by Alona Jarden
"Are you going to tell me what happened to her?"
"To Michelle?" Dr. Garrison pretended not to know who I was talking about.
"You promised to update me, and you didn't. Spill it out. Say it. What happened? How did she die?"
"Die? She didn’t die! Nothing happened to Michelle."
"What do you mean?" My eyes widened. "Is she alive? Is she still alive?" I burst into tears.
"Why, of course she's... Why would you think that she's not? I don't understand…" He placed his hand on my chest, trying to calm me down unsuccessfully. "Did someone tell you otherwise? Did anyone tell you something happened to her?"
"Someone did." I smirked. "Someone told me I should be waiting for her."
"Someone? Someone important?"
"She used to be important. I used to wait for her to come back."
"So, she probably loves you. Her advice is correct." I dared to look into his eyes. "I also think you should wait for her, Don. I have a feeling you'll be doing a lot of that in the coming years."
"A lot of what?"
"Waiting for her. For both of them."
"For both of them?" For a moment, I didn’t understand who he was talking about, but then I remembered that I mentioned Sarah indirectly to him. "Ah, I didn't mean it like that. That someone who gave me that advice is..." No more words came out of my mouth when Dr. Garrison suddenly move aside and whoever stood behind him was revealed.
Her sweet eyes gleamed at me.
I saw that she was confused and even recognized that she was a little apprehensive, but I was so glad to see a small smile stretched on her face as her delicate brown curly hair scattered wildly across her forehead.
"You... I'm sorry, I... I mean you're..." I stuttered, confused.
"I was shocked, too." It looked like Michelle was still hurting while Dr. Garrison supported her until she stood upright above me. "I lost a lot of weight, right?" She giggled, pleased with herself.
"I don’t know what to say... Please explain this to me and make it a long and clear explanation." I still found it hard to construct an entire sentence about the vision that was revealed before me.
"I told you I was taking my new path seriously. I told you I would lose the weight, didn’t I?" She stroked my hair. "I would like to introduce to you my new diet. The one I went on because of you, Don. Meet our daughter." She placed a little baby girl wrapped in hospital blankets in my arms, and her face sparkled.
"Our daughter? Is this my daughter? Were you pregnant?"
"Did I tell you, or didn't I tell you?" She turned to Dr. Garrison, who smiled from ear to ear. "I told you there was no point in sneaking out of the maternity ward to see this idiot. Is it just me, or did he just call me fat?" She leaned in and fixed her eyes into mine. "You're rude and insensitive, Don. And I wouldn't want to change anything about you."
Sarah was right. There wasn't a single resemblance between her and Michelle, and that's probably what drew me to her in the first place.
Maybe what I needed was the dream of a love like the one I had in my heart for Sarah. A love I would never find a replacement for, and I finally understood that that's a good thing.
I went back to looking into Michelle's eyes. Those eyes that once made me lose my sanity. Something changed in the way I saw them. Suddenly, she no longer reminded me of Sarah.
Not in the style of speech, not in the way she held herself, not in her smile, not in her hairstyle and no, not in her loving look that was fixed on mine.
"I love you, Michelle," I muttered excitedly.
"And I love you," She stroked my hair just as Sarah did in my dream and then went on to mention the most significant difference between the two of them. "And I'll continue loving you for many years to come, Don."
Epilogue
Michelle
I quickly fixed myself in front of the mirror as I left the shower. I put my shirt inside my pants and pulled just a small portion of it out to complete the look I chose for the party.
"Michelle, come on already!" Don urged me to hurry up. "How long do I have to wait for you?"
"As long as it takes for me to be perfect," I answered proudly.
"I think I didn’t appreciate your self-hatred enough. Since you've learned to love yourself, it takes you forever to get ready."
"Well, it's not my fault that we don't all look like that when we wake up in the morning." I gestured to my handsome husband, who didn't need much effort to master his impressive look every day and returned to look at my reflection, at peace with every pound that still wrapped my body. "I'm lucky that beauty is not everything in life, right?" I finished, came downstairs, kissed him, and hurried to the kitchen.
Our little daughter was playing on the activity mattress in our living room, and she had no idea that in a few moments, her first birthday party was about to begin.
The doctors at the hospital defined her birth as a medical marvel.
They explained that over-weight women, as I was back then, find it very difficult to get pregnant and even went on to say that most obese pregnancies usually abort at some stage before birth. Dr. Garrison was so excited that he took part in my natural childbirth. Evidently, I was on week thirty-six of my pregnancy, when my water broke unexpectedly in the emergency room. He insisted on being there when we told Don about all that, and so, despite the stern objections of the maternity ward nurses, he smuggled me through the doctors' staff elevator, with my newborn baby daughter wrapped in hospital blankets to the recovery ward, while repeatedly mumbling what a medical miracle the three of us were.
With the birth of my daughter, Marvel, I lost almost twenty pounds off my weight and many inches off my waistline, but more than that, her birth made it clear that I had more important things to do in my life than to hate myself.
