The Sweetness That Survived: A Love Letter to the Inner Child

Today, a little dive into the past. Well, my past. Some good stuff this time, I promise. 

I remember Popsicles. I remember their sweet syrupy sticky meltingness dripping off my chin and tacking my fingers together on a hot prairie afternoon. I remember banana-flavoured popsicles that didn't taste like bananas. I remember rainbow popsicles - and just how did they know what a rainbow tastes like anyway?

I remember Fudgsicles, ice-creamy gooey glops down the front of my bathing suit, a chocolate smile extending beyond my frozen lips.

I remember dirt between my toes as I walked barefoot to the corner store with a grimy nickel in my sweaty palm, wondering which delights I would purchase from the penny candy shelf.  Mojos, Bazooka Joe, jawbreakers, Pixie Stix, Lik-M-Aid, ju-jubes, licorice strings...half the fun was in contemplating the choices, a decision as enormous as a corporate CEO would make. I could have been Bill Gates deciding how to spend his billions.

I remember weighing up the likability factor against the number of goodies I could actually get with two-for-ones and which two of which ones?  I remember spending my grimy nickel wisely, as wisely as I could but sometimes regretting my choices and learning from that.  I remember making numerous other choices I would later regret and I remember deciding regret was a waste of time and energy.  So I try to ignore it. I try to swallow "live and learn" instead.

I remember my friend, Warren, had Lite-Brite and we played with it a lot.  I remember playing with Mr Potato Head at his house, too, and that was when it didn't have a plastic body. It was just a box of plastic parts and you were supposed to use a real potato. Hence the name. I remember his mom let us do that, but mine wouldn’t have.

I remember that my friends had all the good toys, all the cool stuff that I so wished I could have. I remember my excitement at getting a second-hand Etch-A-Sketch from Mrs. Wright down the street.  I remember one of the knobs was broken and it hurt my fingers to twist the little metal bit that stuck out but it worked and I adored my broken Etch-A-Sketch.

I remember being in Grade 2 and wanting tap-dancing lessons after seeing my friend, Patsy Lee Adams, at a talent show at school. I remember how cute she was, with her perky bright smile, her black leotard, and black kitty ears perched on her head as she tapped her way through the Alley Cat Song, click, click, tap, tap, heel, toe, heel, toe, click, click, click.

I remember pop bottles hanging by their necks like the condemned in those big square fridges that open from the top. Drop in your 15¢ and slide a bottle along its track until it pops out at the end.

I remember Thrills, that weird purple chewing gum that tasted like soap and had the hard Chiclets-type coating. I remember that they were only 5¢ a box when Chiclets were 10¢. And I remember that if you spelled Chiclets backward, the letters would stand for Stupid Teacher Eats Lousy Chiclets In Her Class and we all thought that was hilarious, except that Chiclets weren't lousy.

I remember how huge our front steps seemed. We left that house when I was 8 and now those steps look so tiny it took ages for me to recognise the house on Google maps. I remember Mrs Pells next door, who used to babysit me now and then. She always said she cried every time I left because she wanted me to stay and live with her. I remember feeling special when I heard those words, something I never felt at home.

I remember Katepwa Lake and our little cabin with two tiny bedrooms. I remember the plastic floral cover on the table by the window where we ate before walking to the beach. I remember the cool darkness of the store there, the slam of the screen door behind me as I left the hot summer sun outside. I remember seeing a skunk outside our cabin and telling my friends it was my pet. Oh, to be five again when you don't know you're lying and you think you're just wishing and you believe that wishing is enough to make it so.

I remember my first day of school and Miss Sparling did not have hair and fangs after all, and my brother was a big fat liar.

I remember Cracker Jack and the great prizes inside. I remember loving the peanuts more than the popcorn. I remember Pink Elephant popcorn, too, and I can still taste its delicious pinkness 60 years on.

I remember the clothesline in the back of the house, and wishing I could ride back and forth suspended from it like the clothes. I remember loving clothes pins. I thought they were the coolest things ever.

