Sharon Fisher Bassett Memorial Fund

by Season Hain

Even though that traumatic time is 22 years on, she finds she cannot even reference the years she spent in a downward spiral circling the drain. She cannot listen to music from those times, or connect and engage in conversations which reference that certain span of years, or even watch rebroadcasts of television shows from the years she thinks of as a pathetic circus and freak parade. The years when nobody cared, the years when she was irrelevant. Those certain years she will not articulate still make her visibly uncomfortable and cause her heart to race. Her pulse beats wildly and her own trepidation, fear, resentment and anguish become audible. Even now.

Sitting, arms crossed in a dated chair, she wonders - 22 years on - when will she ever be at peace with the events of those years? When will the effects cease? When will she forgive “them”? When will she forgive herself? Well, she thinks, I’ve forgiven to the extent so that when I pray I don’t see their faces in my prayer line to God. Isn’t that enough forgiveness? Isn’t that functional forgiveness? I mean, after all, I’m the masquerading, walking wounded. No one would ever know what I went through...what I lost...who I lost and who threw me away. So, what good is total forgiveness? What can it help me now?

Yet she is keenly aware that to harbor and nurture resentment and un-forgiveness is to drink laudanum and hope the other person dies. She feels as though she could write a book on how to rebuild a decimated life. How to start over when there is absolutely nothing left - literally. Well, okay – there were three sweaters, one pair of jeans, a pair of shoes and an empty purse. But, really, nothing. There was only a resolve to take a step every day. To open her eyes and try to see some good in a world that would treat her so coldly. In a world that would allow her to be used. In a world that taught her how to let herself be used. Used completely. Spit out and cast aside with those unmentionable years accounting for naught. As though she did no good at all in that span of time and made no worthwhile contribution or effort.

But, it occurs to her that she is giving those people much too much credit. What does it matter what they thought, think, did, do, said or say? Who are they? People that could perpetrate those wrongs can’t matter that much...they should worry and wonder what I think of them...not the other way around. Staring through droplets of spring rain cascading on the windowpane near her chair, her thoughts draw back 22 years to that certain spring and the harsh winter that preceded it.

Spring 22 years ago. Was I even in Pennsylvania? No, I was 700 miles from nowhere and wondering how I was going to get back to the state of my birth. I had no home and no safe place to fall. She thinks about working her way back to Pennsylvania and the depth of emotion evoked upon her return. She remembers crying while driving along the Interstate – so glad to be among the familiar. She fondly remembers the welcoming, lush vegetation passed at 60 miles an hour. I was so glad to be back. I felt as though I could finally breathe. But, those warm fuzzy feelings were soon overshadowed by her reality. Her life has been consumed by a quiet desperation of thought, angst and how to undo and redo.

In the absurd comfort of this, she looks outward and inward to find answers and for the strength to begin anew each moment. Perhaps her feelings are just a costume. Something that she draws to herself and applies day after sad day. Change the clothes and change yourself. You’ve always had the power. Why not use your power to overcome the pity, poverty and dearth? Persevering and overcoming are not some unattainable, intangible concepts. They are very real actions. Each step deposits a life further from what has held them back. Each time a horrific memory is rebuffed, forgiveness has a chance to take place. Each bottle of laudanum poured down the drain brings her closer to leaving her past behind. Every step, every opening of the eyes, a beginning. …..Now she can reign over the cold spring rain and arise from her chair near the window.