"Leave something for the guests." Don stroked his hand over my back as he passed behind me and saw that I tasted one of the sweet pastries I baked in honor of the party.
"I went running this morning, so I'm allowed to taste a little." I smiled at him without feeling a hint of judgment, scruples, or self-loathing.
From the moment I looked into Marvel's eyes, I understood that I didn't understand anything.
I remembered all those conversations with my mother, and suddenly the meaning of her words became clearer. I always rolled my eyes impatiently at her as she claimed that I was wonderful just as I was and in fact, every time she said that, I hurried to squeeze in more and more sweets into my body, but from the first second I looked at my little daughter's eyes, I realized that my mother really did mean every word she said.
Marvel was perfect. Just perfect. Just as she was.
Don was still in the operating room as I sat and digested Marvel's presence in my arms while my life as an adult passed before my eyes and took on a new meaning.
In addition to the conversations I had with my mother, I also realized that Ian was right all along.
I had no control over anything that was going on in my body, and I was wrong to hang my happiness in the numbers shown on the industrial scale monitor or in the beautiful new clothes I bought for myself.
Ian was right to say that true happiness was hidden in the things that accompanied me to my destination, thus making it less significant and indeed, it was.
The last thing that bothered me on the morning of Marvel's first birthday party was the percentage of fat in my body, or how I would look in the pictures we would take. Instead, I made sure to design the table in shades of pink and white, placed the colored candies around the cake and arranged the pillows on the living room couch so that my mom wouldn’t have anything to say about it.
To tell the truth, I was surprised that I waited impatiently for the first guest to ring the doorbell. Me? I'm excited about a family gathering? Pigs must be flying in hell right now!
I invited to Marvel's party everyone who took part in my life and saw it as an opportunity to thank them for it. I wanted to hug my parents and whisper to my mother that I regrett
ed all the years I spent blaming her for her wrongdoing. I wanted to pull Don's father into an embarrassing embrace and not let him go until he twisted between my arms uncomfortably, as I've done every time we met since that first night at their house. I wanted to show off to Ian that I managed to find three free hours during the past week and went to the gym, and I wanted to show my friends from the support group that they didn’t need to be skinny in order to be happy.
"Is that it? Are you satisfied with the results?" Don asked when he saw that I stood with my arms crossed and looked over our decorated living room and at our little princess playing on the mat in the center of it all.
"Yes. Everything is ready."
"And are you? Are you happy with the result?" he asked casually.
"I am." I kissed him. "I'm happy. I'm finally happy," I finished and breathed deeper than ever before.
THE END
If you liked my writing, please follow my Author profile on Amazon, as my "To be translated" list is long and much more of me is yet to come. Click here to for direct link to follow me.
Also, since reviews are vital in spreading the word about my books, please leave a brief review on Amazon by tapping here.
If you'd like to be the first to read my next release, you're more than welcome to fill out the application form and join my ARC Team (Advance Review Copy Team). If that sounds interesting, click here.
And if you're a social media addict (like me), you're welcome to share your thoughts with me on Facebook or Instagram.
A Note From the Author
As with all of my books, I wrote this one with the help of several people to be sure my research was accurate and my messages are within a shell of credibility and decency.
Except for the medical professionals who advised in writing the relevant sections, I consulted with women suffering from being overweight, which were very upset when I used the word “suffering” as a description of their way of coping with the situation. Some of the overweight women I spoke to were very firm when they said they lived in peace with their appearance, and I truly believed that they were. I also consulted with women who honestly suffered from the excess weight and struggled with it their whole life. I heard the opinions of men who were dealing with the health challenges caused by their obesity as well and didn’t fail to hear my own voice either.
Not the voice of the fat me, nor the skinny me, just my voice. My judgmental Alona voice. The one that sometimes makes my life very difficult for no wrongdoing of mine.
I wrote the chapters using the things I occasionally tell myself when I look in the mirror. I wrote straight from the heart and then got the approval and confirmation that my feelings also matched the personal experiences from the experts on the matter.
As it turns out, I didn't have to be overweight to get into Michelle's and Don's heads. All I had to do was remember the days when I was unhappy with the way I looked. Days when I was angry at the 4’9” I was given, the stretch marks left by my pregnancies, the double chin that sometimes appears if something really makes me laugh, my teeth which I refused to fix when I was a teenager and so much more.
There were days when the list of items I wasn’t pleased with was so long, and in writing this book, I used each and every one of them. Sometimes to write Michelle, and sometimes to write Don.
Already in the first chapters, I realized that although I haven’t given that list much thought for some time, not so deep inside me I was still not completely at peace with what I see in the mirror. To tell the truth, from the research I did on the matter, almost everyone I talked to felt just like me.
Everyone who read this book before it was published, shared their path in front of the mirror with me openly. For one, it was the weight, for another, it was some speech disorder, someone mentioned scars she had from a surgery and basically everything else that my words brought out of my readers.
