Dear Readers, Today, I have a segmented prose poem for you. The first version was a personal essay published by Spillwords a few years ago. I hope you’ll enjoy this new version in two parts. Thanks much for reading and subscribing! ~ Mary Ellen
The Lost Ones
Faces changed, the people in place of familiar faces changed to the people who fussed and moved me here and there, appeared again, with a new face, a new voice, who smiled or sang and came to me to care and to care for me. None were the first ones, the ones before. These were feelings, a sense, a grip of fear, a panic of a life before.
When it was time to be told, Dad made the time to make a story. The best time to tell such stories was when a child reaches the age of reason, and not before, or else, I suppose, she might doubt. So it was First Grade at bedtime, and Mom came to my room, too. The story was vague, matter-of-fact, without facts. There was an accident, it seemed. I heard him say that they were dead. (Perhaps he meant, dead to him, so to say, dead to you, since they didn’t care about you. They might have left you by the side of the road, for all we know.)
But all was well at the close of the story. No sympathy, no pity, no one sad though someone died. I might not have been sad or happy. I already knew, knew I was an adopted girl, special, chosen, but I hadn’t heard that someone died. I didn’t speak — he didn’t ask me to — and if you don’t know how or what to ask, you should be busy with your favorite doll. Over. The story was over. And there was no reason no point to talk. No words were needed, but his. No facts to close with, only the impressions, the ones he wanted to make. The impression he wanted to make was they loved me. The story was quick. Time to sleep, they said.
I used my reason to show how sensible I was, to make Dad feel better and help them stop the story since he seemed a little sad from his story. I was aware it was unfair that I was left to wonder what and wonder who. Goodnight!
At the age of reason, the Sister in First Grade said, we know right from wrong. I was aware it was unfair, but it was not my place to ask, not my place to tell the Sister. Only, shouldn’t there have been a hug with the words We loved you and wanted to take care of you so we took you home?
In the days, weeks, and months ahead, I nurtured thoughts of my adoption, the fable of wondering who are the ones. I told the dolls I babied and I told the toys, told the toys, and toyed with my thoughts. I believed no one knew, but no one helped me guess. No one helped me decide. So I learned to ruminate -- not mediate, or meditate, although it was like a meditation — my focus was deep. In the mirror was a nice girl, a good girl, and I looked for signs of a girl I didn’t know but wondered about.
There were no other children to tell at home, so no one else would know except for a few on the playground. And no one else should be told after I told them. My Mom added a version, but not about the accident. There was a car, a car. She never mentioned others, that no one died, and that no one was lost. Her fable was of the day she and Dad brought me to their tiny apartment in Sumter. There was no cast of characters in her play. Dad was on military duty away for most of my childhood.
They grew — from age ten, vague notions of phantom kin took shape, grew in my subconscious, and took charge. As soon as I closed my eyes they screamed, Run faster, faster faster, run. Terrified, I ran to my father’s lap, and he sent me back to bed. “Don’t be a baby!”
I think she might appear in Sears, and I’ll recognize her, see her thick brown hair like mine, flipped up at the ends, her eyes are brown like mine, the same age as me, thirteen. I don’t know her name. She’ll see me at the candy counter, by the roasted peanuts, the chocolates, jelly beans, the popcorn machine, near the appliances. My mother and father are here…don’t give up the secret! She might come down the escalator. I feel sure it will happen, but she slips away. Fades into the crowd. Not this time.
When I am a teenager, sixteen, the phantoms are my lost ones. And now, like flying female warriors, like Valkyries, they are fearsome, awesome saviors who shock me but are there to protect me. I suppress a shout, I hear but can’t see you! Who are you? Over and again in a mist, a fog, a haze, the ghostly, ghastly, brave sisters, sister-kin, were there to save me from my pain — my panic.
Let’s say they were ghosts who once were but now were gone. A family, a mother, sisters, brothers. Maybe they never were. Maybe my parents lied. I had no means or method, no language, to talk about them. Better not to raise the questions. The feelings. Not to be mentioned, kept submerged, just below the surface, underwater, not out of danger the present danger the danger is present, and I may be pulled down and drowned.
Their expectations were high. Hard. Something like stopping, becoming, breaking my origins, reaching my potential, or the potential my parents need me to reach for love or ego. Their mirror image was not of me. Not mine. Not mine, these dressy dresses. Their fear, apprehension, worry, doubt, and suspicions were not the same as mine but were similar problems born of adoption.
Life before was meant to be erased, wasn’t meant to matter. No signs of life before? Nothing before? I didn’t understand that they wanted to erase any shreds and destroy any trace so there would be nothing before. Erase what they saw of her, my first mother, by accenting me, in their myriad, perfect photos so they could assure themselves I was nothing like her. (They had never seen her image, never her likeness — the mother who disappeared.)
They did love and tried to love the child the child who should have been should have been me as their own the one they couldn’t have. But they couldn’t have me. He said as much — I was the perfect imperfect replacement child. So, they kept up the fable, expected perfection, and needed my gratitude, reward for my protection, and appreciation for their home. their food, their clothing. The beautiful life I would not have otherwise had.
Nothing made sense until I reckoned the charade must stop. I’d had enough. My first mother would be wondering where I was, I told myself, comforted myself. I wanted to believe my first mother was like me. She would question, would embark on a quest for me as I would do for her. Whatever it would take: the struggle to find her, my free forgiveness, my pity, if needed. We were severed only by circumstance not by heart. Were she in ill health, she would want me near her, I reasoned. I needed to act. Would it be too late to find her?
I ventured down the trail from our Pennsylvania home to my birth state, South Carolina. I was led, shown the path, and sent on my way, given a roadmap and a firm, but gentle push. Why should I seek the woman who gave me life? To find out why she abandoned me forty years earlier. To find out who I am.
You have no reason to apologize....I should say that your words move me in a profound way. TY
Yes, I understand that. It takes much strength and commitment and I value all your effort and beautiful words, though they often make me sad. TY