Betrayal
Act I Sweet sixteen and never been kissed ... except by the agony of that first betrayal. Golden haired innocent dancing in the sun - laughing, playing, living unaware of the betrayal within until that first moment when the pain began - back, feet, knees EVERYWHERE! Doctors, bloodtests, whispered conversations heard through numb ears - "She's too young - she can't have THAT!? It's for old people!" The first specialist - smiling, jovial, indifferent? "Give her sixteen aspirin a day, that should take care of it. NEXT?!?" sixteen for sixteen? But the torture grew worse and I hobbled around like a bent old woman enduring the stares and pity of my classmates and friends, betrayed by my once strong body, wondering if this was now my life. Is this ALL there is? Is this the best I can hope for? Because if so, there is an abatement with my name on it... Until one day my mother said, "NO MORE!" and took me to another doctor. This one did not smile. "This has been going on for a year like this?" "Well he told us to give her sixteen aspirin a day ..." my mother replied, anguished. "I knew it wasn't right ..." I'm seventeen now - should I take one more? Enraged, cold, businesslike - he admitted me to the hospital on the day we met - "Intensive physical therapy, begin the gold shots AT ONCE! No more time to waste!" Aged before my time I limped through my days with burning joints and such intense suffering that I began to plan for the end of my days ... Until that stern unsmiling white-coated knight rode into my life. Act II Double my life in years - happily married the pain has eased and I am almost whole, living a dream beyond my imagining. Except for children - how I ached to have children. Golden haired innocents dancing in the sun - laughing, playing, living. Once again, unaware of the betrayal within. And so a visit to another doctor with kind eyes and a gentle smile - morning temperature rituals, carefully planned love. But after a year nothing - my arms were still empty. More tests, counts, surgery, drugs - and finally those three words You are pregnant! He seemed as excited as we did. Planning, naming, dreaming laughing, feeling, wondering - cramping, bleeding death. His tears matched our own. Act III For so many years I felt that my body betrayed me and I hated it and the darkness and failure it represented. And then one day for no particular reason - maybe age? I became aware of a light within me - a light that burned a light that embraced me in spite of arthritis in spite of infertility in spite of loss a light that warmed me from the inside out and gave me hope. And this body which I had so long hated began to speak to me of pain and loss and love and light - and for some reason now I am able to hear it. |