A different kind of family and a different kind of result?

This week I find myself reminiscing.
A special child in my life is going off to college. Jenny.
I was practically still a kid myself when she was born. So it isn’t that I feel old or anything.
But it makes me think a lot about what was going on in my life when this child was born.
*sigh*…. Child…. She isn’t a child anymore. She’s a beautiful young woman, who loves to help others, she’s tall and pretty and intelligent, everything I knew she would be and even more. No longer is she the little girl who sent me mail with my name spelled wrong, who I sent science and art books. She isn’t the little girl that we played house with. She’s the intelligent young woman that we have discussions with about politics and the world, who invites us out to dinner…. Who graduates near the top of her class. She is so healthy, well-rounded, thoughtful.
When she was born, she came at just the right time for me. It was always, to me, like she was meant to be mine.
I was in junior high. I had spent the 1st year of junior high not speaking at all at school, because in 6th grade a friend told me I talked too much. I was afraid to be heard again. That set me up as an easy target for bullies. The 2nd year of junior high I was molested by a boy who knew I would not say anything. After that The Bully took over in my mind, and I remember very little from that year as myself. I had the Bully to protect me, and he was always very loud and angry and came out fighting
But then along came this little baby in my life, who looked like me because we were cousins. She had parents who obviously loved her. She became my passion. I spent the next several years helping teach her, baby sit her, and being friends with her. Having her in my life at that point was the best thing that could have happened. When I was going through a tough struggle with anorexia in high school, my teachers and family used her as leverage. “Jenny needs you. You have to eat for HER. You have to be a good example for HER. What’s she going to do without her?” Just like people do now, using my niece Sammy as leverage. Having Jenny in my life back then probably saved my life, just like having Sammy in my life now has probably saved my life on more than one occasion.
I miss that little girl that Jenny used to be. I love the amazing woman she has become. Watching her grow up has been hard at times. She looks like me. But her parents are so different than mine. Jenny is celebrated in her family. Her parents take photos of her all the time. They display her trophies she wins. They go to her sporting events. They say good things about her to other people. They say good things about her TO her. They brag about her. She isn’t expected to keep quiet, keep her head down, be invisible. She goes to her parents to talk about things that are going on in her life. She even gets hugs and kisses from them, even as a young adult. I can not even imagine this kind of life. I cannot even imagine how wonderful this must make her feel. I can’t imagine what it must to do a child to know inside that they are loved by their parents, to have attention from them, to feel wanted. Her smile in family pictures, I can tell, is real.
Sometimes I wonder, what if I’d been born in a different family? One where I felt wanted? One where I felt needed? Where I felt important?
But then I think, I probably would have ruined that family too… I would have made those parents not want me too, because that’s just the kind of kid I was, I was just one of those bad kids who made good people turn into bad.. I feel like God could have given me the best parents in the world, and I was so bad I would have ruined them too.
Going to get going now… this has gotten too hard to write.

Posted by pilgrim | Filed under:

1. Posted by Cody on August 27, 2005

2. Posted by Judy on September 26, 2005