March 2, 2012
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Thinking, Just Thinking.
How do I spend all of these hours speaking to unknown faces and tongues which speak their truth to themselves as I also struggle with truth. “You’re going to get a whipping if you lie,” so I never lied, but Mama would so often just whip anyway, so I let her live in the myth that other families had it as hard as ours, for she would have beat me senseless had I told her the truth; “Mama, You are the liar!” But I hurt for this woman, for she was a Mad Woman for a large portion of her life. The last time she ever looked at me before her death, I promised her that I would forgive her if she could forgive me, because even when she was older and became an old and mad child, she tried to make it up by baking cakes, one after the other – Our mother made cake for those coming home from the far away places we tried to become real, for when we leave such infliction and brutality, we cannot measure right and wrong, and even love glances far away from us.
I have told the Drs. now; “No more talk therapy,” even though I have night terrors, the same PTSD, just like the men who came back from war shell shocked. I remember asking myself; “What does it feel like to be loved?” I saw people bearing each other in the life that I left. So how does it feel to love when you are ready to leap like an antelope, because you do not want the bruises and the cuts.
The problem which I was left with was that no one learned to sew up holes in hearts, so for those of you who know that it is difficult to nurture and to care when you thirst for something unknown; I am going to write a few notes to you, and some will come from the purpose of my book, “Pinkhoneysuckle,” when I finally told the story, the horrible story of which I needed to be free.. I am hoping to take my book to The San Francisco Book Fair, and there I hope to find the miracle where unconditionally someone might say even, “Thank you,” for you told my story too.
I leave you with this thought this night; How much can children possibly bear and come out unbroken, for people of the place that I am from think that we made it, what ever it is to make it; But how do we measure suffering, and what makes some just fold like a piece of old laundry and others of us to run, to just run as fast as we can for help; For the fox holes are cold, and they are lonely, but compared to awakening and facing people who are your parents who simply keep you as shattered as an old ice tea glass; Then I ask you what made a few of us forgive in the end and to see the mad ones off to heaven, because one day we woke up from the nightmare, and we took it on. We called, “Shelter,” by its first name, for that is what you are doing when you are begging for the flames and warmth of something to be shelter enough to come in from the cold.
So I leave you with the question of why most children just stay behind and the rest of us leave under the pretense of being well of all being well with our souls. Tell me; Won’t you, for I do not remember the breaking point.
“Pinkhoneysuckle” Amazon, Kindle Ready, Create Space, and From Little Indes from here to the west coast.
Be safe, for more storms are to come tonight.
Comments (4)
Thank you for sharing your stories and thoughts.
Thank you for sharing this. My mother is bi-polar, and I suffered many beatings as a child at her hands while my father tuned it out. I was the youngest, my brothers and sister are much older than me and while they took a lot of emotional abuse, I was the one who got not only the emotional but the physical abuse from her. When I was molested by a neighbor at age 5, I was spanked for it with a belt and told never to speak of it again. When it happened again at age 7, I was made to feel as though it was my fault. I can’t answer your question as to why some children stay behind. Although it’s been many years since I’ve lived at home, I still feel sometimes like I’m still that little girl, afraid to trust, wanting so badly to please, but feeling that I am just a mistake. The only thing that gets me through is my faith. If it wasn’t for that, I’d be a mess.
@accidentalangel - The last thing I would ever say to you is this, “Now you know it happened to so many,” for your story is a personal tradgedy, and I wish that I had something precious that would heal your wounds, but I know that your story – your early life has broken so much the peace which other people presume was the halcyon days of their youth, and the most thoughtless idea is, “Well, just get over it,” or that you were just one in a million.”// You are so special, and I do think that one on one counseling helps if you can get it, and irregardless of what you have heard on the news recently; some of the antidepressants do help, though I would stay away from the oldest of them, but what happened is still there. I hope that you have things which allow you to enjoy these days, for it helps, those things you are good at and are above the average, but I do not mean destructive things such as other relationships which simple eat more of your soul. A faith life is good, but not everyone escels at finding such a life. For me, I enjoyed studying how we became such a fragmented religious world, but that was me, so what are you interested in, and what are you good at. You were made to feel worthless, but I guarantee you that you are precious, and I restate that the child who often has outstanding qualities becomes the most abused, because the broken needs to break you.// Do not endeavor to rescue everyone else which I did before you do some rescue of you. I could only forgive my mother in her later years as I began to see this horrid picture that was her life, and I wanted to save her from all of it, and then is when I discovered that I loved this woman, that her hell was much like mine, and I could forgive it all, but the story is still there, and I long for what neither you nor I had, what I call the television families that always find the right thing to do. They do not exist. This is not an advertisement, but it is truth, that you are for whom my book, “Pinkhoneysuckle,” is written, and I hope you get to read it sometime. There is no money to be made on books with Amazon and lending libraries unless one is a star, and I am most ordinary in some ways, but I count myself as among the brave and the salvaged, even the beautiful when I hear a voice like yours who needs to know how very uniques you are. Blessings my friend, and I ask for the miracle of love to enfold you. Thanks for writing, for we have something to share, and I hope one thing I write to you might help you go forth. Respectfully, Barbara Everett Heintz, Author of, “Pinkhoneysuckle,”
@APOKOLYPES - You are most generous to write to me and to offer thanks for the little comfort that I can bring. I look at your face, and it is the face of a sweet person who has burdens of your own, and your story is important, so I hope that you know that you are at the beginning of a life, and whatever is a shadow to you is worthy, and many of us will listen.// Again I thank you for reading my writings, I surmise that 95% is the absolute truth. I have hidden behind the name Pinkhoneysuckle for several years now, but I offer to you who I am, an old Mom and retired nurse, “Barbara Everett Heintz,” Author of “Pinkhoneysuckle,” Amazon