Everyone whispered as they shared their feelings with me. Everyone felt the need to hide what they were feeling as if the shame was too heavy to bear, and as usual, I tried to figure out what that made me feel.
Those days when I would look at myself full of disappointment are far behind me, but nothing changed about what reflected in front of me in the mirror. The only difference was my state of mind.
I made a decision that I'm happy, that I'm healthy, that that's me and I made my peace with me. At first, my decision felt fake. I didn’t believe my own words until slowly, the statements became part of me, and the air I aspired entered deeper into my lungs with every passing day.
I don't think I have an indisputable conclusion about the message I wanted to convey after finishing writing this book.
I'm not sure if it's right to ask you to be content with yourself and be at ease with the way you look since I believe that healthy living is the most important thing. Recently, in my personal life, I've learned that health is definitely the most important blessing of them all. Only to be healthy, you have to live healthy, so it's hard for me to sign this book and recommend everyone to be content with how you look because if your current situation is endangering your health, you mustn’t accept it as a given fact. On the other hand, I also don't feel like signing this book with any intention to relate your happiness to your body weight, because if we think about it, how far would we go to adjust ourselves to what society has defined as healthy?
I guess that's probably the exact location where the line between healthy and unhealthy goes. It crosses between the moment we lose ourselves and our joy in life in order to please others.
I mean, every person who smokes knows that it's not healthy, yet they smoke away, so why doesn't society make life as difficult for smokers as it does for obese people? Why is the fact that the self-destruction of smokers is only seen on the inside of their bodies is so different from the fact that the self-destruction of overweight people is seen on the outside? Is it just because their black lungs are hidden in the depths of their bodies while the fat tissues are visible to us all? Is that why we, as a society, judge them differently and accept their self-destruction differently?
I guess I don't feel like ending this book with any note to people who are facing difficulties with weight, because as I wrote before, whether it is obesity or not, each of us is dealing with self-image issues and who I am to tell others how to deal with them when it's a daily struggle for me as well?
I guess I'd rather direct my ending note to those who stand in front of them. I want to address the eye-rollers, the whisperers, and the mockers. I really want to reach out to the different points of view on obesity in society, which I weaved in the various supportive characters that revolved around every moment of Micelle's and Don's lives.
With great courage, I want to turn to the Janice's of the world and ask them to take a moment and understand who they're really angry at. I beg them to dare to look in the mirror and to direct their harsh words toward themselves, rather than seek strengths over those who are weaker than them, only because that's what makes them feel better.
With shivers of excitement, I want to turn to the Ian's of the world and send them a huge hug of thanks. May people understand that one's process is not the same as another's and that support doesn’t necessarily mean fitting others to a definite and precise path, but rather weaving their own way so that it is convenient and pleasant to walk along it, while looking out for them and directing them toward the defined goals.
With a big smile on my face, I want to turn to the various Don's of the world, whom, by the way, I know quite a few. I want to tell them that I'm proud of them. I admire them. I'm amazed at their ability to smile in the face of the severe blows life has thrown at them, and I don’t judge the ways in which they have chosen to be comforted for the moment. I just hope they don't forget to set some boundaries for themselves so that I can continue to appreciate them for many years to come.
With a head tilt to the right, I want to address the Michelle's of the world, the women and men who see only that small wrinkle that
shows up in the corners of their eye and not their pretty faces. You, who see the smallest flaw and give it such a tremendous weight to your state of mind, I want to say that I love you. I do. I love you, and I beg you to get to where you'll be able to say that to yourself at the end of each day, because otherwise, what's the point, right?
Last but not least, I want to address all of us as a society. If we can instill a feeling of acceptance in everyone who meets us during our day, that's how we'll feel ourselves. If we leave home in the morning, knowing that we are exactly who and what we are supposed to be, inside and out, we will end that day with the same feeling. If we keep using our witty remarks to say words of encouragement and not of judgment or frustration, we will enjoy life so much more.
Nowadays, society is unable to fully accept what is different. It's natural, understandable, and logical, but it doesn't have to be this way, so the next time you come across something your eye isn’t used to seeing, remember these words of mine, smile, and hope that others will follow you.
If you see a child throwing a tantrum at the mall, don't assume he's misbehaving. Assume he's facing difficulties you have no idea about, smile, and move on. If you see a short statue man, someone in a wheelchair, a blind person with a guide dog... Just smile and move on.
The same is true if you see someone who is obese. I hope that at the end of reading this book, you'll realize that you have no idea if that someone is in his or her condition due to negligence, grief, loss, hypothyroidism or anything else, and if so, if you actually have no clue as to where they're coming from, just smile and move on.
The healthy path Michelle walked started out in the various supermarket aisles, but the truth is that the healthy way of living our lives begins much deeper and has nothing to do with the fat tissues or other marginal things that surround us.