 How many times, how many attempts have been made in the reaching out of children to their parents and to others, for an object, or for meeting of a need? It is painful to remember in my childhood of the myriad ways and efforts I put forth to reach out to my mother and to strangers to assure myself that I had worth, visibility, even to prove my existence was noted somewhere and it didn't matter by whom, just that it was. Why did I reach out at all ? What could possibly, in my small child's thinking, bring me reward or peace or passing sense of joy when all previous attempts had brought me exactly the opposite? This was my never extinguished, innocent conviction, longing and fathomless desire that felt beneath the next stone lies the treasure that I seek. Turning over stone after stone, expending strength beyond my years, cut and breathless, weary beyond exhaustion, I kept turning stones, keeps reaching out, hands raw and bloody stretched towards the object of my Hope. Thus it was for me,and I am sure that for the majority of infant and toddler ages I could not have told anyone what I was searching for, but had I had language, I could have told them exactly what my little heart was craving. I listened hard for sound of kindness in my mother's voice, not the harshness of her nagging and the guilt trips in her disapproval. My first memory of reaching out to her was of being scolded. She had returned from Sweden, from a Sanitorium where her Tuberculosis had been treated. I had not seen her since she had brought me to England from Hong Kong. Now she was claiming me to raise. We were to move to Sussex at the beginning of World war II. The lady who had cared for me told me,"Here's your mummy" and I reached out hands to her and got a scolding, because I had wet myself in my pram and this was a huge No No. I see distinctly yet, the picture of my fear and shame and her displeasure. I remember crying, and her crossness. She did not see tears after that. I remember when I was a toddler and reaching out to climb into her lap and being pushed away. I never tried again. I didn't learn till I was old enough to understand that she had tuberculosis and said she didn't want me to catch it so she would never kiss or hold me. I also, didn't learn till later still that the disease was not active at that time and she could have safely picked me up and given me a cuddle. Why did I still keep reaching out to her ? Waiting, I think, to be told that I was loved, that I was special to her and part of her own family. I could not understand at four or five or six years old, why she couldn't TELL me that even if she couldn't hold me. It didn't make sense to my child's mind that TB in her chest (against which I never would be held), would stop her voice from working? A little girl trying to figure out anatomy and what connects to what. Too young to understand that words out of the mouth do not originate in the lungs but in the heart and mind. "I love you" is not the product of exhange of oxygen from blood to bronchi or alveoli in ones thoracic cavity, breathed from mother to her chld. " I love you", is uttered from the wellspring of the heart, an overflowing of a depth of care and closeness that enfolds the dear one in infinity of love. It is not always necessary for the words to be spoken, though children, (and the younger the more it is important to them), blossom in the knowledge of verbal reassurance they are loved. I have known and know many adults also not immune to valuing this token of true love. I like it myself, but love can be expressed a myriad ways when it is present. I think that hearing those three words just once, would have been a bulwark in my castle built to withstand the daily onslaughts of abuse. Shakespeare writes of, "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" My child castle walls were built without apertures through which the slings and arrows might have penetrated. Built from child perceptions, child defenses, child protective tools forged in desperation, fear and furnace of survival. But child endeavors so often prove destructable when matched with adult strength, do they not? Quickly crushed, annihalated, pulled down and trodden underfoot. It was for me. Because I never heard the words, I never spoke them either, and in this, perhaps, I hurt my mother, but it was not revengeful or retaliation. We have this compulsion to repeat what we experience and for little Goessoftly, " I love you" was as foreign as my ethnic language in the community where I grew up. Today, I say those words in English and Chinese. Back then, they were not spoken in either one. I remember sometimes simply sitting in the living room and waiting. Hoping my mother would look at me and smile and say, " I love you Goessoftly". Simply sitting there was reaching out. Simply waiting was reaching out. My mother did not see and did not understand what I was feeling.. That in my silent watching I was reaching out, desperate for a tender look, a recognition of my need. There was a time when I was very young and with the steadfast aim of the undaunted, I made the effort to reach out once again. My mother had gone out in the afternoon, and I thought I would surprise her and have a tea set out for when she would return. I barely stood an inch or two above the dining table, but I set places for two. I knew she liked her bread cut very thin and had decided to make cucumber sandwhiches. Oh, but my little hands tried so hard to hold the bread and cut a slice without it crumbling, which it did. I know I wasted quite a portion of the loaf, but finally I had enough for several sandwhiches, and cut the cucumber to the thickness, or rather thinness, that I knew she liked. Then the REALLY hard and scary part. The stove had gas burners which meant lighting a match and I had only watched this done before. I had never tried