My first school picture, I was in first grade at Prattville Elementary school. I was loving school and life until I was sent to live with a woman named Mabel. My mom had to go to California and The Alabama Monster agreed to care for me. While living with Mabel my father kidnapped me. 
Fast forward a few years and here I am, another school picture, and this time I am in third grade. This photo was taken in Mississippi, only a few weeks after my mom swooped in and rescued me from my life with my alcoholic father in Arizona. You can see the difference in my demeanor between the two pictures. Pictures do hold our stories. The first picture I am wide eyed and open. The second picture my eyes have narrowed, my lips tight, and I am closed.I am now, going to fold time, taking you from Mississippi where I had just experienced being rescued from a life of abject poverty. In brief to catch you the reader up with my story before slipping through a worm hole - Economic poverty was a fact of life while living with my father as was poverty of love and belonging. My father, in all his wisdom, kidnapped me. My alcoholic dad believed he was rescuing me from my mother who had abandoned me into the care of a woman named Mabel. My beer breathed parent, without permission, flew me in a little plane from Alabama all the way to Texas with a brief lay over in Arkansas to fix the plane. I went from a life of beginning to learn of heart ache into a life that was even more confusing and a lot more colorful and worldly. Eventually, I was salvaged from poverty - a poverty that created voids in my stomach, my heart, and my soul. My mom whom I believed was dead, suddenly came back to life and magically appeared one day in front of our little hole at The Brown Apartments. Mom arrived in a brand new, white, Chevy Impala with her prince charming. Away I went into a new life leaving all my few belongings behind. My new life with my mom and her prince was at first magical then slowly spiraled down into a life void of so much - again. The years spent with my mom post kidnapping are filled with many stories that I will eventually write about but not now. With time folded by slipping through a narrative worm hole, I am typing on my MacBook Pro as I sit at my table in a small rented townhouse in Lubbock Texas. 50 + years have evaporated since living in Mississippi and I am now 60. I am happily married, I have 3 grown children and step parent to two. I am entrenched in my creative expressions and work at a local hospital while celebrating life every day. Lubbock Texas? Yes. The very same Lubbock that was the scene of so many crimes toward my heart - crimes of childhood abuse, abandonment, hunger, molestation, cockroaches, and worse. My conclusion in this moment is this - none of what I experienced as a young child, adolescent, and teen, was ever done with deliberate intent to hurt me or my siblings. Well, there are some times that yes, I know for certain people did things knowing they were wrong and that the outcome for me personally was not that good, but again, those are stories I may or may not share one day.
So, here I am a ripe 60 years of age and feeling blessed. I am filled with gratitude everyday for every thing that ever happened in my life and for every person whom I encountered that pushed me to draw upon my faith. I am filled with gratitude that those who gave me the most emotional pain and grief galvanized my spiritual relationship with my God for if it were not for God, I would have pulled the trigger on the gun. Yes, I had a gun in hand one lost day, a day that I am not proud of. Oh yes, another untold story. How did I go from "there" to "here" without falling into the traps of darkness that would have carried my body to an early grave and my soul into a limbo of confusion? The offering of Unconditional Love by God. Here go the rolling eyes, the deep sighs, the loss of interest. So be it. I was born into a devout Catholic heritage and in spite of all the shenanigans that screamed ungodly behavior, I was taught about God from the first day I was baptized just before being flown away to Panama at 6 weeks of age. I learned that God loved me, that God was watching over me, and that if I needed anything I could pray to all the Saints who had an inside track with God. I learned that his only begotten son, Jesus, died for me and that in doing so he proved his love for us and he carried away all our sins. I learned Jesus and all the saints were always available for a conversation and for intercession on my behalf. Of course when I was a tiny piece of a person I had no real idea what intercession meant but all the saints and Jesus did it for "me". I talked to the intercessors and the intercessors talked to God and He would listen. That word intercession meant a lot to my innocence, it gave me hope. In contrast to the loving God I also learned of a vengeful God that put the fear of eternal damnation into my little mind and I often lived life like a wounded wild bird with my heart pounding so hard my breast bone felt like breaking. I knew God was aware of my errors and would punish me severely. In fact, I spent a lot of time on these knees of mine expressing sorrow for all my sins so that my life would take a turn for the better. Again, I had a lot to learn before I understood what prayer was. I have been a Catholic, a Southern Baptist, a Buddhist, an Atheist, an Agnostic, a Gnostic, a Spiritualist, and a lost soul. I have been born again and then jumped off the precipice of despair when I forgot God's promise. My life preservers have always been my faith, my hope, my love, my gratitude, and my will. Without those life saving parts of my psyche I know I would have fallen even deeper and would not be here typing on my MacBook Pro at this moment in time.
to be continued ~
Peace
(All stories blogged by me are my property and protected under copyright laws. No part may be used or reproduced in anyway without my permission ~ Maryanne Mesplé)
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