Margaret - In memoriam

Margaret Mae

"great child of light"

Born: May, 19??

Died: ????

I don't even know where to start. The emotions, the grieving, are still so disconnected from me. They belong to another part of me, one I am just getting to know. In her mind, she sees a tiny baby girl with smiling eyes and chubby cheeks. Coupled with that is an image of a curly-haired two-year old being ripped from her arms. There is an aching void that can't be filled. She has been holding these emotions at bay for many years. There's a tremendous fear that if she dips her toes into this enormous ocean of pain that she'll drown. Better to stay on the beach where it's safe, but the water is beckoning. She's wondering if it's finally time to risk the plunge. Remembering is dangerous. And painful. I want to hold this part of me and give her answers, but I don't have them. She questions why it had to happen, and all I can say is that they were bad people. Her angst is mine, and yet not mine.

Fragments come and like individual puzzle pieces, don't make sense until they are all connected and the whole picture can be seen. So much unknown. So many questions. How can you comprehend the incomprehensible? How do I convey what's inside so that you, the reader, the voyeur into my life, can grasp the magnitude of what's happened, when I myself can't wrap my mind around it?

What I know is that Margaret deserves to be remembered. She deserves to be recognized as a living being. Her life deserves to be acknowledged, regardless of how short it was. And the blame needs to be placed squarely on the shoulders of those who took it.

For them to snuff it out as if it didn't mean anything is bad enough, but to say it was our fault, that's reprehensible. How can there be an expectation that a young girl will produce the perfect child? It is God who creates and knits together in the mother's womb. He forms each life with care and precision, lovingly crafted. Yet, in the secret, dark places, there is self-blame. Shouldn't a mother have done more to protect her child? Shouldn't she have sacrificed her own life to save her child's? She doesn't deserve to be a mother. She can't be trusted with another child. But since all the circumstances have not yet been revealed, there is no way to refute these lies. They were more powerful. They were cunning and deceitful. They placed impossible demands on those who could not fulfill them.

Who are "they?" I'm unable to go there, to that place of acknowledging who "they" are. Better to keep them as strange enigmas - faceless, nameless. It keeps it from being too real. They still hold so much power, yet they have lost just as much - thank God! His Spirit is gently leading us into more truth.

Who is "us?" I'm a multiple. I proudly admit that I had the strength and courage to survive for the simple reason that God gave me the ability to split into different personalities. Without that, I would have been left with little choice but to lose my mind or die. His grace to me is unfathomable. His mercy even greater.

Part of living, rather than just surviving, is the ability to appreciate the difficulties that life brings. At times, I actually find myself thankful for what I've experienced and life as a multiple because I know that it has made me who I am. I know, too, that God had a plan from before I was born, to use my life as a testimony to bring healing and freedom to many who have experienced similar abuse.

As I move deeper into the waters with those parts of me who are overwhelmed and afraid, I hope that I can find whatever is there to be thankful for. The gold nuggets among the mountains of feces. Margaret's life is one of those gold nuggets, and as I dig through the stench and waste, I have to believe that there are more.

12/29/05

I was cleaning out drawers today and found an old book of poems that I had written in 2001. I started reading through them and I was caught off guard by one in particular. At the time I wrote it, I had been cleaning the kitchen in our home and there was a fly, still alive, caught in a spider's web. I found myself sobbing inconsolably on the floor, wondering why it was affecting me so deeply. I realized, today, that I was really writing about Margaret. Even before I knew of Margaret's life, part of me was crying out, expressing the pain over the loss of her child. This poem was previously untitled, but I think an appropriate title would be The Cycle of Life:

The fly entangled
in the spider’s deadly web,
crying out in fright
and anticipation.
Panic, confusion.
No real comprehension
that this is the end.
No one can save him.
He cannot save himself.
The more he works
the less free he becomes.
I cover my ears so I will not hear
- but his death screams
pierce my heart.
Helpless, I weep as I see one
struggle for freedom.
Stop the struggle!
The struggle ensnares!
I long to reach in and pluck
the helpless creature
from his deathbed.
But the damage has been done.
And the cycle of life would be broken.
I sink to the floor and moan
as I struggle to understand
the horror of death and helplessness.
Creatures who seem to be created only for food,
to feed those bigger than itself.
Is that its sole purpose?
Is there nothing special about this tiny creature?
It’s own purpose to fulfill?
Or is it just food
- to be eaten and forgotten?
As if it never existed.

9-8-01

To be continued...