Painful Moments, an instrument for learning

PAINFUL MOMENTS, An instrument for learning.

I grew up in an idyllic world. My father adored me and my mother loved me. I had a naive belief that those I liked always had my best interests at heart. In 1953, an irresistible tenth grade boy trampled that seventh grade naïveté with two words.

This happened at a statewide student council meeting. Our school had two representatives, I was one, the other was a handsome, sixteen-year-old that I was attracted to. As the group of predominantly male leaders gathered, someone asked, “Who is our secretary?” My imaginary boyfriend pointed and said, “That girl with the big nose.”

All heads turned to stare at the scrawny, flat chested, twelve-year-old who was still in undershirts. I hunched my shoulders to prevent stares at my non-existent boobs. It was shame enough to know everyone was staring at my nose.

Usually I met negative comments with an appropriate retort that brought laughter to the situation. Kindness and clever wit were reasons for my popularity. I could stand up for others with ease, but never for myself. I sat in pain and pretended to be taking minutes.

Until the end of the first grade I was a cute, very outgoing, kid with short dark hair, which was cut by a barber, because hairdressers and nail parlors were not in abundance. I wore a little barrette that the Italian barber’s wife would put in my hair every fourth Saturday. I didn’t mind being the only girl in the barbershop. The barber’s stories were interesting and I charmed the customers with prattlings of my own. I never felt out of place in that man’s world but I was overwhelmed by the meanness of the adolescent male world I was entering.

I survived the ordeal of the stares; the boys’ bragging comments and the two-hour drive home with my tormentor. I entered our tranquil, two story white home and climbed to my pink bedroom, where I watched the traffic whiz by below. I thought of my aunt, who was an account executive at a New York Ad agency. At her high school graduation she was awarded a copy of Cyrano de Bergerac. She threw it in the garbage, wondering if it was thoughtlessness or meanness. She lived with that question until she died at age eighty-eight.

The lesson I learned that night continues to be my mantra: accept people for who they are not what they look like. There is an actor for every role, a song for every voice, and individuality is to be celebrated not scorned.