The Theme of Hope (Review of Courage in Patience)

The Theme of Hope, December 31, 2008
By Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews

Beth Fehlbaum's first novel COURAGE IN PATIENCE reads more like a memoir from a caregiver (who in this book happens to match Fehlbaum's full time career as an English teacher) than a fierce diatribe against abuse - and that is what makes this very well written book so readable. Child abuse - 'child' including the years from birth to adulthood - is a major problem in this country, and indeed around the world: the media barrages us daily with third world country tales of child labor in all manner of 'work' in addition to the external abuse inflicted on children whose parents are removed by war and bloodshed. And while Fehlbaum concentrates on sexual abuse of the central character Ashley by her stepfather and the 'blind eye' abuse by her mother, she manages to share all manner of abusive practices that bring light to issues we all may be ignoring - racial, prejudice, homophobia, physical deformities, etc.

Fehlbaum understands how to build a story well - her introduction of the central character Ashley Asher begins with enough humor and gentleness to make us care for a young girl in dire circumstances. The story of the novel is well described elsewhere - secretive sexual abuse, confrontation, alienation, sources of solace and protection and the tremendously important role teachers can play as the watchdog and supportive arm for young abused children. For this reader the story reads best in the portion of the book devoted to peer community assistance as focused on the little town of Patience, Texas. It is here that the novel rises above the usual tale of the abused child and enters the realm of finding support through sharing the various kinds of child abuse among groups of friends. If the novel becomes a bit preachy at the end - an attempt to focus the message of the book that by the time of the conclusion has already been clarified - the rest of the book more than makes up for this flaw. Fehlbaum knows the language of the various youngsters and writes credibly in their conversations, a fact that makes this book more sensitive than many on the subject.

COURAGE IN PATIENCE is a fine read and an excellent resource for those who are undergoing abuse or are still recovering from the scars of the many forms of abuse the book addresses. Spread the word: Beth Fehlbaum has added to the library of novels with a helpful message. Grady Harp, December 08

The Significant Impact of What's Her Name

Yesterday afternoon I saw the film "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" inspired by the short story of the same name authored by F. Scott Fitzgerald (http://www.online-literature.com/fitzgerald/jazz-age/6/). This caused me a bit of an epiphany as I sat in the theatre.

The moment that really clicked in my brain was when Button (as read by his daughter in his diary) said that sometimes the people who have the most significant impacts on our lives are those we don't remember well - as he unsuccessfully attempted to remember the name of an elderly friend and mentor. I can think of several of these people in my own life who significantly impacted my life in positive and negative ways.

One such person did impact my life due to a chance encounter that I could have never predicted. I don't remember her name. I can't see her face. I vaguely recall her stature and hair. Yet, she changed me in ways I still do not fully understand.

She made me doubt my trusting nature. She gave me insecurities and fears that I am still fighting to overcome. She has also taught me that I am much stronger than I could have ever imagined. Her callous act contributed greatly to the man I am today. I am not saying it was worth it - not at all. I would rather have learned more about myself in a different manner.

She was not memorable. However, her choices that night have left a lasting impact. She manipulated me. She drugged me. She raped me. She hurt me. She has forever changed me. However, she does not own me.

And I can barely remember her...

Also posted here:

http://jameslandrith.com/content/view/3323/79/

Growing Home For the Holidays

Growing Home For the Holidays

“There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats: For I am arm'd so strong in honesty That they pass me by as the idle wind, Which I respect not”
--Shakespeare
December 24, 2004, I Fed-Exed a letter to my abuser, asking him to please stop making comments about my body. I was 38 years old, 100+ pounds overweight, with an out-of-control binge-eating disorder being the most obvious sign of my distress. The armor of fat with which I had coated my body was nothing, compared to the problems inside my head. Simply put, the life I had with my husband and three daughters was in peril because I had been playing "Let's Pretend," as in, "Let's Pretend That I Was Not Sexually Abused Throughout My Childhood"-- and the tricks I had used to cope weren't working any more. I was on my way to CrazyTown, and I was taking four other people with me. Something had to give. It was to the point that I had no choice but to choose another way, and that way was honesty --with myself and everyone around me.

