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If you have been reading these excerpts from Chapter One of my memoir, The Sum of My Parts: A Survivor's Story of Dissociative Identity Disorder, you know it emphasizes the healing process and the nature of resilience. However these installments from Chapter One contain some descriptions of violence only for the purposes of illustrating why and how dissociative identity disorder is formed. If you are a survivor of violence or someone sensitive to these scenes, please take care in reading these installments.
The Sum of My Parts
Chapter 1: Installment 6 of 6
After that, I stayed home with my father during the day. My brothers went to the park or their friends' houses to play, or their friends would come and play in our backyard. Often I asked to go with my brother Mike, but Popi said I wasn't allowed to play with boys. I didn't have any friends my age because I wasn't in school yet and only spoke Spanish. Since my father now had access to me during the day as well as at night, he began to abuse me more.
I felt lost and scared without Doña Graciela and thought about her all the time. I knew her schedule very well and imagined myself in her house, just through the wall, holding her hand as we went down the steep basement stairs. I worried that, without me, she would fall and no one would be home for hours to help her. I worried that she would burn herself while ironing. I worried that she would forget to turn off the iron and unplug it. That had been my job. She had said, "Olguita, my love, you are too small to iron, but you can help me remember to turn off the iron, okay?" I wondered, Who lis¬tens to novelas with her? Who's making her laugh? Popi didn't let me watch Dark Shadows, so I felt I wasn't keeping up with the story. Who covers Doña Graciela when she naps? I tried to nap at the same time I thought she would be sleeping, but Popi would come find me if I was in my bed. So I stopped napping.
I often sat by the wall at the top of the stairs, near the statues of Saint Joseph and the Virgin Mary, and prayed. I listened for Doña Graciela through the wall our houses shared. Popi caught me sitting there a few times and told me that Doña Graciela didn't want me anymore, so I should stop listening for her. So then I started spending a lot of time up against the wall under my bed, holding the rosary Doña Graciela had given me and praying.
Doña Graciela was so alone during the days with her daughter working and her granddaughter in school. I decided I wanted to see her. Even though I couldn't go to her house, I thought I might be able to run into her in some other way. So I started walking around the block to see if I might catch her on the back porch shaking out her rugs. I played ball in the backyard and kicked the ball into her yard. After hopping the fence to retrieve the ball, I walked slowly, searching her windows to see if she was looking at me. But I didn't see her. A few times I even kicked the ball so it fell down her basement stairs. Still, no Doña Graciela. I had no one.
• • •
My mom also looked for ways to escape the terror of our home, but other than work she didn't have many options. She didn't have friends because my father made her stay at home unless she was at work. But on the weekends, my mom escaped into the backyard to garden. She spent hours pruning her red and orange roses, smelling and admiring them one after another. She wore green cloth gloves with flowers on them and handled the roses very carefully. I would watch her gingerly pull on a thorny stem to bring one to her face, look at the flower very closely, smell deeply, and sigh. "What's wrong?" I'd ask, but she usually didn't respond. Mame often seemed not to notice that I was in the backyard with her. I wanted to know what she smelled that would make her sigh in such a sad way. What's sad about the flowers? They are bright and beautiful. When I reached out to the roses and grabbed their stems, I only felt the pain of the thorns so I never did smell them. I didn't like roses.
My mother had many garden tools, but I wasn't allowed to touch them, so I dug in the dirt with my hands. I loved that. The dirt was dark, rich, and cold, and every so often I would taste some of it. I liked its gritty flavor but had to do it when my mother wasn't looking or she'd scold me.
Mame took her time digging, planting new flowers, and picking dead flowers off the plants. She stared at the flowers with a blankness that made me think she wasn't really there. I often sat with her and asked her questions in an effort to connect with her. I wanted so badly to see a look in her eyes that showed me she loved me. But on many days I never found it. So instead I would play with our three dogs or look for one of the turtles that hung out in our backyard.
The turtles fascinated me. They were the size of both of my small hands held together. I squatted over them for hours and rubbed my hand softly against their shells. Their shells felt cool like dirt, and they felt rough and sleek at the same time, with wrinkles around their neck and legs, reminding me of Doña Graciela. I would lightly touched a turtle's head and watch it recoil into its shell. For what seemed like hours, I would patiently watch and wait for the turtle's head to slowly come back out. When her head peeked out, I lightly touched it again, and poof, she went back into her shell. I thought, A hard shell like this could protect me too if I had one, and wondered if I could make a shell-something I could curl up inside of for protection.
• • •
Later that summer, on one especially hot, humid day, I saw Doña Graciela outside hanging clothes to dry. I ran out the back door and greeted her enthusiastically. "¡Hola, Doña Graciela!" She responded with her calm and loving smile and came over to the fence. I climbed halfway up the fence and reached up to her as she leaned over and hugged me. She told me she loved me. My heart filled with so much love I thought I would pop. I asked if I could come visit her, and she said that my father would not permit it. Crying hopelessly, I melted into a pool of tears and fell to the ground. Doña Graciela reached down, gripped my hand tightly, and lifted me back onto my feet. She told me that she still loved me, even though my father did not want her around anymore. She kissed my hand and told me I should start going to the community center, that there were good people there and many kids to play with. Before turning away, she whispered that she was watching my father, listening to him through the wall, and keeping an eye on me. She didn't say what I longed to hear, which was that she had worked it out for me and my mom to move in with her. But I felt a little better anyway, and I started to think about going to the community center.
Doña Graciela had done everything she could to help. I'll never forget her and her seemingly ordinary acts of kindness. To this day, when I talk about Doña Graciela or write about my time with her, I still feel the power of her love in my life.
The Sum of My Parts is now in stock at New Harbinger Publications
For more information on Olga's work see www.olgatrujillo.com
