and a journal. To the left of the bookshelf was the clothes line, meant to hang her baby dolls clean clothes and blankets. There were branches in front of her chair that served as the baby dolls bassinet, and clothes and blankets for the baby doll. In her house, the baby was kept clean and safe. Everything was in order. In her house, babies got story times and lullabies. In her house, babies were cherished.
This tree, this second home, was where she began to reinvent herself. For the moments she could escape to it, she knew there would be no shouting, no fighting and nothing to fear. In her real-life home, there was potential for all these things. At school, she was never “right,” either. She was unfocused, experienced social problems and was labeled “out of control” emotionally. Eventually, this label followed her just about everywhere she went. Continuously being told either to get it together or that she was not good enough, the treehouse became her only refuge.
It was in this tree and outside of the red door that she could begin to imagine a different life. Beyond that, it was in her treehouse that she began to fantasize about showing the world a different version of herself. There in that treehouse, she knew that even if she could never tell the world what went on in the house with the red door, she could show the world…something different. Yes, she would show them who she was. First though, she had to overcome her tendency to run, and her fear of falling.
Stay tuned for part two of the first-ever series from Up off the Mat: The House with the Red Door
The invisible lines between the various parts of my life woke up blurry today. I am far from a master at it but I’ve done this tight-rope dance before. A few days back, after a vallant attempt to combat my tendancy for winter isolation, uncomfortable thoughts and emotions started to creep up on me. I could feel it, as I had counteless times before, first in the pit of my stomach.
Emotions that could be called “vulnerable” ones, such as sadness, anxiety or fear aren’t anyone’s favorite jam. Historically for me, they have been cause for the development of an emergency escape plan. Not only did everything in me scream “run,” when I felt pain, it was most important to get away before anyone saw me in a state of what I viewed as personal weakness. It felt much safer for me to retreat to the solitude of my own darkness, often not treating myself very kindly on said-“retreat.”
In the darkness of my own thoughts and emotions, no one can see me trembling from the inside. My stomach churns, my teeth grind and my head often aches as I take cover from the thoughts that take up space in my brain:
To do lists a mile long that have not been started, adolescent sons, missing brothers, ailing loved-ones, college credits, fear of failure, hope for the future-woah, I still have not begun that to-do list.
It is not long before I have crossed so many lines in my head that I am not sure where to begin with untangling them. When I try to picture the boundaries of these lines in my mind, they represent a ball of yarn that a kitten has had free access to until nap time. By that time, I drop down into “real-life” (the present) for a moment and realize I should probably be doing something productive (full-time college while parenting is no joke) but which priority in my web of worries do I attempt to tackle?
Damn, I feel like I’ve BEEN tackled at this point. My head aches from the teeth-grinding and my stomach doesn’t know if it is hungry or needs to purge. Alas, there is no time to worry about such trivial symptoms, I am STRONG and I have that to-do list bellowing at me to stop being so…vulnerable.
I haven’t seen her in person in many years. Though we have often had the all too common, “we should get together soon” chat, it just hasn’t been in the cards. Not for a very long time. Neither of us have said it but reconnecting wouldn’t be about seeing each other’s faces. It seems like forever ago but Melissa and I met each other’s souls. I am convinced now that I am older (and hopefully, wiser) that Melissa was a real-life angel sent to me at a time in my life that I needed some saving.
I was impressed with her presence from the moment I met her. I had been introduced to Melissa through a guy dated briefly at that time. Prior to meeting her, he had sung her praises. As it turned out, she was the one thing he was right about while we dated. What a blessing she turned out to be.
As I recall this period of my life, I am struck by the fact that I cannot remember my ex’s face at all. I can, however. clearly bring up images of Melissa. Her smile was beautifully infectious, and she had beautiful, mysterious features to back it up. Melissa, who was just a bit older than I, had the same off-the-cuff wit that I had, with a true confidence that I did not. I looked up to her. The relationship that had been the reason she and I had met had begun to make me feel uncomfortable. After a while, I was smart enough to make sure Melissa was around when I went down to visit, but not yet strong enough to simply stop seeing him.
He made me nervous from the beginning. I will never forget the feeling I got the first time he and I locked eyes. The fact that I ignored this gut-feeling and moved forward despite it is in my eyes only forgiven because I was able to escape an unfavorable outcome. He was handsome, he was edgy. There were many moments this “edginess” made me uncomfortable, yet I could not name the feeling beyond that at the time.
Melissa was a great distraction. She was always glad to come over when I came down to visit and I was more eager to see her, each time. She made laugh, we had much in common but most importantly, she made me feel safe. The guy I was dating was a big dude and an even bigger personality. He liked to drink and the more liquor he consumed, the louder he got.
