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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
[email protected]Shown: posts 1 to 3 of 3. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by galkeepinon on October 20, 2003, at 1:42:55
She came here to be alone. She sought out a place where no other people would go. A place where she could try to reach into her heart to see if there was anything still there. It felt as though there was nothing left inside her, no love, no caring, no longing nor even desire. Anger had long ago been replaced by apathy and a lack of caring. Even the pain was gone. Life had worn her out. There was nothing left inside except a numbness. She felt as though she had no reason to live, and yet she didn’t even have the emotional energy it would take to end her life. She existed yet she did not live. She knew all of this but no longer cared. She had even given herself a name, "The Lady with a Heart of Stone."
It was after midnight. The island was beautiful in an almost magical way. The palm trees swayed softly in the occasional little gusts of wind. Waves crashed onto the sandy beach, the sound they made was in its own way a musical symphony that had lasted millions of years. While the beach itself was dark because there was no moon tonight, the sky was alive with a dazzling display of beautiful twinkling lights, each a messenger from far-off worlds. Yet she could not hear their message. She lay high up on the beach, her unfeeling body pressed into the sand like an angel into the clouds. Her eyes were open and yet she did not see the stars. She listened but did not hear the music of the waves. Indeed, the 'lady with a heart of stone' sat in perhaps the most beautiful place on earth and yet she saw and felt nothing, except a great big empty void where her heart should have been.
Now she sat here wondering why she had bothered to come. Why was she sitting on this beach in the middle of the night? To search inside herself for what she had lost? To find something, anything, inside herself that would make her feel alive, that life was worth living? Perhaps the real reason she had come was simply to find a reason to care, something to care about. But if looking for something to care about was the real reason she was here, then it was a wasted trip, because she certainly hadn’t found it.
She hadn’t always been this way. Long ago, in a time almost forgotten, she had been a happy little girl. She had laughed and played, shouted with glee, playing out in the sun. She remembered the day of her first loss like it was yesterday. The trip down memory lane tonight had begun when she saw a little puppy wandering around on the beach, alone, most likely lost and hungry, but running off when she approached, evidently afraid of strangers. Seeing the puppy had reminded her of when she was a little girl and how she loved to play with her very best friend in the whole world, Mr. Whimpers. Mr. Whimpers was her first and only pet. He was the kind of dog that every child dreamed of, goodhearted and he loved to play. Indeed, Mr. Whimpers was her best friend. But Mr. Whimpers had died, leaving her alone and hurt and angry.
Mr. Whimpers had gotten his name the day Mom and Dad had first brought him home to her on her sixth birthday. She had loved him at first sight and he had loved her. It was a match made in heaven. But, as with all good things in life, it ended. When Mr. Whimpers died, he took a piece of her heart with him.
Mr. Whimpers had gotten his name because he made a whimpering noise and swatted his tail back and forth every time he saw her. She would pick him up and he would be quiet and content but when she went to put him down, he would start whimpering all over again. So Dad had laughed and said, "Hey, let’s just call him Mr. Whimpers!" The name stuck to Mr. Whimpers in the same way that he stuck to her, like superglue on a lead dime.
Long ago, before she began to think of herself as 'the lady with the heart of stone', people had called her Rose, or Rosie for short. She never understood that joke. Her name was Rose, but her dad would say, "Her name is Rose, but we call her Rosie for short." All the adults would laugh, but she just didn’t get it.
Rose — Rosie for short — cried when Mr. Whimpers died. It happened so suddenly and unexpectedly. One minute they were playing fetch outside and the next Mr. Whimpers was dead and she was alone. Mr. Whimpers brought the stick back to her, just like he always did. He would run up, drop the stick at her feet and bark expectantly, but when she bent over to get the stick, he would race forward, grab the stick and run off in circles, dancing in little figure eight's around her, daring her to try to catch him and steal back the most valued of his worldly possessions, a stick which would be forgotten an hour later.
Only today something different happened. They had played fetch for over and hour, Rosie laughing and giggling, when suddenly Mrs. WigglesWorth, old lady Hotchkins’ cat, ran across the yard. That was it. Mr. Whimpers was off in hot pursuit, the stick still clamped tightly between his jaws, lest that lowly feline try to out maneuver him and steal "his" stick. Unfortunately, Mrs. WigglesWorth, and Rose had no idea how the cat got that name, ran across the road through traffic, with Mr. Whimpers in hot pursuit. Seconds later, on a beautiful spring day, Mr. Whimpers was hit by a car. He died in her arms, licking her face one last time, the stick laying next to them on the roadway. He gave a last little whimper, perhaps his way of saying good-bye or I love you, as he passed away.
