I Believed My Little Girl

“Janie, oh how I dreaded that name! It made me sound like such a little kid when I was the only one that’s good for anything; daddy said so. They didn’t even have a real God. “Not like mine!”

My little girl butts in, “You’re not writing this right”. “Quit trying and start being, remember?”

We giggled together as I asked, “Who is truthing this, anyway?” Janie and I chimed in, “Both of us, Jinx! No give backs.”

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Let’s begin again.

My name is Jane Louise, if you please! My best friends are Dorothy of OZ, Alice, and Secret Garden Mary; they are just like me. We made up our own special games like Freeze don’t even breathe, Pretend it’s a lie, and No friend of mine. And my real best friend, still, is God. When it was bad, God haloed all around me and I could not tell if I was being him or he was being me, ALWAYS!

He gave me all my “knowings” that told me to run and catch her or sent a picture in my head of an unknown room. The big ones were like thunderstorms a comin’; “We won't live here next year” or “You’ll never live to see me grow up, Daddy.”

Just don't ever tell!!! They all called me “crazy'' except grandma; she called me “God’s grace”.

Then I threw up and Janie said it best, “A happy, snappy, take a nappy. Just like pappy, that mean, old nasty drunk!”

God always had a hand in it – we were sent to “rehab”.
Reality struck like lightning, Jellinek, laundry list, battered wife syndrome…my life was killing us. Janie was terrified, “Are they gonna lock you up... like them?”

Treatment spoke of powerlessness, we both agreed. “It will never work”. We will lose control if we lose control.

Back home, we did the work. A feeling chart hung up on the fridge. “Feelings?” Janie whispered, “Cuz God is a feeling!” Journaling every day, “I have a right to happiness just cuz I was born?”

A N G E R!! I warned my therapist, “If I get really angry, I’m afraid I could kill someone, like my brother.” Confessing, “He killed an undercover cop the winter after my father died when I was 12.” Janie was terrified, “He will know!”

Comforting her, ”We are safe now it’s time to tell about family.” Janie helped, “Remember the signs on the walls, danger to self and others.” The truth be told, the ACOA way.

Then all my “isms” made sense.
“No wonder we are the way we are! It’s what happened to us; it is not who we are!”

WE have a choice now!!!

Suddenly, all the love songs on the radio sang about valiant us, Me, Janie and God; all on the same page. We felt lighter, brighter, and loved just like the velveteen rabbit.

Forty years later, Janie’s trustworthy premonitions came true, “I saw an old lady with a big smile, writing her stories.”