Malachi 3:16
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Author Archives: Elea Lee
Return of the bad mom
I tell myself to find her, in the old kitchen where she did so many dishes by hand. It had yellowish linoleum, dark wood, and doors which lead out to the front room and dining room. We sit at the ugly white table with the thin plasticky band of gold around its edge.
I run my finger along its long-gone edges as we drink something warm together.
I tell her she is beautiful, she has always been beautiful, even in those years she could not see it. I tell her I admire her courage and willingness to to be the bad mom. I tell her I have learned from her mistakes.
She would tell me something, surely, what is it?
In a house so full of sturm and drang, I want to hear her voice over the din of the little ones
So long gone.
The Parable of the Lost Mother
She sat in a chain restaurant twenty years ago, this time of year, not knowing that she would forget her purse there so close the federal courthouse. Retrieve a purse; retrieve a child. Strange calculus of loss.
The Parable of the lost mother–
Waiting for the baby who does not remember who they once were together
So long ago.
Drowned World
The home movies do not have too much plot, they are more about time
Time spent with beautiful children
Mostly grown up now
We all know how close we were
To the flood
Gold, Frankincense, Myrrh
He asks is something bothering you?
She says I am worrying about three things
Oh, he brightens, only three?
His shoulders rise and fall in what might pass for a shrug but translates as:
I have tons more than that! Never occurs to him
Three things
Could be anything.
Eves
We live our lives between Christmas and Easter
All that matters in between.
Every day I walk through cold water
First there was the shock-shock, which I would describe as a blanket of cotton, a fog, a zoned-out staggering thing. I am not sure how long this stage lasted, but it began to ebb when the nice women at the crisis center gave my five year old and her sisters their crime-victim quilts, hand-made, with such kindness.
The quilts underlined the permanent nature of the gift–beautiful crime victims. Undoable. Irrevocable.
Our story seemed one way for years, then just as things got safer because we knew and could protect them
The truth rolled over us, applying permanent tattoos everywhere.
I did not realize I had a thrill-seeker, risk-taker issue until the months of hunger, tears, and fighting were over…all technically either lost or a draw. Until after I wrote the book. Until after people began to disappear.
By then I had begun to walk through cold water.
Now I know why I do it. I do it because…I do it because
Because when I walk in cold water I can see you there
Through the dust
The crush of angry humans
The agony of your bedraggled well-wishers.
Your own pain indelible on your bloodied face
Dying for me
Deep
In cold water.
Dear Lisa, Anne, Travis*, Dr.,
I read this morning that Sasha Obama may have made a decision about where she is going to college. I am happy for her. Happy she knows. Happy she is happy.
When I found out my daughters had been sexually abused by their adopted brother I was immediately aware of the similarities and differences between my children and Sasha and Malia.
Both sets of sisters are:
Are multiracial
About the same age
Have well-educated parents
They even share the same initials
Years ago I asked myself, “what would the world do if the Obama girls had been the victims of felonies?”
Surely we would mourn and pour out support for them.
I would hope we would, at least.
My daughters were the victims of abuse during the Obama administration. The way they were treated by the criminal justice system was a function of the Bush and Obama administrations, as well as the specific decisions of the elected officials of all three of the branches of the state government of Texas.
My partner and I argue about why they have and are being treated a certain way when they apply to universities in Texas and elsewhere.
He says it is because they do not attend a public school and that is all.
I maintain that while that has been a point of obvious discrimination against one, the other seems to have encountered additional roadblocks because she has written openly about her status as the victim of a crime.
Crimes.
Committed against her all before her eighth birthday.
She had the courage to write about being a sexual assault survivor and is now experiencing what I call bureaucratic limbo.
I rejoice for the Obama girls, but I cannot help but wish my daughters had the same rights they have.
The right to education and the right to be heard.
Due process. I am still waiting for due process.
Sincerely,
E.
*Some names have been changed because I don’t always edit as carefully as I should.
Jennifer the Beautiful
I miss you girl
Miss your sister
Your nieces, nephews, cousins, children
Used to sing
Break-up songs for lullabies
Wish I could write you and me
A happy kind of story instead
No lost loves, no broken promises
Hope changed into
The steady gaze of a man who can build with his own two hands
Homecoming tabernacle
For all us, broken
But I am not a vegetarian!
We have all been in the grips of a winter cold. This morning one of my younger kids slept-talked a single line–but I am not a vegetarian!!!
I don’t know the context, but the sentence itself was lovely in its exposition.
Often our lives are defined by others based on labels. The vegetarian label seems pretty harmless unless he was dream-offered a nut-apple-squash loaf or was inhabiting some sort of carnivore-topia.
In the world we are awake in we navigate through real perils when we reveal who we really are. Revealing we are a certain shade of skin or religion or sexual identification can cause people to see us differently–for good or ill.
Revealing our status as crime victims can do the same. I might not have thought so years ago, before I knew or started telling our family story, but now that I have, I can attest: it does.
Years ago I remember talking to my children’s counselor and she used the term “damaged good.” As in, “you wouldn’t want people to see your kids as damaged goods.”
Terrible to think she was right. We absolutely could have buried the story of what happened to us. We did not, and we are a healthy, happy, fairly isolated group of people now. Telling the story has categorized us as “high-risk” and the syndrome of isolation and silence has been almost categorical.
A small, small, lovely group of people have stuck around, bless them.
I used to believe that sexual assault victims should absolutely tell someone. I still believe that, but I would tell them not to expect much from those you tell.
I would tell them keep talking until you are safe.
I would tell them you are not alone.
Carrying Light 