Slave to Secrets

Prologue/ or chapter 1 Where to begin … It’s September 12th, a Wednesday, yesterday being September 11th, the one year anniversary of my cousin, Marc’s, passing. Marc was diagnosed with a cancer known as melanoma. Skin cancer seems so benign when said, a bad mole, a little skin tag that won’t heal, something for tanning bed abusers and sun worshippers though neither were something Marc did. Yet this unassuming cancer causes almost fifty thousand deaths a year in the United States alone. I had to watch helplessly as my vital, young, strong cousin went through eighteen months of hell, three times the cancer went into his brain each time fighting back until the last time, when it took his life. I grew up with him, my cousin Marc; we went through high school together in the same class graduating with each other plus another cousin of ours. We actually didn’t know one another growing up, which for my family says a lot. I came home complaining about him and it was then I was told he was my cousin. From that point on, he treated me like family. I was always fond of Marc. It was nice to call him “cuz” and feel part of a something known as family. My own family; father, mother and a brother who was two years older than me; had more than its share of dysfunction but it was unbridled in every aspect of my extended family as well. My father’s side of the family lived in the area but he and his siblings were always at odds, feuds and grudges were their only understanding of how to communicate that they used with one another. So when Marc and I got to know each other well in high school, there was pride in being able to tell people we were related and getting the feeling of being “part of a family” that I rarely got to feel. Marc and I had lost touch after high school, as it typically happens when adult lives take over, mine going one direction and his another. In 2010, we reconnected through an internet social media site only to find out he was battling cancer. I immediately offered any help and support I could give. It was like something outside myself propelled me to reconnect with Marc during this time. I came to his side to be of help and comfort to him and it turned out it was he who helped and comforted me instead. That horrible diagnosis of cancer gave me something so precious, the gift of unconditional love from a family member. Something I never had or thought I would ever know. I visited him throughout his illness, we had deep conversations and spoke of so many things. He had this tremendous capacity to listen without judgment, to love without stipulations and to just simply care. He accepted me; he didn’t care about anything that had gone on in my life. He knew me for me and loved me all the more for that. It was some of the most precious moments in my life to date experiencing this connection with another human being. Marc helped me deal with the humiliation of finding out about my husband’s affair and the utter devastation that followed. A week before he died, he said “Come, crawl up on the bed with me.” He was so frail, trying to make room for me in bed. I just laid my head on his pillow next to him and he wrapped his arms about me. He held me tight, caressed my hair telling me,” I love you so much; you mean so much to me. I will always look out for you.” I fought back the tears as I took in this gift. I felt so loved and accepted. Again, two days before he died, we were out on the patio of his hospice room enjoying the sunshine and he shooed everyone out off the patio in order to tell me, “You know what? I love you and I am so glad that we are close as we used to be and it sucks that I had to have cancer for that to happen but I’m glad I got you back in my life.” Again, I found myself fighting back the tears as I accepted his gift. My heart was breaking, Marc was going to die and leave me. Instead he was focused on making me understand he was leaving me behind with the most precious gift he could, to know unconditional love. It was very healing to go ahead and receive this from him the simple fact; he loved me no matter what. For the first time in my life, I was ENOUGH. I didn’t have to do ANYTHING. I could just BE and be ENOUGH. I am not sure I knew at the time, how profound an impact my relationship with Marc would be, watching him deteriorate and fighting for his life while he lovingly encouraged and championed the people around him. His illness allowed me to see life and its many aspects. I reflected on my own life, that nothing that was done couldn’t be undone or I had to accept that my life was written in stone and couldn’t be changed. It’s isn’t an entitlement to expect to have loving, faithful support from a spouse. It wasn’t wrong to believe my parents should be good people with my best interest at heart without any manipulations behind it, yet I was surrounded by this type of thinking my whole life. I was forever in the wrong with my spouse, now jealous that I was spending so much time with my dying cousin. When I found out about the affair I was told the reason for it was because I was doing all I was for my cousin who was dying of cancer. My parents or my brother (who I had not spoken to in a couple years so I could have some self preservation) talked bad about me all over town. I had been placed under a reward and punishment system when it came to family my entire life and continued it on in my marriage. After all, I had been consistently trained that love contained threats and came with conditions. ... “Mommy, mommy it’s dark in here.” I cried. What lay before me was a long set of steps leading down to an old limestone basement, more a cavern than a basement and without lights that sheltered bats on occasion. “ Let the boogey man get you!” My mother hissed back and I heard her footsteps walk away. I remember I saw light under the closed door; I reached my fingers into this crack trying to stay connected to the light’s bright warmth and not be enveloped into the darkness that I had been sentenced to. I recall vividly how utterly terrified I was sobbing and begging “Mommy, please! Mommy, please!! Let me out!” I have thought about this memory many times and realize it is a metaphor for my life. It’s one of my first memories and I am a small child. A toddler really. I didn’t know what I had done to deserve this treatment. I mean I knew I had done something. My brother, a couple years older, had taught me a dirty word and told me to tell it to our mother. I didn’t know what it meant but our mother’s response was to give me several spankings that lifted me off the ground then lock me in an unlit basement and walk away. It seems like an irrational response to any rational person but when it came to my mother, rational was rarely her choice. She was a vacillating conundrum to me my entire childhood. Most of the time, I was treated with disdainful distance to be used as her household slave, but then out of nowhere she would do something that I thought was supportive of me. I would experience this glimmer of hope, “my light under the crack of the door”, only to have her slam the door closed on me again. .