Letters to the Editor
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Thank You
This article greatly affected me because I wished, when I was growing up, that my own mother cared enough to even consider slapping me. She was there before me most of teh time but she never really cared. And that, dear people, is far worse that Anne slapping her son. Being ignored when you are a living, breathing entity standing in front of someone for five years is tough. Thank you for this letter. again, at least she carede nough to be worried about her son.
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Thank You
This article greatly affected me because I wished, when I was growing up, that my own mother cared enough to even consider slapping me. She was there before me most of the time but she never really cared. And that, dear people, is far worse that Anne slapping her son. Being ignored when you are a living, breathing entity standing in front of someone for five years is tough. Thank you for this letter. again, at least she cared enough to be worried about her son.
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He's still there
I remember being a new teacher with a grade 9 class. I found an idea from another teacher about creating an autobiographical scrapbook.
The project was well outlined and easily done by students while providing some real opportunity to explore the question of identity and our relation to the outside world.
After the scrapbooks were handed in and marked, one mother came to parent-teacher and told me that her son had become a stranger to her. That they had done everything together and talked about everything at one time. That he couldn't spend enough time with her.
Now he seemed to hate her and reject any efforts to connnect.
She said that he had been working on the scrapbook for a long time and she had wanted to help with pictures and stories. He had rejected her offer. She was crushed.
He worked away in his bedroom on the scrapbook occasionally asking for some picture from his childhood, but nothing else.
After he was done, he refused to let her look at it and handed it in.
He did very well, I don't remember how well after so many years of students and using this assignment. Well enough I suppose, because a week after he got it back he walked into the kitchen where she sat and gently put the scrapbook in front of her and left the room without a word.
She began to go through the inches-thick scrapbook and was almost immediately choked up with tears streaming.
She said that it was all about his family and how much he loved them. How wonderful his childhood had been. How much he loved his mother and father and all of the memories that he had. It spoke of hopes and dreams, many of them growing from experiences he had and stories he heard in his family.
Finally, she said that she thought she had lost her son.
But he was there all along. He had never gone away. She was sure that if she did nothing foolish, he never would.
As one formerly angry young man, I can understand how fearsome a young man can be when the time has come for him to see himself apart. Often he is not ready to leave, financially or emotionally. Still, he must find a space for himself and hope that he does no harm to himself or others while doing it.
Your son is still there, no matter what.
He loves you, or he wouldn't be so damned angry.
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Drama of the weak female
Anne’s writing reflects female victimhood in action, always eager to activate the male Christian patriarchy with a constant failure to stand on her own two feet. It seems to me hers is a spirituality of weakness, another cog in the religious machine whose system depends on the drama Anne captures in her writing. I’d love to see her conquer this illusion of ineptitude and realize the stength that comes with being a child of God. Then perhaps she could break from this system that panders to and encourages her victimhood and write something truly remarkable.
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You made me smile
Anne, thank you. Tonight I'm exhausted and overwhelmed, both coming and going. Going because my wife was taken off ventilator today after a week in the ICU because of the most severe, life-threatening asthma attack you can have and still live. It's been a week of graduated hell, starting in the ninth level, when for four days she showed no response, to today, when they weaned her and fully woke her. I'm raw and tired and frayed and we have a two-year old daughter who I now know will not lack a mama.
I'm exhausted and overwhelmed coming because of everything else: the fact that my weak and scared wife begged me to take her home from the hospital today while still plugged with tubes and leads, desperate to see her little girl and not knowing yet that she will no longer be able to nurse with the life-saving steroids in her system...the fact that as a writer who works at home, I've got to find a way to care for my wife, my daughter and my home and still get my work done while giving my wife a chance to recover...the financial stresses always associated with healthcare these days...not knowing if my headstrong, stubborn wife, who has always attached her self-esteem to what she can do for others while ignoring her own needs, will comply with her asthma management program...the uncertainty and change of this trying, trying time...my little girl's wailing and tantrums all day and refusal to sleep tonight, which may have more to do with being two years old and possibly getting teeth than mama's absence, but which sear my heart and ruin my patience...being the phone center for our world of hundreds of friends wanting to know, "When? How? What can we do?"...just being sapped and drained and in need of a night watching baseball and not worrying.
In spite of the blessings of our friends and my wife's recovery, I feel overwhelmed and depressed. Of course, I felt the same black wave of despair when we brought our daughter home from the same hospital, and I flashed on the idea as I got a diaper: "What did we do? We'll never have a moment to ourselves again." Of course, that turned out to be nonsense; our girl is the goofy, brilliant light of our lives. Change is always stressful; we want to think the routine of our days will always be what it is. But it cannot be. It always changes.
My point here is that in the face of all this, partially driven by just being beat down pooped and at my limit, I've been despairing and desperate-feeling all day. But then I read your piece and saw the things you did when you found your beloved son turning into a monstrous enemy, which must have rent your heart: coping things, things that reflect a simple understanding: this shall pass. And I feel better. I took my daughter for a drive and she passed out. My wife is frail but alive when she might not have been. Life will be sweeter.
Thank you.