“Good morning, sunshine,” she said, picking me up to give me a kiss.


“Sunshine” was a nickname given to me by my father. I know it came from his heart, the part of him that remained mostly closed. His heart was locked in chains. He wrestled with them, but he never found the key. Because he opened his heart long enough to give me that nickname, and because I am a Leo, worshipper of the sun, I will always treasure it.


Mom put me down and walked through the living room. She was about to step into the dining room when she gasped. Her head fell forward, and she began to make a funny noise. I didn’t know what she was doing, because I’d never seen her cry. She didn’t say a word. She just bent over and began collecting all the pearls, putting them into a square glass ashtray on the coffee table.


I went back to playing with my doll house.


My father entered the room, took one look at the pearls in the ashtray, and asked coldly, “How did you break those?”


“I didn’t break them. The baby did. It’s my own fault. I left them on the coffee table last night.” He spun around to look at me with eyes filled with rage. I had never seen him look that way before. “What did you do that for?” he yelled. “Stupid!!”


I didn’t know what stupid meant, but the tone of his voice was so frightening that I knew stupid wasn’t good. His face was bright red. He stomped over to where I


stood and grabbed my tiny wrist. He yanked my arm so hard that I fell forward onto the floor. He was overcome by a dark force that I had never experienced, and I was completely helpless. My essence was literally in his hands.


Joy and trust drained out of me as he dragged my small body across the floor. Abruptly, he stopped. Yanking my arm again, he flung me onto my back. When he reached toward my hand, I thought it was to comfort me. Instead, he struck my hand so hard that my eyes blinked and my body jerked. I felt a burning pain in my hand and in my heart. As he pulled his hand back for a second strike, my body froze in shock and fear.


Tears filled my eyes as my father’s love turned on me. His huge hand cut boo-boo’s into my small one with every repeated strike. The loving hands that I had associated with tender hugs were stealing my innocence. I closed my eyes in terror and cried so hard that I hic- cupped uncontrollably. In between hiccups I whimpered, “Stop, Daddy. Daddy, please stop.”


In those terrifying, incomprehen- sible moments, my strand broke. My father’s punishments became commonplace throughout my child- hood. His clouded intellect and unwillingness to address the root cause of his outbursts soon broke my heart.


I was just a baby. I had started life with a clean slate and a peaceful soul, character, and tempera- ment. My father interrupted my growth by filling me with fear, hurt, nervousness, and a saddened spirit.


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With every abusive episode, anoth- er piece of my soul broke away and locked itself deep in my heart. My layers of unhealthy armor became thicker with each punishment. I wore the armor to protect myself. I didn’t know that it was injuring me as much as his beatings.


The goodness of my essence would eventually be locked away in a dark dungeon, hidden from my conscious awareness. My character would have to be rebuilt slowly, one tiny sliver of light at a time.


That broken strand and the pearls that bounced and rolled away, scattering everywhere, are sym- bols of the many abusive incidents that corrupted and broke me. The necklace would be restrung, but it took years. Before that happened, the existing strand continued to wear thin until it became irrepa- rable. I had to find the right strand of knowledge, patience, and trust on which to delicately string each pearl. I had to learn to trust that the new strand would be strong enough to hold the pearls as more and more were added. The strand of pearls symbolizes my life. The pearls were and are my lessons and challenges. The strand is me.


Today Deborah Livingston lives with her loving husband, Joel, in Massa- chusetts, and is the proud mother of a college-age daughter, Cassandra. She is a practicing AOBTA-certified traditional Chinese medicine therapist, intuitive medium and believes in life’s gifts whatever forms they may take. http://www.authordlivingston.com


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