She took a deep breath and pulled away from our moment. “So, we’ve been working on quite a few difficult things recently. I was thinking we could lighten the load a bit and focus on something different.”
“Sure, like what?”
“Well, maybe some good times you’ve had in the past. We can bring up a happy memory to look at and build upon that.”
Suddenly, I felt awkward. This should have been an easy enough request, but nothing was popping up. I wasn’t being bombarded by violent images anymore, but now my brain seemed to just be sitting there. Was it really possible that I had nothing good to remember? Everyone has at least a few happy moments growing up, right? Why couldn’t I find anything? Shouldn’t it be simple to bring up something that at least made me laugh once?
I must have given myself away again, because Theory looked at me a bit confused. “Do you have any happy memories, Sam?”
My heart leapt into my throat, knowing immediately that there were whole parts of my life I didn’t remember, good things included. My entire fifth grade year had disappeared completely, and most of my time spent with relatives was also blurry. Chunks of time had broken off like icebergs and sat floating away in some other universe. So, maybe there were some good memories, but if there were, I sure as heck didn’t know about them.
I was too embarrassed to admit to Theory that I had nothing. I searched for something, anything, that hadn’t been tarnished by Them. The only shred of happiness I could find was Nova. “Um, well, there was this time Nova and I were playing in the park. I think it was near our grandma’s house or something, but I can’t really remember that part.”
“That’s okay, that’s just enough.”
“Why do we need to work on a happy memory?”
“Well, sometimes it’s nice to remind our brains that there has, in fact, been some goodness in our lives. It can help plug us back into the goodness that we all have a right to have access to. It’s a way of reconnecting with our younger selves so that we can learn how to find the good things happening around us a bit quicker.”
“Ah, got it.”
“So, what do you say? Would you like to try the memory about you and Nova playing at the park?”
No, I wouldn’t like to. I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to remember enough and disappoint Theory. I thought back to how hard it was to process the bigger memories in the past, then remembered how patient she had been in helping me to deal with them. I sighed, then rubbed my forehead. “Yeah, okay. We can try.”
“Good. Thank you for being brave enough to try,” she said kindly. “Now, tell me about this memory a bit.”
“There’s not a lot there. It’s just Nova chasing me through a field.”
“Okay. Let’s just go with that,” said Theory, waving her arm to bring up the star. The room darkened around us and I breathed slowly through my nose to calm the anxiety that knocked at my heart.
“Ready, kiddo?”
“Sure,” I said, only half committing to the task in front of me.
Left, right, left, right.
A three-dimensional image of Nova chasing me through the grass flickered into light. Tiny kid laughter echoed off the walls of the library as the girls ran past us, and I could feel how happy I was back then. But just as quickly as the image had flickered into life though, it was gone again.
“Is that all you have?” Theory asked.
“Yeah, sorry,” I said sheepishly, ashamed that there wasn’t more.
“It’s okay, Sam,” she said, adding compassion to her voice. “It’s all we need for now. I just want you to focus on how good you feel, running around outside with your sister.”
“Okay,” I mumbled.
Left, right, left, right.
The hologram started up again. Two happy kids ran the length of the room and disappeared. Seconds later, the same image started up again. The memory looped over and over again. Laughter rode the air like music. I felt so happy I wanted to cry.
Theory paused the hologram. “What do you notice?”
“She’s so happy,” I said, swallowing back the tears.
“Who is?” Theory asked.
“Me. I am,” I said, almost not believing that this was the same kid who lived inside this teenager now.
“Mm,” hummed Theory thoughtfully. “Well, why don’t you take some time to see that part of her. Just let yourself feel happy for right now, and let her be happy, too.”
I looked over little-me, still frozen in time, noticing how adorably small she was. Her hair was dark brown and fell over her face as she played. She had little kid hands, chunky and wide open to the world around her. Her smile was bright and kind, making me wonder who she would have been if she had grown up in a house where people had loved her the right way.
I wanted to hug her, warn her that she would go through a lot of really hard stuff, but that she would end up safe with Theory one day. I wanted to tell her that I still loved her, even if no one else did yet. I wanted her to know how strong she was, and how grateful I was to her for believing that magic existed.
Seeing myself as a little kid made me sad. I knew about the things she had gone through, and the pain that would keep haunting her until she finally ran away, years later. I felt, for the first time, a sense of compassion…for myself.
“What are you feeling?” Theory finally asked.
“I don’t know. It’s like different kinds of sadness,” I admitted.
“Explain that a bit more,” she encouraged.
I took a deep breath, trying to cool down the heartache that had been tumbling around in my chest. “I think I’m sad that she had a hard time growing up. She looks so happy right there, and I don’t know why she couldn’t stay that way. She was a good kid, you know? She deserved a lot better than what she went through.”
“Yes, she did,” asserted Theory. “What else?”
“I guess. I wish that I could save her. Or that I could tell her that everything’s going to be okay. That we end up safe and cared for by someone.”
