This is a draft of a little story about a couple of people who sit at my kitchen table.

Dear Rose:

Today is your birthday, November 20th.  Each year on this day I think about writing you a letter to reassure you that you are doing ok.  Maybe share some wisdom that might help clarify all the mud that you slog through each day.   To tell you to be confident that you are walking the path set before you and laid out from behind you.  Although I have written this letter in my head for many years, it’s only this year that I feel like my words might resonate with you.  

Slogging through mud is a perfect description of how you must feel.   I watch you move a few steps forward and then turn and run right back the other way.  I see you hesitate to let people in and then to let people go.   I see how you struggle to allow people to be there for you – to support you.  I can hear you say  “Why should they?  Be there for me, that is?  I don’t need them or anyone.”  I know that you believe that someone like you, who approaches life with their head down, hair in their face, eyes shifted away, is not worthy of much.  You think that there is nothing pretty about marching through life with the perfect resting bitch face, even while you remain fully in step, holding onto the rhythm of this march for dear life.

I see all this and understand it.  But there is something you should know . . . . it is calculated, all this slogging.  Your attempt to remain as anonymous as possible and to deflect attention away from you is deliberate, although it is done without forethought.   If this seems confusing maybe this story will help.  It is a story of something that happened once a long time ago to a very young child.  See if you recognize her.

Many years ago a young girl became very ill.  She was only 5 years old.  No doctor could figure out why she suddenly couldn’t walk and became weaker with every day.  As any good parent would, her mother and father listened to the doctors and admitted her to a hospital that was in a large city far from their home.  The hope was to determine what the illness was and, of course, cure it.  But this was not so easy.  Doctors struggled to understand her symptoms.  Medications were administered with the hope that they would work.  They did not.  

Although the girl was in a pediatric ward with other children, she felt alone in her curtained bay.  Her parents and grandparents came and went but didn’t stay with her as we might today.  The girl was frightened more and more as the days passed.  

One day she overheard the doctors tell her mother that her immune system would either fight the virus and she would be well or it would not and she would die.  It was at this moment that the girl bowed her head and began to withdraw.  She no longer looked forward to seeing visitors.  She did not want anyone to touch her or try to make her feel better.  Of course, she did whatever the doctors told her to do, took all her medication and allowed them to move her around.  But inside, she remained afraid and alone.

One late afternoon the girl fell asleep waiting for her grandfather to visit.  She had a special bond with this grandparent.  His presence was particularly comforting.  Through her hazy sleep this afternoon, she could hear him reading her favorite fairy tale, Sleeping Beauty.  She loved the soothing and strong sound of her grandfather’s voice.  But when her grandfather reached the part of the story where the princess pricks her finger and falls instantly into a deep sleep, the girl suddenly awoke and began to cry.   Her grandfather stopped reading and moved closer to her, murmuring that everything was okay – it was just a fairy tale.  He took her hand and held it tightly until the girl fell back to sleep.  Even while asleep she felt the warmth of protection and love radiating from his palm to hers.

Later when the girl awoke she asked the nurse where her grandfather had gone.  The nurse said that because of the blizzard reigning over the city, no one would make it to the hospital that day.  She said that the girl had been sleeping most of the afternoon.  She struggled to understand that her grandfather’s visit must have been a dream.  It was so real – his voice, his touch.  Confused and still sleepy, the girl remembered the warm pressure of her grandfather’s hand in hers.  As she became more awake, she looked down and saw that, in fact, she was clasping her own hand – tightly and with a fierce determination not to let go.   

After this, the girl would forever associate the safe feeling of her grandfather holding her hand with protecting herself.  She decided then, whether she knew it or not, that she would rely on no one.  She would remain safe holding her own hand.

Rose, do you see?  Do you understand why you downcast your eyes and try to hide from people, refusing help?  Some might mistake this for shyness or obstinance – but it is neither.  It is your announcement to the world that you are the only protector you will ever need.  No one else need step forward and provide safety – because you are firmly and with strength holding your own hand.

Though this may be a reassurance that you are in fact walking the path set before you and laid out from behind you, remember that there are other hands to hold and they might just one day hold a key you might be searching for.