I remember when we turfed the wringer washer and got our first automatic washing machine. I remember being scared to death that it was going to blow up on its maiden cycle. I remember running upstairs, begging my mother to come with me so she wouldn't be killed. I remember being terrified when she stayed put right beside the evil, spinning, churning, loud machine that rattled and wobbled on the unevent cement floor of the basement.

I remember that time seemed to stand still when I was a little kid. I remember looking forward to my next birthday party, and to adding another number to my age but not understanding that getting older had anything to do with growing up — and the little kid who still lives and breathes behind the eyes people see when they look at me still doesn't understand. She's front and center, eternally five, always looking for an opportunity to make mud pies or play in the sand box or use finger paints or hope for the sweet syrupy sticky meltingness of another Popsicle.

Is there a kid just behind your eyes, too?

For a long time, I didn’t think I had many happy memories. Just a few scattered sparkles — tiny, flickering moments of joy trying to survive in a much darker story. The painful ones were louder. Sharper. They took up all the space. But after years of healing, of sifting through the rubble and letting the wounds breathe… more of the sweet ones began to surface. Quietly. Patiently. As if they’d been waiting for the hurt to soften enough to let them through.

And that’s where this next part of the story begins…

It used to be that from a childhood that was unbearably toxic, dark and painful, I had only a handful of happy memories. I've thought of those pleasant bits and pieces throughout my life, a smattering here, a sprinkling there, an isolated drop of uncomplicated bliss now and then for good measure. But it's only when they appear together in one recipe that they allow me to properly enjoy them.

Carefully folded together, they create a light and fluffy soufflé of childhood delights, their blended deliciousness giving my childhood the slightest hint of sweetness which, over time, is like adding a few drops of pretty red food colouring to a bowl of standing water.  Softly, gently, eventually they convince the water that they should blend and flow together with it, not so you'd notice, not to be intrusive. But there comes a day when you can see that every pink drop of water has been sweetly kissed for its own benefit.

Very few of the mouth-watering morsels of memory that I have seduced into letting me taste them contain even one tiny hint of my family. Almost all of the deliciousness is family-free but loaded with the best preservatives a memory can offer.

I've spent decades healing the pain and trauma from those years, coming to terms with the damage that was done by my family, making peace with it, finding purpose in it, and healing from it, which has allowed me to help bring healing to others. 

How wonderful to have done all of that, but then to have gone one step beyond the healing and be able to unearth happy memories about my family.  What a beautiful gift to look back and smile warmly on those images. How lovely that I'm no longer just gathering what I need, checking out and then leaving the shop, but I'm actually stopping and looking at the lovely pastries there on display and allowing myself to contemplate and taste their yumminess.  

That makes the shopping trip much more palatable.

I remember 745 Williams Street in Regina like I was just there yesterday. I loved that house so much. I remember that little bookcase in the front hallway. It was filled with an encyclopedia set, and on the top shelf was a bust of my dad — which was eventually broken by accident. There was a mirror above the bookcase, where my mother used to check her hair and lipstick before going out.

There were hardwood floors everywhere, shining and perfect after my mother's regular polishing with that peculiar gadget that had fluffy bits snapped onto the brushes. That thing used to scare the pants off me; I have no idea why. My mother took great pride in having a clean and tidy house so and in making sure she looked her best at all times. I remember her horror at making pickled beets one day, her hands ruby-stained when she had an I.O.D.E. meeting that night. She was grateful that women wore gloves back then.

My mother wasn't big on sewing so it was a big deal that when I was six, I was standing on a stool as she pinned and measured a pretty blouse and jumper for me.  

I remember having several large boxes in the basement, and my brother and I stuck them together in a long sort of train-cars effort, using top and bottom flaps for doors, or taping them together where needed. I drew pictures on the inside of my half with crayons, images of framed paintings hanging on the walls, or a picture of a table with a vase of flowers or other pretend furnishings in my 'house'. I can still smell the fresh cardboard and Crayola wax.  