“What if you told her that now?” Theory suggested.
I looked at her like she was crazy. “Just say it to her?”
“Yes. Talk to Little-Sam and let her know how much you care about her.”
I shook my head and took a deep breath. Theory had made me try a lot of weird things to get in touch with my past, but this one seemed ridiculous.
Talking to myself? What good would that do? But then I looked at little-me. She was so innocent. I had to preserve what tiny bit was left of it somehow. I cleared my throat and leaned into the image.
“Hey, kiddo,” I said out loud to the hologram. I tried to use the words Theory had used with me, hoping that they’d feel better than whatever I had laying around inside my head. “It’s me. Or, it’s you, but bigger. Ugh, anyway. So, we’re older now, and safer. We ran away to the mountains and found this person that’s taken really good care of us. Her name is Theory, and she’s been helping us get rid of all the bad things in our head so that we can try and be happy again.”
I looked at Theory for confirmation that I was doing it right. Her face looked determined, as if she was standing guard over me. I looked back at the smaller version of myself and continued. “You know, you’re a good kid, Sam. You’ve really been through a lot. God, you’ve probably been through more at five years old than most people go through in their entire lifetime. But it’s okay, because we end up okay. Anyway, I want you to know that I’m proud of you, and that I love you. I’m going to keep fighting for us and take better care of us. We’re going to find Nova and everything will feel right again. Hang in there, kiddo. I promise it gets easier later on.”
I closed my eyes, succumbing to my emotions. I took a deep breath, then exhaled all of my sadness. I thought of how safe I was now, letting go of the rest. I had done right by my younger self. I really had protected her the best I could, and was still doing my best now.
As the pain of sadness dissolved, so did the wall that had b
een protecting my heart all of these years. A new sensation flooded in. Suddenly, I was struck by an overwhelming sense of love and empathy for everything around me. In the flash of an instant, I could feel the energy of the world. I felt the human condition, recognizing how strong and fragile it was all at once. Theory’s words from our conversation in the printing room rushed in along with it. “All anyone ever wants is validation.”
“What are you feeling now, Sam?” she asked.
I placed a hand over my heart and took a deep breath in. “Love.”
“Good,” replied Theory. I could hear the smile in her voice. “Stay with that feeling for as long as you can.”
I kept my eyes closed and let the beauty of people flood into my soul. Images of people laughing together, children playing, nurses helping patients in the hospital, teachers working with students, and emergency responders rescuing others flashed through my brain. I could see, hear, and feel all of the ways in which human beings loved and cared for one another. I saw them helping each other through hard situations, and celebrating the easier ones. I could sense how powerful we as people were, and how badly we wanted to be near one another. I felt how much love actually existed in the world and knew finally how to tap into it.
I opened my eyes, overwhelmed by a new kind of goodness. I turned toward Theory, shocked by this feeling of compassion for an existence I hadn’t yet known. Before I could find the words to tell Theory what I was experiencing though, a butterfly floated down from the ceiling and hovered in front of me.
Its wings were silver and blue, almost changing colors as it gracefully cruised around the room. It fluttered through the image of little-me, and then back in my direction. I held my finger out and let it land on the tip of it. The light caught its silky texture, making its colors radiate brighter.
“Theory, look,” I laughed, excitedly showing off what I had found.
She smiled, her eyes glistening as bright as the butterfly’s’ wings. “I see that. It seems we have a visitor.”
I rotated my hand to look at the butterfly from all angles. It flapped slowly, relaxing into my hand. I couldn’t stop smiling. “What should we do with it?”
Theory walked toward a window and clicked it open. “Let it free, I suppose.”
“Good idea,” I said, being careful to not to startle it. I walked toward Theory, taking one last look at the butterfly that had appeared out of nowhere. I stretched my hand out of the window, watched the butterfly flap once more, then smiled again as it leapt into the forest air.
I drew my arm back inside and put my hands into my sweater pockets. “Wow, that was cool.”
“Indeed, it was. How are you feeling?” Theory asked, getting us back on track.
“Really good, actually,” I said, surprised by my own response.
“What feels so good?”
“I don’t know how to describe it. It’s, like, this really huge empathy for the human condition. Like, I’ve fallen in love with the world somehow,” I said, still feeling the buzz.
“Does it feel any safer?” she ventured cautiously.
I scanned the feelings in my body to see if it did at all. “Sort of. Yeah, actually.”
“Hm. That must feel nice,” she suggested.
“Yeah, it does. It’s definitely a new feeling.”
Theory smiled. “Yes, I imagine it is.”
I smiled back at her, meditating on the peace that existed within me suddenly.
“So, was there anywhere safe growing up?” Theory asked.
I turned away from her and back toward the window. My eyes wandered over the horizon until they found a patch of clouds floating in the sky. “Well, I used to climb this tree in the front of my house to watch the sunsets. They were always my favorite thing to look at, even if what came after them was dangerous.” I felt a pit in my stomach, but kept talking. “I’d stay up in that tree for as long as I could, because I knew what waited for me in the house when I was done looking. It was the one thing I could count on to show up every day.