to do it on my own and had always been afraid of the POP and FLARE as the match ignited and the flame shot up. I don't remember how many times I stroked the match across the box, too lightly for it to catch, and I, too afraid to press down harder. Such is the depth of desperation when a child is trying to reach out to someone. They will seek to conquer fear, refuse to give up and do their best to finish the task. I know my heart was beating furiously because I was afraid she would return before I had the tea made and the kettle still had to boil. At last, I took courage and struck the match hard enough and nearly dropped it when it flared alight. I jumped in fear when the gas ring caught. I tinkered with the burner for a little while before I tried to light it. Too young to know I could have had a fire or an explosion with too much gas in the air. My focus on reaching out and being loved, or at least, being a good girl was all I knew. The kettle boiled, the tea was made. Steeping when my mother entered, and the sandwhiches were arranged in neat small triangles on a willow plate. The first thing she did after taking off her hat, going to the bathroom to wash her hands then sitting down, was to frown and say, " Why haven't you put a cosy on the teapot, Goessoftly ? You know it will get stone cold in no time at all". No acknowledgement of what was put before her, and certainly no thanks. I know she was not happy with the state the loaf was in - or was left of it. Couldn't you see, mother, that I was reaching out to you? What must I do to get you to see? My voice is silenced when I reach out in words hoping you will show an interest in what I have to say. My heart is rejected when I reach out with my gifts, longing for you to accept them and in doing so I can believe you are accepting me. My writing is dismissed when I reach out to share, in this is my most precious gift because in this I give myself to you. My behavior goes unnoticed when I try to conform because that is expected, not understood that I am reaching out to you for your approval. I give up reaching out in these ways - you are unreachable. And so, I reach out in my thoughts, my daydreaming, my non-shared scribbles. And I turn to others. I try so very hard at school to find a niche, to find a friend, to reach a teacher. I come to the conclusion there is something about being Chinese that is an automatic gate shutter to entering into all the areas where everyone else I watch can pass through freely, but for me, a large banner waves above the entrance: NO ADMITTANCE. I learned that the most agonizing pain and hurt and grief is not to not be allowed to play, to join a game, to be invited into a home, to look through a window and long to be part of the family you see enjoying one another. The deepest pain a little child can feel is to reach out to a heart, craving love, desperate in the longing for acceptance and a place within it, to be held close enough to feel the heartbeat and only meet the words, spoken or felt, NO ADMITTANCE. I was not the apple bringer for the teacher to gain his or her favor in this way. Mostly, I tried very hard to do well in class and this was probably not for the teacher but to avoid repercussions from my mother if I came home with a bad report. Not all teachers humiliated me in front of other children, though some were blatent in their doing this. But even in the classes I enjoyed, ( the subject, not the students) the total lack of acknowlegement of my presence served to reinforce my sense of invisibility and academic failure. So much so that one day when the school gathered in the gym for the handing out of Certificates and Awards etc. I sat as far to the back as I could. When my name was called for Certificates of Honor from the London Royal Acadamy of Arts, I felt ashamed. A failure. Thinking Honor Certificates were less than Passing ones. No one informed that I couldn't get anything higher, and no one clapped when I went to receive them, as they had clapped for others. I hurried to the front as quickly as I could, not looking at anyone with my head bowed. Took the Certificates and slunk back to my seat to sink down into blissful annonymity again. So much for reaching out to teachers. I wondered if they knew how desperately their students sometimes tried to reach them? Not necessarily for praise, but in my case, to be heard, to be seen, to be acknowledged, to somehow feel existence can be validated if taking part in class is recognized. That one is not invisible to the rest of the world. Not that I wanted to be out in front - anywhere. The Color Bar saw to that most effectively. Shoved to the back of a queue when shopping, last to be chosen for some activity, plenty to remind me that those of my race come last - certainly not out in front. But I would have been happy to reach out and touch the next to last person if they would have said 'Hello". Oh, mother, you were so unreachable. Did I find others so because of you, or were they also incapable of being reached? Or, as in my child's mind, was it ME - the unlovable, the discard, the unwanted and disgrace? I never DID find the answer in my reachings out. One valued thing told me by friends, clients and strangers has been that I am very approachable. This, if true, comes from understanding how it feels to try approaching the unreachable and learning to be different. Goessoftly www.goessoftlyishere.com NOT to be copied in any form   | LEGACY OF THE UNBELOVED | CRUMBS FOR THE STARVING | DISINFECTION | BEAUTY | WHY and WHAT | Would You Still Be My friend ? | THE BOTTLE | ROSES and THISTLES | UNREACHABLE | Essentials and unessentials | | THE HEALING PROCESS | DISSOCIATIVE IDENTITY DISORDER | POETRY | Biographical Entries | THE OTHER SIDE OF LIFE | STORIES FOR LITTLES (Pigmus and friends) | |
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