In the way are what feel like landmines of grief and pain and anger, and underneath all of it so many pieces of fear sticking through the pain like stalagmites on a cave floor. A cavern of grief. I want to rush through, cutting them down to deal with them; but running through this cavern is not the way. Neither, mind you, is wallowing in this palace of pain, doing what Martha Beck calls “fondling” a painful memory.

Everyday life in our home from when I was born to when I was eight had a rythym of peace and terror. Any child going through trauma can seemingly shine with delight and joy, when their world is nose diving in the darkness. My life was like this. I was a polite, quiet person, I did well in school, I liked my teachers, but the trauma

Dad and mom lasted about 4 years, until she was pregnant with me. Mom, somehow, had graduated LPN school before having children, so she was always able to get a job. Said job supplied her with copious amounts of drugs. Looking back, I realize she took jobs on the overnight shift at nursing homes (the poorly run ones, with those beautiful, sad old people dripping out of their chairs in the hallways, ladies faintly calling, "Help . . . Help . . . Help . . . " from their rooms where they have been lying in their own feces filled diapers for hours) because

It is a special love that ties a child to their mother. An unbreakable bond--this is hard to understand when there is so much abuse and terror, but it’s true all the same, there is always an unbreakable bond with a mom:  whether they are alive or passed over, whether they are out of a horror film or  angelic.

Late one night, I took my braces off in front of the huge mirror in the tiny efficiency apartment I shared with my grandmother. I was 11--my teeth looked straight to me. I didn't want to go back, so I smiled big with the door shut, yanked and twisted and pulled until the wire came out. Took my big silver spoon and chipped off the brackets, one by one, on each tooth. The cement was there for years.