“I would think of living really, really far away, like on the other side of the world. I’d wonder where the sun was running away to, and if there was any way that I could run after it. It always seemed so big, so free…like it was untouchable.
“But eventually, it always got dark. I could never make the sun stay, no matter how hard I begged it to every night. I knew that when it got dark, things would creep out from behind the doors. I’d lie in bed and wonder if anyone else ever had nightmares at night while they were still awake, like I did,” I paused for a moment, trying to stay strong. “I wondered if the sun knew what was happening at night after it left, and if it ever got angry that the moon didn’t stop it.”
A tear fell down the side of my face as I spoke. My heart grew heavy and I felt sad for all of the things I had been through suddenly. I wished I had been left alone to sleep at night. I wished I had been able to wake back up the next day and know that I’d be safe, at least, when it was light out. But my kind of danger happened all of the time.
Even so, every day, I still had those sunsets.
The sunsets that reminded me that beauty existed on the outside, even if things were twisted and ugly on the inside. The ones that told me that there was hope in things far, far away, even if the horror of the life up close felt impossible.
I thought of the sunrays that would stretch across the entire sky, often comforted by how much bigger than me they were. I remembered holding my arms up like a bird, right before the final ray disappeared, imagining that I was flying away with it. I wondered how many other kids under that same sunset were going through what I was going through, or if I was the only one.
“I guess, in a way, sunsets are just as much a part of my story as the darkness is,” I said, before breaking down into tears completely. I held my face in my hands and cried about the fact that the sun, instead of grown-ups or other kids, seemed to be my most reliable friend growing up. And then I grieved for the little kid inside of me for not knowing any different.
“You did your best to find what was available to keep yourself alive,” said Theory, walking up beside me. “Not everyone knows how to do that, Sam. You found something bigger than yourself to believe in and hope for. It’s one of the main reasons you’re still alive.”
Her words felt true and I could sense how much she meant them. The feeling of compassion returned. “Yeah, I guess so. I did good enough to get all the way here.”
“Yes you did, kiddo. You are very brave to have survived what happened to you.”
Instead of arguing or resisting her messages like I usually did, I let the peace I had experienced earlier settle into my heart. “Thank you.”
“You know, to only focus on the dark parts of ourselves is to do the rest of us a disservice,” Theory continued.
“How so?”
“Well, we can look at Little-Sam, or any kid for instance, and know that they’ve had it bad. We can see that they’ve been abused and feel sad or angry for them. But if that’s all we see, an abused kid, then we miss the rest of them. For example, what are some things that you like about yourself?”
I felt awkward suddenly, not knowing how to compliment myself. “Mm, I don’t know.”
“Well, I know plenty of things I like about you,” she said confidently. “I know that you’re an excellent artist. I know that you have a good sense of humor, and that you’re resourceful. You will also try things that scare you, which makes you courageous.”
I broke eye contact with her, feeling both shy and flattered that she had noticed all of those things in me. “Yeah, okay, I guess. Thank you.”
“But Sam, if we only ever talked about the bad things that happened to you, I would have missed all of the things I just listed. Think about it.
“If you talk to a kid who has been abused, and only see their abuse, you miss all of the cool things they are capable of. You are essentially robbing them of being a whole person. You have to focus and give energy to the par
ts that you want to see grow. It is our responsibility as people to recognize other people as whole individuals, even when all we get is one little part of their story.
This is why I had you bring up a good memory: because there is more to you than just trauma, Sam. You, and every kid that goes through what you’ve been through, are more than just trauma. You are silly jokes, imaginative adventurers, and resilient human beings. And if I can’t see all of that in you, how am I supposed to help you see it in you?”
My heart melted. The same flood of loving energy that had awakened in me for the outside world had now shifted into a new respect for Theory. I could feel how much she genuinely cared about me, and how hard she worked to let me know it. I smiled, feeling well-looked-after. “Yeah, I get that.”
“So the rule is, Sam, never ever let a person, or another kid, leave your presence without seeing all of them. If they were angry when you met them, then it doesn’t mean they are angry all of the time. It means you met them on a hard day, and that they need to be met with patience and kindness to calm back down.
“Do not ever minimize someone’s pain, because that is exactly how they got hurt in the first place. You will see, Sam, that if you give people the dignity that was taken away from them, they will quickly regain their strength and be able to eventually give you the same in return.”
“See all of them,” I repeated, feeling a strong sense of purpose in what she was saying.
Theory looked at me with conviction, both of us knowing what she was really trying to prepare me for. “Yes, Sam. All of them.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“Good afternoon, kiddo,” said a cheerful voice from behind me.
I smiled without turning around. “Hey, Theory.” I had spent the last half hour perfecting the green-yellow shading of the banana slug that had finally appeared from the other side of the library window. Luckily it was moving slow enough for me to take my time experimenting with different colors.
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