I have long been uncomfortable with being in the company of people
who are intoxicated. I grew up around substance abuse and I am familiar with both
the damage it can do to the person using the substances and to those around
them. In my experience, heavy use of substances can make people unpredictable.
These truths I had come to know and the confidence and self-love I had yet to
gain were a dangerous combination for me in this relationship at the time. The
louder my ex got, the drunker he got, the more submissive I became. (This may come
as a surprise to people who know me now)
Melissa was not submissive. At least in my eyes, she was brave and strong. Fierce even. Not only had she been through more than I had and survived it, she wasn’t done kicking ass and taking names. This girl showed up. Melissa began to plant the seed in my mind for what “showing up” as a woman and a friend, really means.
As I became more and more silenced by the increasing chaos around me, Melissa’s voice became more boisterous. She wasn’t afraid to speak up to the guy I dated or the guy she dated. She would yell at them to quit trying to find the bottom of the bottle, grow up and show some respect before I could even say, “wow.” I would watch in awe as she gave these grown boys what for, half expecting one of them to come at her for embarrassing their already sad state of being. They never did and I took note.
One night we all went out to see a band at a bar that was nearly an hour from my ex’s home. I could feel the iciness in the energy but took it as the nerves that often come with new experiences for me. One adult beverage was enough to take the edge off and off we went, all piled into one truck. Everyone had fun that night. Everyone except my ex.
I noticed something was wrong when we were still at the bar. He had expressed some jealously earlier in the evening and had taken it upon himself to “ice me out” for the remainder of our time out that evening. Knowing I had done nothing wrong, I assumed he would eventually get over it. On the ride back to his place, it became apparent that he was not over it. He was just getting started. Again, the tension in the air reduced me to silence.
We were dropped off back at the house and I knew I had to stay. Though I had only had two drinks, I had made it my policy to refrain from driving after even one drink. The rising tension was going to have to be cut through another way.
As soon as we got back into his house, he became visibly angry. Clearly, he had been holding onto his frustration about my imagined wrong-doings at the bar earlier. He began to raise his voice at me. At first, I tried to deescalate him by staying calm and reassuring him. This seemed to be ramp up his anger even further. Realizing new action was in order, I went into the room off the kitchen, where my belongings were. I began packing my things. He followed me into the room and began to yell even louder. Then it happened.
I turned to attempt to exit the room and he squared up to me, blocking the door. The next words out of his mouth, combined with the I-mean-you-harm expression on his face, will stay with me for as long as I live. He looked me straight in the eyes, just as he had the day we met and said, “you’re in trouble now, aren’t you?” I was cornered.
In my mind, I had only seconds to consider what this giant of a man would do to me based on the actions or words I chose next. Surely, he was expecting the polite, meek, small-town girl response he had gotten up until that very moment. That was not what happened.
“What are you gonna do?” I screamed at him loud enough to strain my throat, “fucking do it!”
To this day, I’m not sure who was more surprised. All I know is that he walked away from that exit without another word.
I walked away from that house as quietly as I had arrived. I have told almost no one about that experience. I’m not even sure Melissa knows, though we have stayed in touch over the years. None of us knew it then, but Melissa may have saved my life that day. How different would that night had turned out, had I not witnessed the courage and tenacity she had practiced with the same man? I shudder when I think about it, even now.
Today, with many years of growth and new experiences behind us, Melissa reached out to me. When I opened my messenger, I was pleasantly surprised by some photos she had sent me of us, “back in the day.” Looking at these pictures, I was instantly able to feel that warmth, that safety, I had felt being near her so many years ago.
Sweet Melissa, my angel on earth
We reminisced for a short time of days gone by. Small talk quickly gave way to the soul-searching our bond was founded on. We were both please (and I sense, a bit relieved) to share that we have both found healthy, happy relationships. Beyond that, Melissa has been able to overcome a lifelong struggle with scoliosis of the spine that has led to several surgeries, being bed-ridden at times and nearly throwing in the towel at others. Melissa has shared a great deal of her pain and suffering with me over the years but today, she had a message of gratitude to share.
At one-point bed-ridden due to crippling back pain for two years, an angel entered her life and spoke louder than any doubts she had ever allowed herself to hear. “For two years post-surgery, I was in bed. The news that I was going to be a Nana got me motivated to get up!” (Up off the Mat, you say?)
Her gratitude gushed on and I was thrilled to listen. “I was physically able to watch my two and a half year and 22-Month-old grandbabies all day last Monday! I was exhausted after but so happy that I was able!” (That’s it, girl!)
