A Memoir
It is a typical scenario when you see a little boy or girl run to their mother or father after getting hurt. Whether it is a scraped knee or a simple paper cut, the comfort of a kiss is usually all that does the trick. I had plenty of these moments. You may call it a sheltered household and others may call it a careless household but where do I stand in this case? I call it “me just being plain ole clumsy me.” There was rarely ever a time when I would come home from school without a Band-Aid or an ace bandage wrapped around a body part and like always, my mother—a single parent—would come running with open arms and healing ointment. However you may put it, I’d say that being accident prone made me closer to my mother. Laugh and roll your eyes all you want but this was life. This was me.
I was eight years old when the habit of being accident prone seemed to stop dead in its tracks though and this, like so many other times was not intentional. As a matter of fact, it came with a sudden blow that I can still sometimes feel to this day. I attended public school my whole life which usually involved the classrooms of thirty-four kids and the nonsensical teachers who could care less what you learned; just as long as they got paid for it. My elementary school held seven hundred kids at the time. Yes, seven hundred bratty, ignorant, pompous kids and there I was amongst them a short, chubby girl with timid eyes and a tiny mouth. To tell you the truth, I could give two shits if all these kids jumped off the roof. My only main concern was to get through a seven hour day with an annoying teacher so that I could go home and be with the family. But one day ended slightly different.
After emptying my tray, I waited as the cafeteria lady; Ms. Webster released my class into the play yard. This was routine so the anticipation was high that afternoon. To feel the hot sun on our faces was the goal as of now. To pound the asphalt covered playground and to scream at the top of our lungs was second in line. My stomach churned to be alone, though; away from these loud mouths. I just wanted to soak up sun. Yeah I said it! I would give anything to be away from them. She blew her whistle as my mind raced to the good fortunes I’d find, sliding down the firemen’s pole or swinging till I threw myself over the gate that led to ultimate freedom.
“You guys may go now, Ms. Webster stated in her loud raspy tone. Then up rose all my classmates storming off from their previously seated positions. I wanted to do the same. To run so fast my lungs burned but today I had no fervor. I had no zeal to run or mimic my no-brained classmates. Instead I walked and boy was that a bad idea. Entering the long hallway that led to the playground, I heard what seemed like thousands of kids behind me but I still kept my gait steady. Then as I reached halfway, a bunch of kids pushed my stumpy body toward the corridor. When I woke up, I was in the principal’s office and she—the principle—appeared to be drinking white wine. That pissed me off but then I fainted again only to wake back up on a stretcher in an ambulance with an oxygen mask over my face. I felt so queasy riding in that stupid ambulance. I kept asking myself why I am here but of course there was no answer. I fainted once more though, and after that spell was over, I woke up to find my mother by my bedside. And where was I? Half naked, in a hospital bed.
“Don’t move Bonnie”, my mother said through tears. When she realized I was getting up to look around for my clothes, she forced me to lie back down. “You need to lie back down sweetheart. The doctor will be in, in a minute.” I went back to sleep though, not even noticing how concerned she was. Later that night I was told to have suffered a concussion. I kept waking back up because the nurses were trying to keep me from falling into a coma. At this point and time, I did not think anything was wrong with me. Except for the huge knot I had on the side of my head. It hurt like rug burn and as I looked back and forth between my mother and the doctor, I figured I had no place in their chat. Little did I know that the chat was all about me—eight year old me. The doctor had found a cyst in my brain after giving me an MRI. It seemed not to be life-threatening as he put it, and yet they sat there for the next hour discussing my “injuries” and my long term goals as if I were not even in the room.
Whatever happened to mommy kissing the booboo? Or the attention being all about me? In short, I felt like I got ripped off, bamboozled, robbed, laughed at; you name it, it happened. My mother took me home that night without even kissing my newly swollen temple and for the rest of the week, all she spoke about was how much she’d sue board of education for. Who the hell was board of education though? And why hadn’t I gotten my kiss yet. I stayed home from school that whole week; eating nothing but chicken noodle soup and soda crackers like I was battling the friggin’ influenza virus. There was no more sun for me that week or playgrounds for that matter. I was starting to think that this “kiss the booboo” scenario could all go to hell since I’d been robbed of it in the first place. My mother was just too pissed with my school for letting this “happen to me” and the fact that I didn’t understand the whole ordeal didn’t make matters better either.
As the weeks passed, my mom would tell me what actually happened that day. She said I was pushed into the frame of a door where I knocked the side of my temple in. I had suffered a seizure and being that there was not enough security in the school, I didn’t get immediate help. I did not remember any of these occurrences that my mom was listing out to me. I do however remember waking up in the principal’s office to see her lazy behind drinking wine. There was something else I noticed though. I was a very shallow child. All I could think of was myself and a simple kiss on the cheek that parents brainwashed their kids to believe it would heal all mistakes and bruises.
I failed to take notice of the tears my mom had been shedding for me and how this was not the right way to receive attention. Going back to school the following week was in actual fact more difficult for my mother than it was for me. As she released me to my teacher I could feel the static in the air of how incompetent she thought my school had turned out to be and yet here I was singing Christmas carols in my head as though everything was back to normal. After developing the realization that I was being ignorant, I guess you could say I became more aware of my surroundings. I’d walk around with more kids my age which in return gave me a whole new meaning to what I thought “bratty kids” were.
The four friends I made and ended up staying close to after I graduated, turned out to be just like me. Shallow at one point but considerate in the end. I cared more for my welfare now that I had made these friends and had seen those tears swelling up in my mother’s eyes. Being accident prone wasn’t my thing anymore. As a matter of fact, even though I still managed to get hurt along the way, I ended up brushing off the pain. I still have marks to show my incessant need for attention. Like the bonded teeth displayed like a full moon as soon as I smile, or the one inch scar running diagonally on my back. Back then, Neosporin and kisses from my momma were my friends but now wisdom is and the real fact that taints me so much is how messed up my philosophy was. Yeah, you may call it a sheltered household and others may call it a careless household but where do I stand in this case? I call it me just being selfish ole me.
--by Courtney James
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