Memoir Q & A (Part 1)

On October 10, 2017October 10, 2017 By Alethea KehasIn Memoir, Uncategorized5 Comments

I have received several questions from readers of my memoir, A Girl Named Truth, so I thought I would start a Q & A series on my blog. Many of the questions share the same themes, and also, I feel, point to our collective universal search for peace and healing. Here are three that were posted via my author Facebook page:

A white spiral shell — A shell spirals to the center. Image credit: Pixabay.com

Have the pains that you suffered went away?

When I read this question, I realize how loaded it is. There are many layers of “pain” that are encased in the story of A Girl Named Truth. There is the pain of the physical body, which eventually manifested in the form of two years of debilitating IBS as an adult, and there are the emotional “pains” that were brought on by divorce, family estrangement, a difficult childhood, and an adolescent filled with bullying and insecurities. Yet, these are all connected, and the body of pain is the physical manifestation of the mind’s trauma. We often trap our stories in our bodies, and the emotions that go with them linger and can lead to dis-ease, and various diseases.

In my memoir, I reveal that on Mother’s Day of 2008 I experienced my last night of interrupted sleep curtesy of my body’s battle with IBS. In his book, Quantum Healing, Deepak Chopra talks about the intimate connection the mind has to the body. It is so intimate, he shows us, that the mind is ultimately what heals the body. By mind I am referring to an awareness and decision to heal that often surpasses the brain’s logic and comprehension. Herein lies the concept of miracle healings and cures. I believe that on Mother’s Day of 2008, I had forged an agreement with my mind and body that it was time to heal, and I did.

Although the nightly episodes of IBS stopped that night, the healing, in essence, had just begun. The contract I had made between my mind and my body, I came to realize, included the release of the stories that I had so long held trapped inside of my belly. And so I began to write. As I wrote, I healed, layer by layer, and I am still healing. I believe life is like spiral back to the center, and with each turn of the circle, as we walk closer to true being, we heal another layer of our story of life.

So, to answer this question in more simple form, I would have to say yes, and also no. The physical pain of IBS is no longer playing out in my body, and with it I have reduced much of the emotional pain. Yet, I still walk the spiral, and with each turn I visit another layer that wants to be exposed, examined and healed. For example, even though I have come to the place of acceptance, I still feel the inner child’s yearning for unconditional mother-love. In additional, old patterns around self-worth and rejection still resurface in new forms, and I am reminded that I am a human who is still learning how to be whole.

What is your current relationship with your father?

Without giving away too much of the already written story, I will say that the memoir was deliberately written to form a symbolic circle. In essence, it begins and ends with my relationship to my father, but there is no epilogue. Also a deliberate choice, as I wanted to inspire a forum for discussion, such as this one, and the story is still being played out.

I have seen my father only once since the time period covered in the book, but I have talked with him often. Although we are still learning about what it means to form a father-daughter relationship as adults, we continue to inch our way closer to the center. Our reunion has been one of the greatest and most healing gifts of this journey. Although we have lived through a troubled past, mostly individually, he was able to accept my gift of my story with grace and gratitude. There has been no judgement or animosity. Instead, he has thanked me, as well as shown compassion and a willingness to help, in his own way, to weave back more of the threads of separation. He knows I love him, and I know he loves me, and that now underlies everything else. Its has become our new foundation in the journey we share together.

Do you have peace after completing the book?

Another loaded question. The simple answer is yes. It took me nine years, from when I started writing my stories, to the release of the book into the world. Even after I wrote them down, I began to realize I was still holding them close. They were no longer inside of me, but they were like a cloak, covering me. It was an act of protection, and releasing them into the world was both necessary and incredibly vulnerable. I knew I needed to release the cloak, but I didn’t realize how naked I would feel. Yet, the day after I hit the button to release the book out into the world, I found myself sitting quietly on my sofa and realizing that all I felt was peace. A deep, quiet and profound feeling of inner peace. I had birthed my book into being, and now it was no longer just mine. Like a child, I could continue to grow with it, but it was now ready to take on a life of its own. And, like most children, it has received acceptance from some, and not from others. What matters most though, is that I have let it go, and hopefully it will find a healing place in the world.

I want to thank my readers for their questions, and welcome the sending of more. Questions can be posted here, on my Facebook page, or sent directly to me at aekehas@gmail.com.

“Eamon” v. “Elizabeth”

On January 11, 2016January 11, 2016 By Alethea KehasIn Memoir, Uncategorized2 Comments

Second in the series about the power of names and what we can learn from them.

On August 30, 1973 a child was born inside the bedroom of a tiny house that looks like a milk carton. She was supposed to be a boy.

