For most of my life, I have not felt loved. Worse, I have not felt love-able. My parents were neither affectionate nor effusive. They never said “I love you.” They never hugged us or kissed us. They didn’t tuck us into bed at night or say “I’m proud of you” if we did anything noteworthy. By the time I was seven, my mother cut off any physical contact with my father, like kisses goodnight or sitting on his lap, because she had seen too many instances of incest in the Honduran community and she wanted to remove any “temptation.” My mom was also of the opinion that a child would be “spoiled” if showered with attention; my dad left all the child-rearing decisions – insofar as it related to us girls – to my mother.
On one hand, it was good that my mother ruled with an iron fist, because my sisters and I avoided the pitfalls that surrounded us in the projects where we lived. All around us, the girls were dropping out of school and getting pregnant. And while we probably would’ve have sought out the attentions of young men to fill the void of love we felt at home, my mother timed our commute to and from school, was on good terms with a welfare mother on our floor (who watched everything we did and if anyone entered the apartment while my mother wasn’t there) and had a voice-activated recorder on the phone in her locked room that taped all conversations on our telephone line. Simply put, we had no opportunity to become sluts.
Growing up that way comes at a price. For many years, I harbored a deep-rooted belief that no one loved me and was convinced that no one could love me. I felt unworthy and ugly. I mean, if no one in my early life had – and who better to love you than your mother, your father, your family – then why would anyone in my later life? As a result, I always felt that any man I was with had an ulterior motive for wanting to be with me. The first time that I have felt true love – given and received – was when I had Brendan.
In recent months, I began feeling a sense of stagnation. Life was not bad, but not great. The fact is that I feel a yearning, a longing for something, but the something is fuzzy, not clear. I feel like there is more to be done, but I’m coming up against an unbreachable wall that will not allow me to do it – whatever “it” is. I knew that there was something I was meant to learn, something I was meant to understand once and for all. Whenever I get into these depressive moods, I try to pray or meditate them away. And so it was that I bumped into Michael Bernard Beckwith’s “Life Visioning Program” on CD. I won’t describe the whole program here, but it entails asking the “right” questions for personal growth. He recommends not asking “why” questions (those are my personal favorites: Why me? Why now? Why? Why?), but “what” and “how” questions. What must I become in order to manifest my vision? How must I grow? What must I change about me? What is it that I need to let go of? Once you ask the question, you should mediate on them and let the Universe, your subconscious, God, or whatever you want to label it, will give you the answers.
I asked the questions and … nothing happened. (Did you expect the skies to part and God to give me the answer??) I was truly frustrated. I copied the discs onto my I-pod and sent the originals to my sister, thinking that perhaps, she’d get better use out of the program. Maybe I had done it wrong.
That night, as I tucked Brendan into bed, I kissed his forehead and said, “que sueñes con los angelitos, Hijo” -- “Dream with the little angels, my son.” And I stopped. That was odd. I never say that phrase to Brendan. I almost always say “goodnight, Baby. I love you.” But I remembered the phrase well – when my mother wasn’t working nights, she would be in the living room watching her telenovelas, my siblings and I would line up at the living room door to say goodnight. As we kissed her cheek, she would say to each of us, “que sueñes con los angelitos negros” – “dream with the little brown angels.” Odd, indeed, that I would say that phrase.
On one hand, it was good that my mother ruled with an iron fist, because my sisters and I avoided the pitfalls that surrounded us in the projects where we lived. All around us, the girls were dropping out of school and getting pregnant. And while we probably would’ve have sought out the attentions of young men to fill the void of love we felt at home, my mother timed our commute to and from school, was on good terms with a welfare mother on our floor (who watched everything we did and if anyone entered the apartment while my mother wasn’t there) and had a voice-activated recorder on the phone in her locked room that taped all conversations on our telephone line. Simply put, we had no opportunity to become sluts.
Growing up that way comes at a price. For many years, I harbored a deep-rooted belief that no one loved me and was convinced that no one could love me. I felt unworthy and ugly. I mean, if no one in my early life had – and who better to love you than your mother, your father, your family – then why would anyone in my later life? As a result, I always felt that any man I was with had an ulterior motive for wanting to be with me. The first time that I have felt true love – given and received – was when I had Brendan.
