I’ve spent most of my life focused on a certain flower that passed long ago. I believed it was the only one, never to be replaced. I’ve grieved. I’ve lamented over losing that beautiful flower. Each year, I’ve gone to the place where the flower bloomed in its glory and cried. I’ve memorialized its passing in writing and photographs. At times, I didn’t notice all that was around me, catching only a glimpse of the wider world in my grief.
In my pain, I’ve gone to mental health therapy week after week, year after year, determined to get to the bottom of the flower’s loss. I worked with therapists for decades. A few were special guides on this long journey.
The lost flower is a metaphor for my grief over sexual assault by adults starting as a very young child. A child only knows what was done to them. A child doesn’t know what they’ve lost. “It was me. It was my fault. If I’d been different, it wouldn’t have happened.” Each of these statements were worked through in an effort to get resolution of what happened and how it impacted me. Each little strand was pursued in the search for my truth, my childlike understanding, and my adult understanding. It is an epic journey comparable to climbing the highest mountain or circumnavigating the largest sea. When I climb my high mountains, there’s no fanfare or public recognition. It’s all personal. Those closest to me who have touched my life know of the journey.
I learned this week via a chain of obscure facts that other children in my extended family, my cousins, were also sexually abused by evil men. Boys and girls were hurt this way. Not just girls but boys too. It wasn’t just being female that makes children vulnerable. It wasn’t because I wouldn’t give in, refused to cry, or had a vagina. It was because these men were sick criminals. Why they were this way is not my problem.
For nearly 60 years, I’ve hated my woman-ness thinking it was the reason for my being targeted. Now I realize I was assaulted because I was there, vulnerable to men willing to harm merely to assert their power over someone unable to fight back. Perhaps I don’t need to hate my femaleness quite so much anymore. It’s a long process. The grief can morph into anger, resolve, and finally, confidence.
Like others during this dark year of the pandemic, I’ve been introspective, pondering the ever present questions of “What is my life? Who I am? Where am I going?” There’s been an increase in richness that isn’t pandemic related. I’m getting older and am in my last third of life. Many I’ve known have not been so lucky. I mourn them. I celebrate that I am here and carry on the love they’ve shown me.
I know now the flower was never lost as I stand here remembering its fine color and beauty. As I look up and around me, I see I am in a garden of flowers with a riotous display of colors, shapes, and fragrances. It’s true that an individual flower was lost. While I was looking down, I didn’t see that the rest of the garden was robust. I’m able to see it now.
The garden that is my life is temporary. The impermanent beauty is its essence. I look at the splendor of nature and those I love. No flower lasts forever. The magic is in knowing that it’s here now, celebrating it, and knowing there will be others. I will end. Those I know and love will end. But something will continue to grow strong, facing the sun, and listening to the night. I’m honored I was ever here at all.
As for my younger self grieving for that lost flower all these years, thank you for your focus, determination, and for carrying on even when it appeared all was lost. It was only through your diligence that I get to look up and see the whole picture. Even a glimpse was worth the ride. May we all be blessed to see the garden as we mourn the loss of a flower. It isn’t perfect but it’s rich.
Joceile
4.16.21
[Picture of a magenta peony.]
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