How invigorating it was to share in each other’s passions
and successes after so many years. It was at that moment that I realized that
Melissa was struggling at least as hard as I was when she was doing God’s
service as my angel here on earth. How selflessly she had given of herself at a
time when she likely needed a helping hand herself. I wonder now if she knows
what an inspiration and a beacon of hope she has been in my journey towards
becoming a woman I can live with. If you’re reading this, my friend, thanks for
keeping me from getting knocked down on the mat. Here is your soundtrack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqK8YeZYqbA
I’ve been doing a rather intense amount of processing in the past couple of weeks. Both on my blog and in my often busy mind, the resulting purge of thoughts have been doing the work I believe they are intended to. We are supposed to feel the emotions inspired by our reflections. Those feelings are supposed to guide us in our actions moving forward.
Lately, the topics that have been taking up space in my brain (and on my blog) are complicated, to say the least. The weight of the words we speak, the ways in which we define our individual sense of safety and final farewells with loved ones are life events that consume my days; and the hours in which I attempt rest.
The power that the words we choose to speak hold wore heavily on my heart as I sent my son off to school each day this week. After an eye-opening weekend spent with two sixth grade boys, I felt more aware than ever of what he was facing as a social being at school. As a result, I felt more frightened for him. At times, I was sick to my stomach over the thought of him navigating the flurry of hate-speech that seems to flow from the mouths of adolescents like projectile vomit.
“Joey isn’t dating Lily anymore.” My son said to me one afternoon this week. “He got dumped by her.”
Now I know little Joey. In an attempt to empathize and keep the conversation going, I asked how little Joey was feeling following being “dumped.”
“He’s cool with it. He doesn’t even like her anymore. He says he wishes she were dead.”
I’ve had several perspectives offered to me regarding the speech patterns our children use with each other and the way they interact with each other. Reactions from other parents range from shared horror at what our youth are exposed to before they even hit junior high to, “we had it just as bad back in my day.”
In my opinion, us “back in the day folk” are only half correct. True are right, kids still had a tendency to be hateful towards one another in the 80’s and 90’s. I can recall a handful of memories built by some ill-meaning kids from my school years; but I won’t do that here. Not today.
The difference between the kids we were then and kids today, is that I did not fear the students who were making my days at school more of a challenge. My biggest concern was if the guy that went around barking in all the students faces was going to bark in mine, today. (looking back, maybe we should have been concerned.) He wasn’t going to put his hands on me. He hadn’t called me on the phone the night before, trying to arrange a fight for the next day. Never once did I fear he was going to shoot my classmates and I.
Not for one second am I attempting to over-simplify what is clearly a multi-level problem. Know that. What I can confidently say is that to compare the system we got our education in to the one our children are attending is a massive oversight in perspective that we cannot afford to make. Children today are facing what we did, much more; all in the age of the intranet where none of our words or actions can be escaped. Ever.
Saying “I wish she were dead,” will never again hold the same weight or meaning that it did in the 80’s and 90’s. To me, saying these words in the same flippant, gossip-ridden manner one would have said them twenty years ago is to rub our right to life in the faces of those we have lost tragically in learning spaces that have become war zones.
What can be done? For me, it has become about changing the focus of conversations with my child. That change began last weekend in the company of two sixth-grade boys who clearly craved guidance back to a path that felt more natural to them: kindness.
“He wishes she were dead?” I asked my son. “What do you think that means? What does it mean to wish someone dead?”
For my son, being asked to stop and think about the words he had just so easily uttered, was enough. “To wish someone were dead would mean that they weren’t here anymore. You would never see them again and no one else would, either.”
I didn’t have to explain to my son what that loss meant. At age eleven, he has felt the loss of a close family member three times, now.
“Wow, that would be sad,” I said to him with geniune empathy in my voice, “do you think that is what your friend really meant?”
“No,” my son said thoughtfully, “Joey may just be embarrassed that he got dumped. He may just not want to hang out with Lily or see her anymore because of that.”
Later in my son’s life, I hope that these conversations bring the true meaning of the words we speak, the attention they so deserve. The words we speak have the power to either reveal or cover up (no matter how temporarily) the feelings we are experiencing. If we can learn to express ourselves accurately and pointedly through the words we speak, we stand to avoid miscommunication and to get our needs met more effectively, in life.
The gift of language, both written and spoken, is one that has been handed down in my family through generations. Growing up, my parents shared their version of the worlds most beautiful language in musical and written form. As a result, my brother and I harbored a deep appreciation for literature and music of all genres. We also both became writers who never turned away from public speaking opportunities. Growing up, we were given endless avenues to explore and fall in love with, all of the ways we could express ourselves with words. What modalities do you use to explore the wide world of language? How do you share these opportunities for growth and learning with your children?
Up Off the Mat 