"You May Encounter Many Defeats,"...Maya Angelou
Posted: Tuesday, September 11, 2007
by Susan Thom
"You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it."
Maya Angelou
As I was growing up, I had a very demonstrative, argumentative father. I adored him and looked up to him, he was my hero but we had many arguments and disagreements, and I encountered defeat, at fifteen, sixteen, seventeen. His roar was louder than mine, his anger stronger, and there were many nights I'd run up to my room in tears. I hated, I loved, I felt insignificant and unimportant. And yes, defeated. What I learned about myself as time went on, was that I could handle his roughness, and still be who I was. Who I was came mostly from my situations with him. He led me to be tough and strong willed and able to stand up for myself. He was an ex marine, so being raised by him gave me the tools I needed to go out into the world and protect myself. If I could deal with him, I could make it outside our four walls. I don't believe he ever thought of it that way, but that's how it turned out.
I was alone with one, then two, then three little babies, for two weeks out of every month, and I not only survived, I thrived. Of course, there are some who believe you need to work outside the home to be counted among civilization, but no one but a stay at home mom with three kids and a four bedroom, 2 1/2 bath house could ever have a clue as to the amount of work that entails. My kids and my home were always clean, and I took great care of my children. Not only were they physically taken care of, but I worked with their minds, teaching them what they needed to know in order to make the adjustment into nursery school. There are no time outs when you have three little kids under school age. Not for mom, anyway. It is a twenty four hour a day job. There are midnight calls of bad dreams and wet beds, and colds, and then, there's the next day.
My father and mother both prepared me in their own ways, to be able to handle what I did for these past twenty two years. The defeats I went through until my early twenties, prepared me to handle anything I needed to, and I am so grateful. Taking care of my kids by myself showed me who I was, and what I was capable of doing. I learned I could sustain life on very little sleep. I learned I could teach little humans how to roll over and crawl and walk and be potty trained and eat and zip their jackets, and tie their shoes, and write their numbers, and learn the alphabet, and talk, and hug and say "I love you."
My father and mother were such strong and devoted parents, I was able to learn everything I needed to know just by growing up with them. I learned early on, who I was, and what I wanted to stand for. This was passed on to my own kids; honesty, kindness, laughter, strength, and love.
So while I was feeling defeated growing up, I was actually being trained to withstand whatever life threw at me. I came down with Crohn's, something I must have had for years, but didn't rise to the surface until later in life.
Problems in my marriage and the rearing of my kids landed me in bed for quite a while, with 350 ulcers in my intestines.
Crohn's is an anti inflammatory disease, and the symptoms are depression, lethargy, dehydration, and malnutrition. It brought me to a point where I didn't want to live, but I didn't want to leave my kids. I was very ill, very dehydrated, very emaciated, and very depressed. I would visit with my kids for a while, feed them, and then get back into bed, where I spent probably 20 hours a day. This went on for months.
Finally, my parents determination and strength found their way back into my psyche, and I made up my mind I was going to get better. I got myself to the store, stocked up on baby food and Ensure, and began my ascent back to life. I stayed out of bed for longer periods of time. Slowly, I began to get stronger and feel better, and I came alive again. I knew who I was, so I knew I could do it, I knew I could rise from it, and I was determined to come out of it. I had good teachers.
In two years, nothing had changed, so I went back into the underworld, and had all the same symptoms. So many things were happening at once that were so depressing to me, I succumbed. Looking back, I simply needed the rest to prepare for more that was in store, but it was not easy being so sick. I was encountering defeat, but I wasn't defeated. With the help of my partner, I went back to the baby food and ensure, and began going to a reflexologist, and became stronger and stronger, and less and less depressed. I have been living a "normal" life for over a year, and I am my father's daughter once again, strong and determined.
"You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it."
Maya Angelou
This Article has been viewed 784 times. (Not updated in real-time.)
No comments yet.We want your comments! If you can read this, you don't have javascript enabled, so you can't use this comment system. Please enable javascript.