Walking Softly in A Leafy Forest: On Salvaging

The question is, do you feel like you are missing a limb? Do you still feel powerless? Do you feel that large man leaning over you? Do you still hear his voice in your head?

When my husband was nine, he went roller skating and hit a fire hydrant. The doctor took an X-ray of his leg. “What he has,” the doctor told his mother, “is called osteosarcoma.” She looked confused. “Bone cancer.” They decided to wait; see what happened next. The bone cancer grew. Every year, another scan.

In another year, he would have been dead, but that year, he had a chance of surviving if the doctor performed what was known as “limb salvage surgery.” By the time he was eleven, while there was still a chance of saving his leg, they did the surgery. During this procedure, they cut the cancer out and replaced part of that bone with a graft from his hip. He was left with two large scars: one on his leg, one on his hip.

During the week he was at the hospital recovering from surgery, his family never visited him. His father hated hospitals and refused to go. His only visitor was Kevin, a friend of his brother. Within a year, his mother had left his father, taking along young Kevin and little eleven-year-old Mark with them. But that’s another story—a story that ends with my husband and his friend, Kelly, living in the woods in Big Bear as teenagers, getting an apartment, and learning to live on rice.

But the story of his bone cancer is a story of childhood neglect, being ignored in a time of crisis. While Mark was in the hospital, he read books and ate little bowls of green Jello. When he came home, he was on crutches. He didn’t know until he was an adult that up to 40% of kids with osteosarcoma lose their limbs.

After the surgery, he should have had chemotherapy. Without chemotherapy, his odds of survival were low. He was eleven and left out of the conversation, so he had no idea what made his parents decide to pass on chemo. He has theories. He was the youngest. They had two other kids. Who knows?

When we met, we compared scars. Both of us grew up within situations of extreme neglect. I had scars on my legs from burns and falling on rusty nails and not being taken to the hospital, despite the seriousness of my injuries.

I grew up in a cult. A cult is a community where one person controls the members’ realities: where they work, who they sleep with, their money, and every other aspect of their lives. The man who controlled my life was George.

My friend Helen and I both grew up at the Farm, and we both left, but when Helen did, she didn’t have the executive function to build a life. Somehow, I found a path forward.

Many people who grew up as my husband and I did may end up with something missing. Maybe they had the limb salvaged, but there was still deep internal damage. America is full of people who grew up in households where one parent or both parents were domineering, often the father. Even if they were not in a cult, their parents could execute similar practices to make a home feel like a micro cult.

When I’ve read pieces from my memoir in progress or poems about my youth, I’ve had people come up to me and share stories about being in households where their father controlled everything about the family’s life. If your father controlled who you dated, what you did with your money, how late you stayed out at night, what kind of job you applied for, where you went to college, and who your friends were, you might have lived a cult-like life.

The question is, do you feel like you are missing a limb? Do you still feel powerless? Do you feel that large man leaning over you? Do you still hear his voice in your head?

I find myself thinking about limb salvage surgery—what we lose and what we save. Most of us don’t think about our lives as having building blocks, but they do. Some of those blocks are far out of one’s control, especially in neglectful or abusive circumstances, but at some point, most people gain autonomy. Many young adults plan to go to college. I planned badly, but I did go. You plan to get a job; you choose a spouse.

After the cult, Helen’s mother got her a job that she held briefly. Going to school and dating were not possible. Working was not possible. She didn’t drive for long. Maybe for the best, especially in the harsh winter snow. The building blocks of a common life require countless small and big decisions; a cult removes that pressure, but it steals the foundation of your life.

I’ve always told myself that because of growing up in the cult, I learned resilience, a don’t mess with me attitude, but the truth is, by the time I left the Farm, I was carrying my own salvaged limb. Everyone else seemed confident that they could make their world happen. They had a map, a code, a whole set of instructions that I had not received. I had fear. I realized in the first year that I needed to be on guard, watch carefully. I was already a step behind. I knew how to walk softly in a leafy forest. I didn’t know how to apply for a job.

When I met Mark, we spoke the same language. We had both lived in our cars. We had both had to run. When we drove up the driveway of a big house together, we gave each other side-eye. When someone started talking about their stock portfolio or their 401(k) or their Lexus or their expensive vacation, we held hands. We knew that we didn’t speak the same language.

America is a country of the haves and the have-nots. My kids didn’t know they were the have-nots until they saw Titanic, a movie that is as much about class as it is about the sinking.

“We are at the bottom of the boat!” my kids exclaimed.

“Indeed,” I said. “And the ones at the bottom of the boat don’t get into the lifeboats.”

We’ve salvaged our limbs, but sometimes, we don’t know who we are in this bright, shiny world. “Where are my manners?” I think. “Where are my good clothes? Why do I overuse the F-word? Why do I feel on the outside of something?”

Those of us with salvaged limbs never believe in our good fortune. We don’t have extra or unnecessary stuff. We don’t receive good jobs, prizes, or awards. We have learned to become invisible. But we got out. We got away. That’s our good fortune.

If you feel your family of origin allowed you a salvaged limb but didn’t help to heal you—for you, for me, for every community, for America, there is still healing. The door is open, though walking through the door is harder than most of us can imagine. You’d think healing would be a passive thing, something you could lie abed and let happen, but in fact, it is an active process. It requires intention; it takes a lifetime. But in an ideal world, we not only feel stronger, but whole.