To varying degrees, most of us have experienced childhood trauma. In small towns, many people know, assume, or wonder, but don’t want to become involved in a messy domestic situation, so they turn their heads.
Here enters Bisi Adanna, decades later, screaming into the void. Has anyone seen her? Can anyone hear? She’s still trying to heal from festering mental blisters while tending to new wounds…
There are at least two sides to every story and then there’s the truth. Here’s hers because together, healing happens.
If walls could talk… Wow. This is as disturbing and unsettling for the reader as it is for the author. So much goes on behind closed doors that no one ever mentions. Many bad decisions have far reaching effects. I’m still not sure where this will skid to a halt, but I’m here for the ride. #ButWeAreHealing
I remember exactly why I quit school on my very first day. How Mrs. Bolden whipped with the flag pole and Mrs. O. Piper smiled. I even recall the smell of the mats upon which we napped. Miss Self wore long skirts and a high bun practically everyday. The next year there was Mrs. Miller, with a swelling tummy, who had us sit on colored tape on brown carpet while she carved a pumpkin for Halloween. I remember Monica’s baby blue shoes and Tracy’s bright blue eyes. The same eyes that I’d recognize across a counter nearly thirty years later. I remember watching a sun beam bathe the grass during PE while being passed over multiple times playing Duck-Duck-Goose.
I remember every grade school teacher and how they affected me. I remember Mrs. Bremmer blushing and paling in quick succession as I stared into her face waiting for her response to my question: “Where do babies come from?” I remember Mama checking me out of school the same year bc Michael Jackson, with his silver spats and white limo, was performing at GWC gymnasium.
I remember sliding down that silver slide at Carver that would both blind and burn you. Audra pushed me off the “rainbow” two years later. We competed viciously at being the worst student. Then she was gone. There was Jaime, with the broken arm. She let me sign her cast and I knew we’d be best friends. Before long, she was gone too.
I remember Mrs B. Johnson who everyone loved. She hated me; but Mrs Cryer showed me compassion. She played the guitar and inspired my love of country music.
I remember developing a love for weight lifting and a hate for running/walking Big Bertha and the horror of striking Mrs. Levy accidentally by tossing the bat during a softball game.
I remember my eight grade pre-algebra teacher with the leisure curl who couldn’t teach me. Then, the following year Mrs Savage showed me that Algebra was a breeze inspiring my love for math; and I absolutely LOVED it. I excelled from that year until this one. (I graduated from Delta Tech without having to take a single math class outside of the accounting classes.) I remember the mixed emotions of leaving those tumultuous years and entering DeRidder High. Built like a castle, it was the home of the Dragons. I remember going to every single home game and cheering for my step brother. I remember the fresh cut grass and the sun setting on the field. The heat would fade and a coolness would settle in it’s place. If I listen closely, I can almost hear the line tapping against the flag pole, echoing. I remember the pro football player teaching me and my friend Monica how to throw a football. I never forgot the lesson I learned by getting kicked off of the soft ball team at the scrimmage.
Most importantly, I remember the day I walked out of my eleventh grade chemistry class. The teacher was a Frenchman with a passion for his job. He made chemistry relevant with off color stories and in your face details about exactly what would happen to you if you went to lunch without washing your hands. I remember the call over the intercom and looking at the people I’ve known nearly all my life and saying goodbye.
My first gig of the partially cloudy morning sent me headed onto a plantation in southeastern Texas. The angst I felt was not eased by the fact that this place was no longer a literal plantation because the placard proudly announced that it had been established in the early 1920s. I sighed as I voluntarily drove through the gates and gazed at the tree-topped mounds that lined the streets.
Was it here, on this winding road that a young woman fled from her abusive mistress? Was it there, in that grassy area, that crimson life splashed around the whipping post. Perhaps just over that ridge stood the shacks where mothers nursed other babies after their own had been ruthlessly ripped away. And where is that holy plot where families plead with heaven to escape brutal beating and inhumane atrocities? Would He hear?
A couple of quick turns pulled me from the gruesome train of thought and found me pulling little car in between two azalea bushes. A call ahead had flushed my white haired octogenarian recipient from her nest. Without word of greeting, she’s spat a complaint of how her order was wrong from start to finish. Her eyes swept over me disapprovingly and then jeered up again. Flushing, her eyes reveal the love she has for the burgundy of my dress with its magnificent floral design, but still hated the color of my skin.
I giggled nervously and made a feminine about-face. Long strides with my cinnamon-hued legs, carried me down the winding path leading through the crowded Gardens littered with forget-me-nots and onto the pristine sidewalk.
I laughed quietly to myself.
I laughed at my ignorance in thinking that polite society would somehow bar the ill-bred. Amused, I engaged the engine knowing that I would never be her –never walk in ignorance, angry and bitter due to a situation that I can never grasp.
As I walked behind my daughter’s casket today, I witnessed the most disturbing sight beneath those bleak overcast skies. The asthmatic man who confessed his love for her, had to carry her to her grave.
In my youth, I believed that love could conquer all; however as he trudged alongside the sleek silver box, the futility of a wasted life swelled before me. I wonder how often he lay awake carefully planning the future that he thought stretched before them. I remember analyzing his behaviour and dejected expression the first time I met him. He had the look of a kid who’s lost everything — every arrow head, marble, and Indian head nickel that he’d managed to collect since kindergarten. My heart broke again. Only this time, it was for his.
How often do we invest ourselves in those who make light of our sincerity! We pour out our hearts upon and pour our spirit into people only to have them highly esteem someone or something that is completely outside of what we humbly offer.
We shun the pallbearer for the one who can hardly bear to return a text and doesn’t even bother to show up to the funeral.
Within her trembled a heart eager to be both seen and felt, and desperate to be stabilized.
Verbalizing a goal of keeping her feet firmly planted with her direction as sure as the North Star, she ignored the fact that her heart remained her most insubordinate organ. Constantly defying anything pertaining to its earthly realm, it throbbed with fervent intensity, soaring past the clouds to waltz between the stars leaving a trail of stardust in every galaxy crossed. In a matter of moments, the unsuspecting gentleman found her drawing him into her dance. Hopelessly entranced, he stepped out into the rainstorm. Cool tiny pellets pricked his skin puncturing the shell he’d created for himself. Bid by an inaudible tempo, his limbs swayed as his feet began the primal dance. He imbibed an elixir concocted of her youth, beauty, and all things inexplicable to mortals.
Forever ingrained in their memories, this fire initiated against all odds in a typhoon would burn across generations. #ChurchLadySwag #Amazon #yalit #kindle
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Rain fell in relentless, unforgiving sheets. The ensuing chill etched the sum of her loss upon her sullen face. She shouldn’t have come. The steady hum of her regrets had just started to fade when in a moment of misconception, she mistook his words for truth, praying that the tension in his voice demonstrated sincerity.
Never had she been so wrong. For the rest of her life, she’d pay for her error.
Musings by Muñeca 