“Dave [my father] always wanted you to be a boy,” my mother often told me.

“I thought you were going to be a boy,” my father tells me now.

All wrapped up its hard to tell the truth

She was given the name Alethea Eamon Fischer. Alethea for the truth that cannot be agreed upon.

My mother tells me she found the name in a book. My father, that it was from the 1973 episode of Kung Fu with Jodi Foster called “Alethea,” which aired months before my birth.

My mother tells me it was a typical rainy day in Portland on the afternoon of my birth, my father remembers sun. He’s the one who gave me my middle name. Eamon became my demon. As I grew this name fueled the fire in my belly and the hatred I tried to harbor against my father.

“He never really cared about you girls,” my mother would tell us. How could he, I would think, if he gave me this name?

When I was a child I longed for an ordinary middle name, like Ann or Marie. Like the middle names my friends had. When they would ask me what my middle name was, I would refuse to tell them.

I tried to hide my middle name until it was shared without my permission, on the graduation program at the end of the 6th grade. There it was for everyone to see, beside my misspelt first name. “Eamon.”

No one said anything until the 8th grade, when I heard it sung down the hallways from the voices of boys becoming men. Each splintered note stabbed my heart and flared the fire in my cheeks.

It was a tool of hatred, of shame, of regret. My father’s gift to remind me I was the boy he didn’t get. It was the demon I held inside of me, reminding me why I shouldn’t love him. And it was the knife that stabbed through my thinning layer of self-esteem wielded by my former best-friends’ boyfriends.

I couldn’t wait for the day to come when I could get rid of it.

When I was 18, my mother, sister and I booked the appointment and spent a pleasant afternoon debating our choices. We settled on Elizabeth for me. My maternal grandmother’s and great-grandmother’s name. Elizabeth, one of those names that any girl might have.

When I signed the paper with my new name I thought I was erasing the boy that was never born. I thought I was one step closer to erasing the man who I thought never wanted me. A father who never could have loved me.

I was wrong.

“Leethie”

On January 9, 2016January 9, 2016 By Alethea KehasIn Memoir, Uncategorized6 Comments

I believe strongly in the cathartic power of writing. The energy of our words can free the trapped energy of our emotions, providing us with a pathway to our Light and truth. I am starting to offer workshops on spiritual writing that will focus on understanding the self through the written word. In the first series, we’ll be exploring who we are through the names we are given by others and the names we give ourselves. In this blog, I will be sharing my own written words around the stories of my names. Here is one:

“Leethie”

It’s just three months into my first year at Bowdoin when the phone rings beside my roommate’s desk. I watch her pick it up, listen, then hand it over to me. It’s my mother.

“Dave [my birthfather] called. He wanted me to tell you his mother died.”

While my mother talks, I stand beside my roommate’s desk, emotionless. I can feel her eyes on me, questioning, but I ignore them.

“How’d she die?” I ask.

“I don’t know. He didn’t share.”

I can tell she’s already annoyed, she always is when my birthfather is a (rare) topic of conversation, so I don’t press it. Instead, I let her move on to other topics, half-listening as she shares stories about what has been happening in town during my absence.

While my mother talks, I think about the grandmother who, when I was very young and she was happy to be with me, used to call me “Leethie.” I feel the warm wrap of a name that was only hers to give me, until I remember the grandmother who seemed to have forgotten she had two granddaughters across the country. I recall how quickly the gifts sent from Oregon on my birthday and Christmas disappeared after I said goodbye to her when I was thirteen. I think about how soon she became just “Grammy” in quotes signed on a card, then nothing at all.

While my mother talks, I realize I cannot remember the last time I heard my grandmother’s voice, or if she ever told me she loved me.

My roommate looks at me when I hang up the phone, her face a mask of concern. “Are you okay?”

In response, I tell her I’m fine. I tell her that my grandmother has recently died, but that I’m okay because we were not close.

My roommate looks at me like I’m a freak, and I realize if she had just lost her grandmother, she would be devastated. The emotionless words that have left my mouth mirror my truth on the surface. I honestly don’t know what I feel after hearing the news that Grammy is dead. Tears do not grace my face, nor do they simmer near the surface, waiting for a private moment to erupt.

I can almost ignore the loss that hides deep within me. I have gotten used to its heavy weight. In that unreachable place, I realize there will never be a chance for reunion. Grammy will never hear my side of the story, and I will never be able to show her that young girl, barely a teenager, signing the papers to make her mother and stepfather happy. But, I don’t know if I care. Loyalty, on that day when I am 19, is still heavily weighted on the side of my mother’s truths.