That was the day Rosie’s heart started turning to stone. Maybe only a little part of her that died that day, but it began the process of shutting down her emotions. She cried and cried. She cried all day long and into the night. She felt sad, alone, abandoned, and even angry. Angry with her best friend for dying and leaving her alone. For Rosie the world had suddenly become a sadder place. Her parents had offered to get her another dog but she refused, saying that she was afraid to care about a new dog because it would die and leave her, too. To this day, Rosie had never had another pet, nor had she ever had another friend like Mr. Whimpers.
Here she was so many years later, sitting alone on a deserted beach in the middle of the night, thinking of Mr. Whimpers, yet unable to summon a single tear. Her heart had become a stone, a piece of granite, solid, strong, and unbreakable.
Rosie thought of her father and mother. Her father, with his wisecracks and witticisms, was the king of the bad puns and Mom, whose arms had been so comforting. She had loved them both and they had left her, too. Each of them took a piece of her heart with them when they died and left in its place another piece of stone, the stone that gave her the strength to continue on and yet at the same time, robbed of her of the ability to care. While the stone in her heart provided a strong shield behind which she could hide, protecting her from pain and the need to cry, it also robbed her of the ability to laugh and smile as a child. As an adult, Rosie realized that what had happened to her happens to most people. As children they laugh, cry, smile, they fall down and get up again. But sometimes they get hurt so badly that they start building a wall of stone to hide behind. They build this wall to protect themselves from getting hurt. Most of them don't realize that by hiding behind this wall to escape the bad things, they are also hiding from the good things in life. They shut out love, caring and just having fun. Rosie, 'the lady with the heart of stone', had come to the beach tonight hoping to find a way to get beyond the wall of stone behind which she had hidden for so many years. But now it seemed like it was too late. She had not cried in over ten years and she realized now that the only thing that can melt away the wall of stone is a river of tears, tears that release all the pain and make room for happiness and caring. Still, Rosie doubted she would ever cry again.
Sitting alone on the beach, Rosie had spent several hours thinking back over her life. She asked herself where she had gone wrong; why she could not find happiness; why she just could not bring herself to care about anyone or anything. She thought of the men in her life and how the bad ones had hurt her with false promises. She had been afraid of those who seemed good, afraid to care about them, afraid to love them, afraid to let them into her heart. Indeed, it was a man who had cared about her, who, when she turned him away out of fear, had pleaded with her not to let her heart turn completely to stone. That man was gone but the image of her heart turning to stone was still there. She was alone and she knew now that she would always be alone. The saddest part is that she didn't even care, or at least she tried to pretend to herself that she didn't. What it all really came down to is that she felt safer not loving or trusting anyone.
Voices? Was she hearing voices? It almost sounded like whispers in the wind. Was she finally going crazy or had someone come on the beach while she was lost in the vast wasteland that was her own mind? Yes, there really were voices. She started to get up and move away but something held her there. She wasn't sure what it was but, whatever the reason, she decided to just lay back and listen to the voices. Somehow they were like magic, calming her thoughts and allowing her to relax.
It was well past midnight now. The voices had moved closer. It was a man and a little girl. She could see them in the starlight now. They were down by the water. They had been walking down the beach looking at the stars, listening to the waves and talking. Nothing serious at first, just a father out for a walk with his daughter on the beach. But why, she asked herself, after midnight? Why wasn't this little girl home in bed? Not that it mattered, nothing in life really mattered any more, she was just bored and maybe a little curious, so she sat quietly, listening to the voices.
Father and daughter— her name was Danny— sat down on the beach facing the waves, not far from her. If they had turned they might have seen her, but they faced the ocean, with her at their backs. She had heard the father call the little girl Danny and the way he had said it, so filled with love yet laced with some undisclosed pain, touched Rosie. Not a lot, just a little bit, but it touched her just the same. Why did the man's voice quiver every now and then? Something was wrong here. This little girl could not have been much more than five. She looked so beautiful, her blond hair glimmering in the starlight, but why was she on the beach so late at night? And where was her mother?
It didn't take long for Rosie to discover the answer to her questions. Father and daughter talked about many things but what they talked about the most was the little girl's mother and how much they both missed her. Rosie discovered, through little snatches of the conversation that were brought to her on the wind, that the little girl's mother had died slowly of some type of illness. It had happened some time ago but it appeared that the little girl and her father were still having a hard time dealing with their loss.
From what she gathered, although many months had gone by, the little girl had not yet cried and released her grief. It seemed that she was afraid to cry because it would make losing her mother more real. The father had brought Danny here to talk to her and to help her learn to grieve, to let out her pain. But Danny was trying to be strong. She was trying to be too grown up. Danny talked like an adult instead of a child. She asked questions, listened to the answers and then asked more questions, but she never once expressed her own feelings.
