"Little One." // Inspired by "When I Was a Child" from the Emotions & Feelings Community Initiative on HIVE

My dearest little one, my heart,

It pains me inside to know your isolation, your hurts, your confusion.

Often, (I believe you know this), I imagine holding you in my arms, and rock you cooingly, like you always dreamed your mother could.

I hold you close, (like I was able to my own son), and soothe your racing heart; the fear in your eyes.

I tell you how much I love you and how grateful I am that you survived. That you grew up, even when you believed you didn’t belong, even when you were bathed in the abject hatred your mother had for you.

I hold you close to my heart knowing how it felt to be bereft of physical closeness, (save with Ingrid, the family shepherd & Kitty-bird our incredible calico), and I remind you, no, you did not have “the plague” running through your veins, and that that wasn’t what caused some folks to steer clear from you.

🤍🥀🤍🥀🤍🥀🤍🥀🤍🥀🤍🥀🤍🥀🤍🥀🤍🥀🤍🥀🤍🥀🤍🥀🤍🥀🤍

I love how much you loved your mommy even in the face of her clenched-jaw rage towards you.

I know how confused you were, for so long.

How much fear drenched your being, and caused hyper, discombobulated, and annoyingly disjointed/obnoxious behavior.

I know your bravery to keep facing each day with indomitable optimism, even when you were made fun of, and believed you deserved all the animosity pointed your way. Even when that animosity was acted out on you physically by others.

I know you. Very well.

I know how you struggled with a self-loathing that coated you like a sticky, acrid, substance having the consistency, and tenaciousness of molasses.

I know how you blamed yourself for your mother’s hatred of you.

How you continued striving for her love.

I honor, and appreciate your strength, and courage, which, as you grew you used to look inside yourself, deeply, and deeper still, to find love through the thick walls of hate, (and I believe it was the indomitable optimism always inside little you, that kept you going as you grew).

I congratulate you for growing up, and turning around so much hatred, into love and understanding of self, and therefore, love and understanding of others.

They call that the “wounded healer", my sweet little one, and I am grateful you’ve been able to, eventually, transform your wounds into gifts from heaven that you sprinkle around, like faerie dust, wherever you can.

💦💦💦💦💦💦💦💦💦💦💦💦💦💦💦💦💦💦💦💦💦💦💦💦💦💦💦💦💦💦

I remember, when you were a young girl, the first day you realized God was hanging out in the heavens. You didn’t know anything about God, but, as you took big, barefoot, strenuous steps in the deep sand on the beach, under the stormy clouds, with the wind blowing in your face, you looked up.

And I remember you thinking, “there’s someone up there...someone big and beautiful, stormy and awe-inspiring up in the sky.”

That’s the day you saw God in the welkin, and you knew, you knew instinctively that some way, somehow, there were answers to everything in life, and that life could get better, nay, life could be deliciously miraculous.

You knew in your heart of hearts that all the love and magic in the world was there for you. All you had to do was find it. This is the sunshine in your heart that you woke each day of your childhood with, that you must've brought down with you from the heavens, with the commitment to hold it close, come what may.

You are ever precious to me, my little one, my heart. You are my miracle.

Photo of author by Leah Strishak. Accents added with Pinclipart.com

Special thanks to @hive-102879 the Emotions & Feelings Community on the HIVE blockchain hosted on Peakd.com - [a crypto community of writers, photographers and more. If you need support in joining HIVE on Peakd.com comment below requesting more information.] - for posting the exercise that inspired this writing:

This is the theme: Write something to yourself, when you were a child (up to the age of 10), fulfilling these three aspects:

Validation: acknowledge a quality you had at that time and why it is valuable to this day.
Congratulation: mention a specific and outstanding good deed from that time and give your congratulations.
Affection: recall a nice memory of those years.

Author's note: although the exericse states to write up to age ten, I was 13-14 yrs old when I saw God in the heavens. That is my first "nice memory" of myself....(save the times I was hyperactively laughing with other children over plain ole silliness).

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Little One© is copywritten by Simone Chalfy 7.21.2024 All rights reserved.