The first step to dealing with reality, at least the first step that involved my extended family, was the letter that set the first boundary I had ever had with the man who crept into my childhood bedroom at night for years, and who felt entitled to comment on my body even as I was nearing age 40.The consequences of the letter were immediate. My husband, children, and I followed through on the planned Christmas Eve visit to my abuser's home. I know: crazy, right? I was so naïve that I thought that he would understand my request and do as I asked. Instead, I discovered my abuser hiding in his bedroom, his wife not speaking to me, and other family members clearly unhappy with what I had done. Subsequent communications with his wife made clear that she was unwilling to discuss, in any way, shape, or form, what had happened to me. It did not matter that my life was falling apart because of it. According to her, it was all my problem. Period.

I spiraled into such a depressed state of mind that my husband did not allow me to drive, for fear that I would follow through with the idea of plowing my car into a bridge column. The suicidal feelings that surface in the face of rejection are still my demons, but they have lessened dramatically over the past four years. The things that have saved me from self-destructing are the love of my husband and daughters, a kick-ass therapist, hope that pain will go away, hatred of that which is wrong, and resilience~perseverance that are fueled by my family's love, my therapist's guidance, and infinite hope for healing.

I suppose the feelings I have at Christmas now are akin to what I would experience if my abuser's wife died four years ago-- it's like an annual reminder of what I have lost. I loved her so much. I love her so much. I love the person I thought she was. It is the juxtaposition of who I thought she was, and the person she has been in the face of the truth I have to live in my recovery, that is hardest on my heart. December 24, 2004, was like being thrown into an icy lake. I am still trying to catch my breath from the shock. I don't know that I ever will, but I sure am trying.

As a child, I loved the holidays like nobody else. I started playing Christmas music in August. I decorated my dollhouse elaborately, and the family residing there not only understood my holiday lust, they embraced it. They didn't have a choice. I created in that miniature world what I craved in my own reality.

The holidays following 2004, however, marked the advent of something I had never experienced: dread of the holiday season. I wished I could just skip November and December completely: just go to sleep around Halloween and wake in time to go back to living on January 2nd of the new year.

I never shared those feelings with my children, though, because I felt a responsibility to provide the same sort of Christmas that they had always known, complete with elaborately decorating our house. I did the best I could. My mind was shit and I inevitably descended into a sort of spacey, emotional state that lasted about a week or so. But my family was very supportive and understanding. It was not easy for any of us. It still isn't.

The stockings were hung on the corner cupboard with care, just as always, but some things changed forever from the holidays of the past. For one, no more Christmas cookies or baking marathons. Facing the truth about my eating disorder meant the end of baking,decorating, and pigging out on sugar cookies. I no longer churned out baked goods with the intensity of a professional bakery, and I no longer numbed my feelings with sugar and lard.

The biggest change, though, was where we celebrated and who we celebrated with. All my life, and all of my children's lives, we had spent Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve at my abuser's house. Things were great, do you get that? Things were great and the holidays were magical, as long as I didn't face the truth and I didn't ask any of the people who were there when I was growing up to face it, either. It was when I set a boundary that things blew apart. That was not allowed. When I did that, I lost the person I thought of as my best friend: my abuser's wife. I thought of her as a person who was always there for me. There are days that I still can't believe our relationship is what it is, now: non-existent.

I look back at who I was then and I know without a doubt that there is no way, NO WAY that I can ever go back and be that person again. Beth, circa 2004 and before, the one who kept silent and smiled and played the game of "Let's Pretend," is dead. I don't even know her any more. Likewise, my own extended family does not know me-- the person bent on recovery from childhood sexual abuse; the person dedicated to living as authentic a life as humanly possible; the person still trying to catch her breath from the plunge into the icy lake of Christmas 2004. They knew a pretender, and the pretender is dead.

I thought about writing this piece for the past several days as I prepared for Christmas 2008. I was struck by the difference in my little family's life, when comparing 2008 to 2004.

I cooked my first full-blown Thanksgiving dinner, this past Thanksgiving. My family and I made the decision that we would stay home this year, rather than putting out feelers to my mother-in-law or my husband's brother and his wife, to see what they were doing for the day. For the first time since 2004, our little family knew that we were "enough" for each other, and my mind has healed enough that I was able to do the sort of mental gymnastics required to pull off something like Thanksgiving dinner.

