TW (Trigger Warning)

The night after surgery was a rough. I was in a lot of pain but of course the morning came. I was still in a lot of pain but able to get up, eat, and Lavender had opened the windows so it was bright and cheery. I was feeling better. The miracle of science and the human body… I mean less than 24 hours earlier I was cut open and an organ was removed and here I was feeling better.

Then I got a delivery, an Edible Arrangement and a get well soon balloon. The card was signed “Mom ‘C’.” It took me awhile to figure out that it was from my step-mom. At first I was like whatever and ate a piece of the fruit.

In the last 17 years I have had less than ten phone conversations with my step-mom and my father. When people ask why I don’t talk to my father I say something like “I got pregnant at seventeen and kicked out of my house.” That usually is enough information to get people to move on to the next subject. It’s not a lie just not the truth to that question.

See the truth is 17 years ago my father and his family were living overseas. He had flown to the states on business and decided to stop by and visit me. We were catching up in his hotel. I was telling him all about his granddaughter. He was filling me in on my brothers and sisters. Fast forward thirty minutes to him on top of me, I said, “Please don’t do this daddy.” Up until that point, even with all that went wrong between us in the past and the fact that I was 20, I still considered myself a daddy’s girl. But when the pain became too much in my soul and body as he forced himself onto me, I willingly took him in my mouth.

When I talked to my step mom on the phone in the coming weeks she first told me that she heard I had gotten fat and then informed me that she knew what happened. My father had told her that stuff had gotten out of hand. She said something about how bad he felt and that I should call him. I hung up the phone, shocked.  And so began 17 years of minimal contact.

The day that I got the delivery from my step-mom, I drifted in and out of medicated consciousness. The pain grew worse. My thoughts were getting uglier. My dreams were haunted and I felt like I couldn’t move. I felt miserable. By night time I had a slight fever and started dry heaving and then throwing up. Seventeen years later and I still could taste him in my mouth. Recovery from surgery didn’t go as planned.

I want to wrap this up with a nice neat little bow and talk about surviving and managing and things getting better but it might always be a mess. I might have to live with triggers and the pain of that night forever. I might always feel like white trash. I might always mourn the loss of that family. I might always replay the details in my head. I might always have dark and twisted thoughts. I might always be afraid of him. It might not ever get easier.

I keep getting up and I keep going on.

The "Get Well" balloon fixed up with a pair scissors, canvas, and oil paint.