Life in the "Fat" Lane

So perhaps you have a more or less vivid picture of my early life. I should make the important note here that regardless of the sad experiences in my early childhood that would affect the rest of my life, I grew up knowing I was unconditionally loved in a family that was far from perfect.

 My mother probably over loved me, if there is such a thing. She would smile at me sometimes and my heart would just sing and I would smile right back at her. After all, my sister and I had become her reason for living. Her reason for putting up with my father for so long. Her love was never doubted for an instant by me. She loved me as much as she could, not just with things, or financial help, but with emotional issues as well.

My mother had a great deal to say about my growing up. She decided after my father died that she would take me and my sister down to the country (about 50 miles outside of Columbia, SC) where she grew up. She asked her mother, who was a widower and lived alone, and had a nice sized farm house if we could come and live with her. Her mother said no. I can't even imagine what that must have felt like when the one person in the world you believe you can count on, lets you down. I talked with my mom about that much later in our lives and she shared that it turned out for the best but at the time it was devastating to her. We were just kids and had no idea. She never let us know about it, she never acted hurt in front of us. She never disparaged our grandmother other than to tell us to "please don't let me get like that when I get old". We understood somewhat because Myra could certainly cause a stir when she wanted to.


It was really a hard decision my mother had to make so that Beth and I would grow up in a good home with nice things and be secure. She knew she wasn't able to supply all we needed on her nurses salary alone so she made the best decision she could. She was asked by my father's parents if we would like to live with them for a while. The truth is, we had been living with them for a while already, even when my father was killed. So it wasn't unusual for Beth and me to want to stay somewhere that was familiar and somewhat stable and secure. I worshiped my Grandad and Grandma and it was a great set up as far as I could tell. Of course I was just a kid and unaware of ALL the politics, personal attitudes, privacy issues, and probably most difficult to swallow, co- parenting.

You see, you have to remember, my sister and I were blood kin, but my mother was not. We had a special connection to their son but my mother was just the foolish woman who should have never married the alcoholic in the first place. I know, kind of hard to swallow. Imagine what my mother felt like. She had to "suck hind tit" for a long time while living at 515 Sunset Drive. If you are unfamiliar with the term of sucking hind tit, just watch a bunch of puppies nursing on their mothers tits. They certainly all don't go for the one closest to her butt, ie. "hind tit".


Our grandparents had very determined ideas of how children should be raised and how they should act. For the most part my mother was in agreement with them but there were times when they would over step their bounds and mama would just have to listen and take it so as not to upset the equilibrium of the home.  A lot of these issues had to do with my sister and her dating. And sometimes my gaining weight. My mother would swallow the pill down hard and help me to do the same with a great big old fried chicken leg. AND some homemade biscuits and maybe a little mac and cheese, you get the picture. We all have coping mechanisms and this is one that I learned rather well. After all, we are talking about two grown women living under the same roof. Just like the lady who backed into the fan...eventually- disaster.

There are always stories in families closets that no one is supposed to ever address or talk about regardless of who is getting hurt. Those people were me and my sister. We early on started picking up on the "remarks" that were made by my grandmother about my mother. Not in an "in your face" kind of way but a sly southern style gentile way only my grandmother could do. Making sure you could never really call her on it because she had left enough wiggle room for escape should the escape be necessary. So many comments that were intended to be heard by my mother (who I worshiped and thought could do no wrong) by my grandmother of which I also thought very highly.

These would sometimes result in full out fights between my grandmother and my mother with each of them angrily yelling at each other and Beth and me crying and begging them to stop. It wasn't very often mind you but the message was always loud and clear. We were reminded that we were "guests" in this home and we needed to remember that.

I tell you all of this so you can see the need for a young boy to find more and more comfort in food. And once again my mother was the best of cooks. I can't really do her justice with words it was just something that if you were blessed to have experienced it then you know what I mean. She cooked and we ate. She put on weight and I put on weight. Beth was discovered to have been found under a rock shortly after her birth so she didn't have the genetic predisposition that my mother and I shared to put on the weight and keep it on. We loved food and had that love in common. My foundation for the fat battle of my life was finding a strong place in which to sink it's roots to make sure the fat would be in place for a long long time to come.
Amazing how something that you have to do, such as eating, can be so enjoyable and lead to a road of sadness and destruction.

I still don't understand how my sister kept from having a weight problem. Other than the fact that she chews each bite about 194 times until it has digested mostly in her mouth. Furthermore, the bite that she has taken must be exactly formulated to match every other bite on her plate. Perhaps this was her way of handling the stress in her life. She may have battled 5 or 10 pounds but nothing like the hundreds of pounds my mother and I had accumulated. She must have gotten more genes from my dad because he never had a weight issue either. Go figure, although I have never seen a really fat alcoholic, have you?

Life at "Rose Manor" as my grandmother had named it was a pretty great experience as I remember, not taking into account that I was losing my battle with food. I mean I wasn't terribly fat but sure was a lot fatter than any of my friends. And thankfully I had a good number of friends. I had lots of good relationships from our church youth group that I loved dearly. But school was the exact opposite. Although having an above average IQ I struggled in school because I was embarrassed so much of the time because of being fat.

Fat is the last acceptable prejudice that is still politically correct. My friends at church were Christians and the love of God was in them and they saw beyond a fat kid and allowed my true nature to shine. I had a good sense of humor, was fun to be around, I was smart and gave good advice. So my friends at church would have been astounded to see timid David hardly talking to anyone, walking alone down the halls and sitting alone at lunch, when I ate lunch.

I could not comfortably sit in the seats at school. It was so embarrassing. Experiencing puberty was bad enough but being a fat kid along with that was well, can I just say "Hell". I would not repeat that time in my life again for anything.

(to be continued)