The Hidden Truth

The next day was another weekly day off from class. These days were rather quiet in the morning, seeing how the students would sleep in; even some apprentices were allowed to get up for training later than usual. Many of the students spent time together, yapping, joking, and relaxing with their fellow Jedi. Other trainees who were more adventuress would make day trips in the near by jungle. The staff of the temple took turns each week leading a group of students on a one night camping trip. Although I had been on one of their camping trips, I preferred to go alone into the hot, stick jungle with Master Mirmo’s permission, and he always gave it. For that day I decided not to go anywhere, but stay in my room and quietly work on my computer, by now I was starting to have a good grip on how to operate.

My dark mood kept hold of me during the morning and through the day. I stayed in my room mostly to hide from people that would nudge my barely contained self control into a wild passionate flame throwing fire of anger and raging hormones. My master seemed to be clueless or had simply learned to leave me alone when nature was to blame. When I was not sitting in front of the screen, battling carpal tunnel and ruining my slowly fading eye sight, I was curled up into a ball, wishing to murder nature and her idea behind woman’s pain.

It was in the evening when Mirmo came by. I could tell the moment he walked in by his posture, the grave facial expression, the way he hesitantly walked in, and by the gift of empathy the Force gave me, that he had bad news. I waited politely for him to talk to me.

“Karen, I have seen you do a remarkable amount of healing over the last three months, even when tested in the sorest of ways. I do not wish to break this process, and what I am about to ask, may cause a relapse in your progress. I would not dare begin to consider this action, if I did not feel the Force has hinted this is the best course. While I shudder at the prospect of this idea, I have come to the conclusion it is the only way.”

He paused to take a deep breath, staring at the wall for a moment, before gathering his thoughts and nerves.

“I know when you showed me your memories of the past, it caused you quite a bit of harm, yet the leaps of healing you made afterwards convinced me it was worth it. Yet, I know I only saw a sliver of what happened to you. In order to truly understand the pain that continues to plague you in your sleep, I need to see the rest. I ask this as a resquest, not an order. Please consider my word.”

I turned my head away, shifting my body as if to block his idea away. I had not expected this at all. My whole soul ran from the idea of going through more real nightmares, but the Jedi within me saw his wisdom and saw his caring point. I battled, attacked his proposal from all sides, before looking at him again. I quietly, slightly choking on my words, told him I would agree. He wasted no time, giving me no room to back out, in sitting on the bed, gently putting his finger tips on the sides on my head and told me to begin. I felt the connection between us grow strong. I drew on his strength and closed my eyes, bringing up the first memory that came to mind.

I hadn’t meant to be late, but I was. My friend and I had decided to go walking after a heavy snow fall. We got lost in the beauty and wonder of a snowy, silent forest and wondered through the enchanted wonder for two hours before we headed back home. We were close to my house when my father came, marching through the snow and took me home. The moment I saw his big, dominating angry figure, I knew I was in deep trouble. Almost immediately we got into a raging, screaming fight. Nothing bad had happen to me, except I had been out for too long. My father said I had said I would be out for only half an hour, yet I couldn’t remember saying that. Our tempers worsen to the point he threatened to kill me just for “talking back”. That same horrible fear, the wrongness of what he said pounded me, scared me, and angered me. Towards the end of the fight, we cooled down slightly and I demanded an apology for that threat. He said an empty sorry. I knew that beast didn’t mean it at all.

My father always ignored my mom’s drinking problem. He would do nothing to help her, or talk to her. He defended himself with the excuse that my mom’s life had been ruined when I was born and if she wanted to drink or smoke, he wouldn’t stop her. There were two times I woke up to find blood all over the house. Both times he never said anything about my mom getting drunk, but only said she was slurring her words and had fainted the first time. The second time he took me my mom had an “accident” I remember standing there, in shook at the obvious lie he so bravely told me. Yet, those two memories were not the ones that stood out. It was late at night when I woke up. I instantly saw the light in the bathroom and the voices of my mom and dad. It was easy to tell she was drunk in the bathroom, again, which was no surprise, but a horrible, familiar fear I had come to live with. At first, his voice was fairly calm, asking her to get up. She was so drunk, she didn’t know she was drunk, nor understood why she had to get up. He repeated himself over and over, as if that was going to make a difference. I curled up into a ball of fright and wishing my father would wise up. He grew angry because it was late, that he had let this happen and he could not control the scene. His voice turned into a scream, shouting and cursing at her to get to get up. While I didn’t look, I had a pretty good idea he forced her to get up and probably dragged her to bed. I cried that night. I was so scared of everything.