A shooting star flashed across the sky. Danny's father told her to make a wish. Rosie knew without hearing the words what Danny's wish would have been. She felt that both she and this little girl's father had both wished for the same thing, that this little girl's mother would never have died, leaving her daughter feeling alone and hurt. Danny turned to her father and said that maybe the shooting star had been a message from her mother, telling her father and Danny that she loved them. Rosie was overwhelmed to discover that this little girl was in her own way trying to comfort her father, obviously a good man who loved his wife and daughter very much.
Rosie could feel Danny's pain. She could feel that Danny loved her mother so much it was ripping her apart. She knew that Danny was trying to hide from that pain, just as she had hidden from pain in her own life. As she listened, Rosie realized that she was feeling something that she had not felt in years. She felt a tear running down her cheek. Not a tear for herself—no, she still couldn't cry for her own pain—but a tear for a little girl, a little girl she did not know and yet whom she felt she knew better than she had known anyone in her entire life.
Suddenly Rosie was awash in tears. She had been sitting up on the beach listening, but now she fell back onto the sand and cried, softly at first and then harder. She tried not to make any noise, but eventually she was overwhelmed, and she began crying like she had never cried before. She was wracked with spasms as she sobbed, crying for the little girl who could not cry for herself. She cried for a stranger who had lost his wife. She cried for a woman who had died, leaving behind her husband and daughter. Rosie, who could not cry for herself, was completely and totally overwhelmed with rivers of tears for three people she had never met.
Rosie had no idea how long she cried, she had never cried this hard in her life. When she came back to the real world again, she felt small arms wrapped around her, almost smothering her with love, and she felt tears from a little girl she had never met. Danny must have heard her crying and come to comfort her, only to be overcome by her own tears. Woman and child, strangers yet somehow not strangers, simply held each other while Danny’s father looked on, tears streaming down his own face as he stroked his daughter's hair, then gave a comforting nod to Rosie, letting her know it was okay. Rosie continued to hold Danny in her arms, letting her grieve for her mother.
Finally Danny sat up. Where tears had been just minutes before, a smile began to appear. She asked Rosie why she had been crying and Rosie said simply, "For you, for your father, and for your mother." Danny, obviously the ever-curious child, asked how Rosie had known about her mother. Rosie, with a look of embarrassment, looked from father to daughter and said, "I was sitting here on the beach when you came up." She started to apologize for eavesdropping but Danny’s father just smiled and said, "It's okay. I'm glad you were here. I think Danny and I both needed you to be here tonight."
Danny, not being one to linger on little details like why some strange lady had been eavesdropping on them and then crying, out of the blue asked, "What's your dog’s name?"
"Dog? What dog?" Rosie looked over and saw that Danny’s father was scratching the chin of the little puppy that Rosie had seen on the beach earlier. Danny's father said, "Danny and I were on the beach when your dog ran up and started making little whimpering noises to us. When she tried to pet him, he ran away. She jumped up and chased him. When I caught up to her, he was licking your face like he was trying to wash away your tears and my daughter was wrapped in your arms."
"So what’s your puppy’s name?"
Rosie thought about it for a minute, then she said, "His name is Mr. Whimpers," (at which point Danny giggled) "and he's your puppy, not mine. That is, if it's okay with your father." Danny turned to her father, such a look of pleading in her eyes that no father in the world could have said no to. "He just smiled and said, "Welcome to the family, Mr. Whimpers." He smiled at Rose and gave her a look that said more than words ever could have.The three of them—oops, make that four. We can't forget Mr. Whimpers— sat together on the beach that night. They talked and Danny taught Mr. Whimpers to play fetch while Rose, whose heart of stone had melted away in a flood of tears for a little girl she had never met, looked on with a smile on her face and a bigger one in her heart.
High above, another shooting star raced across the sky, a message from Danny’s mother or maybe just another wish coming true, while down below three people and a dog found happiness on a beach in the middle of the night.***MORAL OF THE STORY***
Holding your tears inside can turn you to stone. Let your tears flow, let them wash way your pain, and, above all, share them with those you care about, because perhaps they need to share theirs with you.
Posted by pixygoth on October 20, 2003, at 6:43:41
In reply to The Lady With A Heart Of Stone (long), posted by galkeepinon on October 20, 2003, at 1:42:55
Well here's lots of my tears - thank you for yours.
Maybe I really do need a little dog.
S x
Posted by galkeepinon on October 20, 2003, at 9:14:57
In reply to Re: The Lady With A Heart Of Stone (long), posted by pixygoth on October 20, 2003, at 6:43:41
oxoxoxox
> Well here's lots of my tears - thank you for yours.
> Maybe I really do need a little dog.
> S x
This is the end of the thread.
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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
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