It is only in undertaking holiday family dinners 100% on my own that I have an understanding of the work that goes into them. My abuser's wife always made it look so effortless-- and, if we still had a relationship, I think I would ask her how she managed to do that.

I am motivated by love for my family, of wanting them to have the best possible experience. I think she was motivated by the same thing. But I do not understand how that kind of love exists in tandem with the sort that demands secrets and the sacrifice of my innocence and right to my own body, to not having it taken by someone else. I do not understand the coexistence of love with deliberate indifference. I do not "get" how I ceased to matter and it leads me to believe that in fact I never really did, to her. It makes me wonder too, how it is that someone who is so gracious a hostess to everyone can be so conditional with her love for me.

Christmas Eve, I cooked my very first Christmas dinner. My youngest daughter came up with a family Sweet Potato Casserole recipe, and I found my grandmother's Cornbread Dressing recipe in a stack of recipes and cookbooks I inherited from her. I avoided looking through them before, because it hurt so much to think of her and the holidays. But I have healed enough now that I am able to do things like look through her recipes and see her handwriting, without it undoing me completely. The sweet potatoes and my grandmother's dressing were the two entrees my children had missed the most, in the years since we lost the relationship with my extended family. I searched the Internet high and low for a recipe that seeemed close to the traditional Butterhorn Rolls. Didn't find the exact one, but the one I did find, my children said was even better than the family recipe. We invited my brother and his wife. Their attendance at our table was beautiful not only because they were there, but because he and I were estranged for many years and are now closer than we have ever been in our lives. It was the first time since we reconciled three years ago that we have gone through an entire visit without really talking about the painful journey we endured to reach today. We have an appreciation for one another that was distinctly lacking when we were growing up.

Yesterday, Christmas Day, we hosted my husband's family: 18 people in all. We had people seated all over the place and I fell asleep sitting up in bed last night, but we did it. At the end of the night, my husband said, "Thank you for hosting such a fun evening." He says that I get better at preparing the traditional foods every time I make them, which gives me hope for next year, when I will be brave enough to actually attempt stuffing the turkey and trying [sigh] again to make gravy. So far, pan gravy eludes me. Thank God for the stuff that comes in a jar.I look back at what I have lost, and I look at what I now have-- and even though it's been a walk through hell --and it ain't over yet-- I can see a day in the future when the ache in my chest isn't quite as sharp as it still is today. I have hope, and I have home. I AM home. And that is more than enough for me.

Win a free signed copy of Courage in Patience, a story of hope for those who have endured abuse

E-mail me your favorite story of someone you know showing courage. The deadline is Saturday, Dec. 20. I'll choose the top five stories and they will be posted on my blogspot, http://courageinpatience.blogs... AND if I choose your story as one of the top five, I'll send you a signed copy of Courage in Patience, in time for Christmas! (United States only guaranteed arrival in time for Christmas).

Check out Courage in Patience by visiting my site, http://courageinpatience.blogspot.com Ch. 1 is online!Beth Fehlbaum, author

Fresh Fiction Review of Courage in Patience

From: http://freshfiction.com/dev/review.php?id=22334
Ashley Asher had a father she never knew, but a stepfather she wished she didn't know! Her mom loved her new husband to the point that she denied his emotional and sexual abuse upon her own daughter. Not unusual, just very sad!

Left in desperation and guilt, Ashley found a confidant in her teacher. As by law, her teacher reported the abuse. Let the healing begin!

Ashley was reunited with her father and a stepmother who had the courage to defend not only her new daughter but a whole classroom of students who struggled with real life issues. A remarkable woman in her own right, she too had suffered in life, making her the perfect role model to peak discussions and trust in the classroom.

It was the perfect setting for the healing process to take place on so many levels, but when the parents found out that their little town was inundated with real life, they wanted to sweep it under the rug, and would stop only short of a mob lynching.

Real and poignant, COURAGE IN PATIENCE takes a stand on injustices and abuse of every nature. No one is safe from life and this beautifully written book addresses it with honesty and the kind of consideration worthy of intense discussion and thought. In her writing, Ms. Fehlbaum addresses the issues with realness and optimism refusing to deny the actual possibilities of abuse and its consequences, at the same time giving hope to the victims of such crimes.

A book that will etch its words on the reader's heart and mind. Amazing!!!