Episode 1: Hell is a Dark Place

When I line them up, side by side, I can almost envision Emma’s physical growth. She’d first begun to wear the first brace, the smaller one, in sixth grade. These braces squeezed her entire torso so that she didn’t twist any more than she already had. 18 hours per day. Every day. Until she stopped growing.

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The pounding in my chest accused me of being a poor parent, one who did not notice that my daughter’s back had twisted to such a degree, that her x-ray nearly made me ill.  Sorrow can do that to you.  Make you sick. Make you think that the world you’d live in was a fantasy, an illusion. Like someone pressed the lever on the Viewmaster and another slide jolted in your face. 

So I missed it?  I had interpreted her cocked-hip pose in nearly all pictures as her attitude. Sassy.  Fun.

Yet, those braces whispered through whatever message Emma & I were telling one another. She was twisted, and she was entering into one of the worst times for twisted kids:  middle school. I spoke to a friend about this, one whose body shows evidence—clearer evidence than my body or Emma’s—of an obvious twist. I quote him fully: “Middle school is hell.”

“Middle School is Hell.”

So we went shopping for clothes that fit her fast-growing body while also fully covering her offending brace while also being something that my daughter will wear.  She would never—never—tell anyone that she wore the brace. It would remain a secret—as quiet as it’s kept. Unlike her mother or me, Emma has taste in clothing, and she can tell you what ‘taste’ is.  A large burlap sack would not work.  For Emma, that is.  For me or Sunday?  Bring on the burlap—but we’d walked through hell before, and we’d forgotten the kind of heat that burlap invites.

She returned to sixth grade in January of that year.  Kept old friends. Made new ones.  Stuck tight to the secret that she was determined to keep. We offered her the kind of wisdom I’m not sure we’d have the courage to follow:  don’t hide it.  Bring it to the light.  Hell is one of those places that doesn’t make logical sense:  full of fire, but no light.  In her mind, there wasn’t much light to bring her secret into.  I don’t blame her one bit.