Reflections From Near the Grave

Reflections From Near the Grave 

By Dory Ann Elsworth 

(Pen name) 

I look into the mirror to trace my likeness onto an imaginary canvas. What does this face tell me? Who have I been all these years, and who am I now? Each line in the reflection follows something lost or something achieved. 

This crevice—the one between my brow—reminds me of a difficult childhood. Pain and poverty do not care whether skin is white or dark. My fingers follow the lines, before I transfer them to the blank page.  

One line is for the time I was fondled at age four by a family friend. Another line recalls me standing at the blackboard at age six. The teacher commanded me to write my name in chalk. Dory. Dory with a “d.” The whole class tittered. I looked at them wondering what could be so funny. When I turned back to the board, the word I had written was Bory, with a “b.” I wanted to disappear but there was no place to hide. I didn’t know until I was nineteen that I had dyslexia. 

The other line between the brows is for when I was raped in the woods at age twelve. Back then, my parents fermented in their own troubles, too absorbed to listen. Their late-night arguments went on for hours. Mother was crazy and Daddy couldn’t save her. So, I kept silent about my experience fearing that the soldier who violated me might have given me a horrible disease or made me pregnant. I felt ashamed. What happened somehow seemed my fault—my fault, too, when the schoolboys, one a relative of the offending soldier, whispered behind their hands, pointed to me and laughed so hard the sounds reverberated through the shiny halls. Stupid, ugly. Slut. I wanted to run.  

After my parents divorced, I was forced to live with my volatile mother. But I found a way to run. I left school at age 15 and married a felon. He left bruises where his thumbs dug a choke hold into my neck. Since I was underage, I got an annulment. In the eyes of the law, I was erased. It never happened, but it did. Maybe that is why the face in the mirror looks wary despite my polite smile. Four years later came the love of my life, an alcoholic artist who never really tried to perfect his gift. We married, but those lines on my face and in my heart sank deeper than all the others. He ran away with another woman. The mirror told me that there must be something terribly wrong with me. I wasn’t worthy. I was damaged goods, a piece of trash. I etched that message in my mind. I searched for acceptance in many wrong places, before realizing that I was the one who must learn to value the person in the mirror. 

There had to be a way out of the mess. I didn’t want to be stupid or flawed or worthless. I checked out a third-grade reader from the library and taught myself to read. A speed-reading course trained my eyes to take in a wider view of the written word, then sentence, then paragraph. Ah, a wider view of everything. My dyslexia improved and so did my writing skills. The girl who couldn’t read earned her GED, went to college and into journalism. I won all sorts of newspaper awards early on, but I thought I was faking, never believing that what I did or said mattered to anyone, least of all to myself. I just had to try harder. Get better. 

I wrote other people’s stories, never my own. I didn’t exist. I didn’t have a voice. Like an abused dog, I wanted to shiver away in the corner, hide my face. Inside my head I was saying, “Please don’t look at me too closely. If you look at me, you might find out how worthless I am. And if that happens then I will truly be alone.” But some people like to exploit vulnerable people; they seek them out. When you are defenseless, they can manipulate you into almost anything. It was easier to continue letting abusive people into my life. They confirmed my fear of being worthless. I put up with people, no matter how they treated me. I couldn’t break away. I just had to try harder to be perfect so they would love me. 

Then something happened in my darkest hour. A psychologist suggested to me that there was a different way of looking at myself in the mirror, without shame or guilt. The doctor said he admired my courage, the strength to overcome those early scars and see myself in a whole new way. “I would like for you to see yourself as I see you,” he said. “It has taken a lot of courage to cope with the things that have happened to you." The light turned on inside me. Another human saw something of value. 

I didn’t have to see myself as a victim anymore. I could see myself as coping effectively with life, no matter what it threw at me. On my imaginary page, I softened the hard lines, blended them into smiles and added new crinkles at the corners of my eyes. At last, I could accept what had been, no matter how deep the cut. Now I could make better choices. As I come near the end of my life, I no longer need to run or hide in shame. I can choose the paths that fit my own desires in a gentle, productive way. I have, indeed, become better. 

The face in the mirror has summoned the courage to show who I am and to better match my inner world with the outer one. As I look back at my long life, what is important is that I see myself clearly, and with more compassion. That light only comes from within, and in knowing that I am worthy of being loved, no matter how the outside world tries to shape me. How I look at myself is what matters most, embracing the bad and the good, lacing the pieces together as a whole. 

The face I draw from the mirror is no longer a disarrayed puzzle. The portrait is complete. I am me. And it is okay. 

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