The Hamster and the Kitten

When I was really little, like just walking, I remember stepping on a kitten's neck.  I didn't know any better.  Dad took the kitten away

and found it a safer home.  Which is exactly what he should have done.

Later on, there was a hamster.  I found him hanging from his tail off the top of his cage one morning.  "The hamster committed suicide," my mother said and laughed.

I thought that I had a duckling also.  But it turned out to be one of those fake memory things, a confabulation I think rather than a traumatic thing.  Part of it was accurate though.  I "remember" releasing the duckling (that never was) in a pond.  Dad and I used to go to that pond to feed the ducks-- just not any duckling that I ever had which I didn't.

sapphoq on life

Dear Glen

Dear Glen,

     We dated once upon a time and then you went off to war.  I told you that I would write to you.  I didn't.  When you came back, you asked why I hadn't written to you.  I lied.  I told you that I had written.  I lied even more and claimed that I had sent you cookies.

     I am sorry.  I cannot fix what I had done.  Please forgive me if you are able to.  If not, I understand.

     We don't know each other anymore.  I can't promise that I won't do that to you again.  I will endeavor not to do anything like that again to anyone.

sapphoq on life



Rain

When it rained outside and we were walking, Dad would say to me, "Don't step in the poodles."

I told Dad that today and he smiled.

sapphoq on life



Taking More Fun out of DysFUNctional

Recently, a couple of elderly relatives have started talking about the abuse that they had grown up with.  I had suspected it on and off through the years.  But truthfully, I was unprepared for the depth of the abuse they said they had experienced at the hands of their father.  My denial cushioned me against facing the spectre of abuse that runs rampant through my family.  I wasn't ready for the denial to flee quite yet.  It is an odd thing really.  This denial.  It is both life-saving and damning at the same time.

Until recently, it used to be thought that one had to go through several years of therapy in order to face the abuse (as I did).  And until recently, I thought that once someone reached their sixth or seventh or eighth decade any direct talk of abuse was not to be.  I was mistaken on both counts.  And the thing that triggered these revelationary talks?  Some guy on television a couple of decades ago talking about adult children of alcoholics.  I remain astonished.  Not grateful.  I cannot be grateful for the pain of others.  But astonished nonetheless.

If you are waiting for a punchline, a moral, or a "what I learned from this," I will offer none of these things.  Instead I will sign off now til next time.

sapphoq on life