I remember the moment when I first knew how alone I truly was. It takes a lot of courage for a child of six, in my particular circumstance, to ask for help. Looking back, I realize my anxiety in the moment probably stemmed from knowing my plea would fall on deaf ears. It had taken me some time to decide who I could possibly turn to. My own mother was out of the question and my options were so few. I decided on my grandmother, my mother’s mother.
Though the property has shrunken significantly, being sold off for timber, my mother’s family all pretty much still resides together on the same land. Sometimes I imagine the land itself is haunted or ‘bad’ and that is what causes things ‘these things’ to happen. Intellectually, of course, I know that is ridiculous. It is merely human nature at work – passed down through generations until that tiny little piece of land seems like the whole world.
People love to declare that “Life is what you make of it!” How does one raised in seclusion from the existence of possibility come to know that? Are children born into homelessness ultimately the product of their own design? I can hear the same people grumbling and saying that the phrase is only meant to be taken in the abstract, as to a person’s perspective for example. Assuming the latter is the truth, how do we circumvent the fervent teachings of our parents and authority figures? Why should any child presume there is any other life beyond that threshold they’ve never been allowed to cross? Where would any such child ever get the courage to take that step if the opportunity ever arose?
These are some of the many questions that have tormented me over the years since that conversation with grandmother. It couldn’t have been a more idealistic day, bright and sunny, in rural Missouri. She and I were out for a walk down a rural country lane (our several-mile-long driveway). The family home is located out in the woods about 10 miles from the nearest town, population approximately 800. It is beautiful country, right in the middle of the Ozark Mountains.
Maybe it is just the lingering fear getting to me, but when I look back, I swear I felt cold that day. I can still hear the sound of our foot prints on the hardpan and taste the bile in my throat. I was scared, but not as scared as I would be a few minutes later when she spoke to me. My heart was pounding in my chest and I knew I was close to tears. But, I would not let myself cry or chicken out like a baby. In the infinite, innocent wisdom of a child, I knew I was in a bad situation that could only be helped by an adult. Adults help kids, right? Of course, I already knew that was not always true and was, in fact, the reason I was stumbling along trying so hard to screw up my courage.
I could not bring myself to face her as I finally told my secret, one of my many secrets even then. Revisiting the scene and her calm repose as I nearly choked on my words, I know that she had already known. “He does things to me, bad things.”
What exactly is the correct response in such a situation? My grandmother (my uncle’s mother) said to me “Well, he’s going through a tough time right now with his divorce and all. You really should be more considerate of his feelings, instead of running around tattling for something so unimportant.”
Later in life, I would come to associate the feeling with being punched hard in the stomach. I have never been able to pin my trust on another person since. What is the point? It is always the ones who claim to love you most that have the capacity to hurt you the most.

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Tag der Veröffentlichung: 23.12.2009

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