We took a couple of bedroom lamps inside; Dad must have given us an extension cord. I loved it in there. I was lost in fantasies of playing "house" in my head with some as-yet-unknown husband and children. My secret hideaway where I could be happy and take myself out of my painful life, even if only for those few precious moments.

It lasted only a few days. I suppose I was enjoying it too much so my brother reverted to his usual tactics and destroyed it, laughing all the while as I cried.

I loved my mother so much as a little girl, in spite of Things Unmentionable Here. I worshipped her. I thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world. I loved her soft blonde hair and her pretty blue eyes. She always wore dresses back then, never trousers until sometime after we moved to Calgary when I was eight. Her dresses were so pretty, tight to the waist with full, twirling skirts.  

Well, she wasn't making them twirl. She was far too serious for that. But they were full skirts, with loads of fabric and would have floated and billowed around her like beautiful soft clouds if only she had twirled. I couldn't — and still can't — imagine wearing a dress like that and NOT twirling.

Perhaps if she could have twirled, she might have found just one reason to smile. Perhaps, if I could have been the one to make her twirl, she might have liked me, just a little.

Saturday nights there was always a bath because of church on Sundays. That meant washing my hair and having it curled, too. Sometimes my mother did it at the kitchen table. It was my job to hand the bobby pins to her, to be ready to give her one as she needed them. But in between, I laid out the other pins and made words or pictures of houses and the other few things I could think of that only required straight lines.

Desperate to be 'the good girl' in hopes of being liked someday, I did my best to keep one bobby pin tightly pinched between my thumb and index finger, holding it up near my shoulder to make it easy for my mother to take.  

Sometimes hair-curling took place in the living room during Hockey Night In Canada. I sat on the step-stool, the tub of bobby pins on my lap, my brother on the floor, my dad in his armchair, and the three of them were yelling at the likes of Bobby Orr, Frank Mahovlich, Bobby Hull — yes, my mother was yelling at them, too. I loved Hockey Night In Canada, not because I had a clue about the sport, but because we were all together in one room for a little while, and nothing bad was happening. 

My dad wasn't home a lot back then, but when he was, he would tuck me in at bedtime, laying his hand on the side of my face or stroking my hair and saying, "You know something?" and I'd say "What?" (knowing perfectly well 'what') and he'd say "I love you."  He said it many times throughout my life too, the "Q & A" always being our little ritual. How I ache to hear his beautiful soothing voice now, and feel his loving touch on my face, but he returned to spirit many years ago.

My mother almost never tucked me in. There were a handful of these rare occasions over the years. Out of the blue, there she'd be - I remember at least once or twice it was at my very brave request, asking if she would come and say goodnight to me, heaven only knows what gave me the courage to ask or to think she would comply. But she did. And I felt so special ... so momentarily special and maybe even liked a little, even if only while she perched uncomfortably on the side of my bed and said a few awkward words about having a good sleep.  

A time or two, there was an unnatural and embarrassed pat on my arm.  Unnatural and embarrassed for both of us and how I ached for a hug but it was never her way.

I remember a couple of times she was close enough to me that I could smell the delightfully soft and comforting smell of her after-dinner coffee on her breath, and even now, if I'm close enough to someone to detect that scent, I am given the bittersweet gift of this memory and I choke back the tears.

The mind does drift and wander while reminiscing and thankfully, it has learned, after years of healing, to find the precious treasures that used to be locked away in a dusty old trunk filled with spiders and scorpions, stinging nettle and the prickliest of thistles. I learned that while I poked around in there, giving my attention to the evil and the pain that suffocated those treasures, I just had to keep digging because finally, there they were, the treasures patiently waiting their turn to sing. And they make some of the most beautiful, magical music I've ever heard.  

So beautiful, in fact, that I don't really notice the stinging biting things any more.