In recent months, I began feeling a sense of stagnation. Life was not bad, but not great. The fact is that I feel a yearning, a longing for something, but the something is fuzzy, not clear. I feel like there is more to be done, but I’m coming up against an unbreachable wall that will not allow me to do it – whatever “it” is. I knew that there was something I was meant to learn, something I was meant to understand once and for all. Whenever I get into these depressive moods, I try to pray or meditate them away. And so it was that I bumped into Michael Bernard Beckwith’s “Life Visioning Program” on CD. I won’t describe the whole program here, but it entails asking the “right” questions for personal growth. He recommends not asking “why” questions (those are my personal favorites: Why me? Why now? Why? Why?), but “what” and “how” questions. What must I become in order to manifest my vision? How must I grow? What must I change about me? What is it that I need to let go of? Once you ask the question, you should mediate on them and let the Universe, your subconscious, God, or whatever you want to label it, will give you the answers.
I asked the questions and … nothing happened. (Did you expect the skies to part and God to give me the answer??) I was truly frustrated. I copied the discs onto my I-pod and sent the originals to my sister, thinking that perhaps, she’d get better use out of the program. Maybe I had done it wrong.
That night, as I tucked Brendan into bed, I kissed his forehead and said, “que sueñes con los angelitos, Hijo” -- “Dream with the little angels, my son.” And I stopped. That was odd. I never say that phrase to Brendan. I almost always say “goodnight, Baby. I love you.” But I remembered the phrase well – when my mother wasn’t working nights, she would be in the living room watching her telenovelas, my siblings and I would line up at the living room door to say goodnight. As we kissed her cheek, she would say to each of us, “que sueñes con los angelitos negros” – “dream with the little brown angels.” Odd, indeed, that I would say that phrase.
A few days later, I was going to a seminar when the answers struck me. Seemingly out of the blue. Memories came flooding into my brain. There was my older cousin, Adora, caring for me when my parents came to the States. She was carrying me on her hip, so the hot sand would not hurt my bare feet in Honduras. My head lay sleepily on her shoulder as she carried me. She was smiling and planting feather-light kisses on my forehead as she walked. There was my oldest sister, Elsa, playing "school" with me in our bedroom in the projects. She was teaching me English words. There I was, feverish and coughing, during a bad winter soon after we’d moved to the South Bronx; and there Elsa was again, rubbing Vicks into my bony chest to ease the cough, then leaning me against her and covering me up with sheets. Elsa yet again, at the book fair at our school; my mother hadn’t given us enough money to each buy a book, but Elsa had found me and was handing over her few coins so that I, at least, would get something I wanted. I saw me at around 8 years old waking in the middle of night with a nightmare and having Elsa, who was only 5 years older than me, rub my brow until I fell asleep again. Now, it was my brother, Arles, holding me in his arms, shielding me from our mother; she was trying to get at me because I had not ironed my uniform jumper properly and we were going to be late for school. She was screaming and frustrated; she pounded furiously on Arles’s back and arms, but he would not let her get to me. Even my mother made some positive appearances; she had taken time off from her day job to take me to the dermatologist – in times of stress I get severe bouts of seborrheic dermatitis. My mom again, getting up early to braid our hair before school, even though she’d worked at her night job and must have been tired. And last, my dad, making the car “dance” to music by stepping on and releasing the brakes, so my siblings and I could laugh; taking us to the movies to see the Mexican actor “Cantinflas” in his latest comedic escapades while my mother worked; and driving two hours to the beaches of Long Island each Sunday during the summer so we could see something other than projects and crackheads.
Then the inner knowing came: I had been loved all along. Perhaps I hadn’t known it, but I had been loved. Then the same inner voice implored me to look at my life in recent years. How my mother and my sisters had driven to Buffalo to help me move from one apartment to another. How, after I had carbon monoxide poisoning and was afraid to sleep, Elsa -- who was the working mother of two young boys at the time -- stayed up the whole night watching me to make sure that I would wake up. The voice said to see my mother in her perpetual penance: cooking my favorite meals, calling to see how I am doing all the time, saying “I love you” to my son. To notice how my husband has lived up to his vows of in sickness and in health, for better or for worse, for richer or poorer. And all my friends who care for me for no reason other than they care about me. And I felt a sense of peace. A sense of belonging unlike anything I had felt before. And I knew – I know – that everything will be okay. That I will do whatever it is that I am meant to do.
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