According to family lore I was not named until five days after I was born. I was expected to die. I guess a name might have made me permanent. I was a preemie. A "blue baby" my aunt called me. I had some sort of a knot of blood vessels under my right arm above my heart. I was operated on as a new born. Scar is as thin as a wisp but is still three or four inches long. On a small baby must have almost bisected me. My paternal grandfather paid for the surgery. I found the letters after my mother died. He paid for my birth and the subsequent surgery with the understanding, legal, that Mom would never contact his son again. And that is what happened.
I have been looking at family mottoes. Has drawn me deep into my past. Dawned on me yesterday that it was hoped I would die at birth. Would have made life so much less painful for all and sundry. My life caused pain and trouble and it would have been better if I had died. I believe this. Said it out loud yesterday. Was like coming home after a long journey.
Poor baby, and child and youngster and teenager and twenty, thirty and forty year old. I am a Christian. I have been taught God loves me. I have had trouble with this miracle as a heart felt belief. But I choose to believe. I now understand the origin of my belief trouble. There is an older belief crowding out anything else. I should have died. Would have been so much better. But I stubbornly lived on to make everyone's life hell. Like my beggar belief, this one too is false.
I am in mourning I think. Mourning for all the time this false belief has contaminated. And be sure, it has reverberated down the years of my life. I am angry. So angry. All human life is precious. And loved and treasured by God. My poor stupid mother and her pernicious sisters. And the moneyed coward son, my father, who died in alcoholic poverty in a shack on the ranch his father traded for my mother and me. I am willing to forgive them. And forgiveness takes time.
I believe God makes miracles out of our messes. I am living proof. I am alive. I am blessed. And I have been given an insight which is changing my life moment to moment. God loved me and gave me life for a purpose. If the purpose is only this post it is enough. Thank you God that I breathe. Amen
Take care of yourselves. Love Bea
5 comments:
My mother and I were having a conversation - years ago - where she said several times - at least I had you - at least you have your life - or something of the like. As in - be thankful. I did not feel thankful at that time. I thought everyone - including me - mostly me - would have been much better off - had I not been born. This conversation was after all my children were born. I could not feel thankful that I (and therefore they) had been born. At the worst moments, I felt so sorry for them, that they had the misfortunte to me born to someone one who was so lacking. It seemed that in my mind at that time - I felt bad that I hadn't realized how lacking I was - before I burdened them with having ME as a mother. I spent a lot of time feeling this way. I have also felt very bad that my husband got "stuck" with me - seems he deserved so much better. I am getting better about all this - learning to come to grips that all I can do is my best. Learning to come to grips that my kidw will probably have flaws that ARE because of me - that I probably can't do anything about at this point. My kids are so great - but I still feel very bad about the mom/me that they "got stuck with". I do better all the time - but not nearly what I wish I could.
Congratulations on the discovery of the core belief. I am beginning to believe that all of us have one, a core belief that is negative about ourselves, about our very existence. You know I have been facing mine all summer. It has been painful but also miraculous. We get to pick now, our beliefs. We get to believe in new things. I am very happy you were born, and that you survived. thanks for sharing your life with us.
I wasn't named until about 10 days after my birth. My mother had wanted a son -"Little David" as she would call me when pulling my hair back to make me look like a boy. She use to say to my dad, when pulling my hair back "this is what little David would have looked like if Martha Jean had been a boy instead of a girl." This was when I was in my teens!!!! It hurt a lot. Then when I got married she told me she would buy shoes for all my boys but never a thing about what she would buy for a girl. I never had a girl so I never found out what she would have done - I know my folks bought lots of shoes for our boys. Love, Marti
I can not imagine the courage it took for you to write this post. I am crying reading it. The deep hurt, always present even in moments of joy.
I thank God for you. I thank God I found your blog. I read you everyday and miss the days you dont write.
Without you the world would definitly have less light. And God knows we need all the light we can get.
As a teenager I always said I didnt want children (actually I never believed a man would want to marry me). I have, on occasion, jokingly told my 3 beautiful gifts that I never wanted children, they are all the result of their Dad. After reading your post, I will never say this again. Ever.
Thank you, Carol
I was really sad reading this and felt so badly for you having to carry around those feelings all of your life.
I agree with you that it's wrong to believe that you should have died.
I have felt a bit like you have that my family would have been better off if I hadn't been born but I've also come to see that, well, frankly, the train wreck that makes my family my family would have carried on with or without me. Pain and trouble would have been there for them. I think it's true for your or anyone else's family. Some things are set in motion long before we arrive. Sometimes the storms centers on the person who did the least harm, like you as a baby and young girl. It's not fair at all and I'm so sorry for all of the pain you've gone through.
By you living and surviving,you are proof that there are miracles out of messes. But there has always been something wonderful about you; there's some spark in you that draws people to you and provokes a reaction. Sometimes it's been good for you and I know at other times, it's been incredibly awful. You are not a lukewarm person at all. Your posts are really amazing, inspirational, sad at times, but always hopeful and optimistic in the end.
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