There had always been problems between my dear brother and my father. I was too young to really understand what they were, but I remember my brother telling me of vague, unspeakable things my father had done to my mother, that later on in my life explained her insanity. I never was sure if my brother meant to turn me against my father, but if so I understood why. Yet, the memory that I played in my head for Mirmo was not what my brother said to me, but the night my angel like sibling who I adored so much left me, never to be seen again for eight long, painful years.

It was late at night when I woke up to the sound of angry voices coming from the other side of the house. I was ten, a few months away from being eleven at the time. I got out of bed, curiously wanting to know what was going on. It was quite a shock for my young innocent mind to find my brother and father shouting in each other’s faces. I wanted to stop the fight and tried to get in the middle, to break them up, but a small, weak ten year old can not do much in a situation like this. I was pushed away and my brother, unless my foggy memory had failed me, took a swing at my father. The two of them wrestled each other to the ground and somehow in the brawl, my father lost his glasses. I vividly remember seeing my father hold my brother’s head in an arm lock, screaming again and again at my mom to call the police. My mother, bless her heart, refused, saying he could to it himself. Apparently, my father lost the fight for he grabbed his glasses and went to his room and closed the door. There was silence and some talking. My brother told my mom he knew she had been raped and he was so sorry. My mother had denied this. I was told to go to bed, but I refused, for I was scared to be anywhere near my father. In the end, we called up my grandmother and my brother went away in a cab. I shall never forget when my brother kneed down to my short level, told me goodbye, and hugged me. For years, those last words and caring gesture by no means failed to send me to tears.

The last memory I could painfully drag up from the locked room of pure darkness of my mind was one of the worst and proudest days of my life. It was one of those tests life throws all the curve balls possible at you, and yet somehow I made it through in the best way possible. This was the day I was reunited with my sibling.

The memory started out in the morning when I went to check emails and got an email from my brother, asking if I was his sister. I sat in shock and disbelief, but replied, asking for proof the author really was my brother. The reply was a long email relating old memories of my childhood, only shared with my dear brother. Two days later I finally found the nerve and a way to call my long lost sibling at a friend’s house. Although I had been warned he had changed, I had not been included of the details or how much he had changed. I had not been prepared at all to almost from the start of the call to find out my brother had turned into my sister.

The shock of that small, seemly minor fact rocked the core of my world, my beliefs, and my view of how life should go. We talked for nearly an hour, yet it didn’t seem to be long enough, despite the fact that was one of the packed with information calls I ever had. Secrets of the past, of our abuse from our father, the insanity of my mother, the night my brother left me, and our family were revealed. It took all my control to not sob, but hold it in. Later that morning I came back home, still not over the recent event to find my dad asking me to look for blood stains, one of the two nights my mom had cut herself. My mom had a awful bruise on her eyes and that was the day my father lied about what had happened to her. I remember laying on my bed, refusing to let myself cry, instructing and giving words of encouragement to keep going through the day.

I went to my father, asking if I could take my friend on our trip to an amusement park later on in the week, but my father refused and gave me the silent treatment for the rest of the day. This was not the last of the curve balls life threw at me that day. I had managed to put away my feelings, to pull over a face of calm cheerfulness and handle customers at the register. Half way through my evening shift, all the registered crashed on us. Unfortunately, we couldn’t fit the problem and for five hours I struggled through pure chaos. The thing that made this day so impossible was how I never lost it during the shift. I never cried. I never got angry. I was stressed, tired, emotional and mentally numb, but I functioned the best anyone could.

I felt the hands of my master leave my head and dared a glance at him. He seemed to avoid my eyes. An awkward, silent with reflection moment passed us. Neither of us sure what to do, say, or feel.