The Usefulness Of Love
By: Barbara Carson Todd
Tags: Parenting, Self Improvement, Resilience, Love, Childhood

Overcoming The Past, With The Most Powerful Weapon There Is

Photo by Jordan Whitt on Unsplash

Love was a foreign concept to me, as a child. The main thing was to be useful, and I wasn’t.

I knew that.

I was useless. I heard that on a daily basis, literally, from birth.

“You’re stupid, nobody wants you here,” Older Sister would look at me with a cruel smile.

Nobody contradicted her, so the words stuck, and she repeated them often. That kind of early conditioning really sinks in. The deepest wounds fester and rot, spreading like a malevolent cancer. Some take a lifetime to heal. Some never do.

Normally, a small child would look to Mom and Dad for reassurance, to settle the matter. But in our family of eight determined individuals, the older children looked after the younger ones. Parents weren’t to be bothered. Older Sister was 26 months my senior, so she was the proper authority. My oldest brother looked after all the boys and she looked after me. I had no further recourse. Worse, I was labeled a troublemaker from an early age, because I challenged the chain of command.

When Older Sister realized our parents fully supported her efforts to ‘keep me in line,’ her devastating insults increased. She was clever and highly skilled at setting up situations, gaslighting me, so no one would believe my side of the story. I actually admired her facility with words, even as she trapped me in one unpleasant situation after another.

Unfortunately, continual stress failed to stunt my growth. By the time we were twelve and fourteen, I was definitely taller. Older Sister took that as a personal insult and called me a fat cow. My parents shared her annoyance, actually scolding me:

“How could you do this? You’re putting a real dent in our budget.”

Apparently there was no clothing allowance for daughter #2. Now, I would require a whole new school uniform, an unheard-of expense, according to my parents. I saved up my babysitting money and sewed some clothes. Skirts were easy enough, once I mastered the art of putting in a zipper. Older Sister didn’t say anything, so I guess they looked all right.

It took me a long time to realize I wasn’t actually fat.

Twenty years later, I managed to forgive Older Sister and choose to love her anyway. She did get over that childhood/adolescent jealousy eventually. We realized we were just different personalities struggling to make sense of a dysfuctional family dynamic.

We were raised in a cold, impersonal manner. Our parents, both from large families, saw that Victorian arrangement as the norm. Separately, Older Sister and I envied classmates whose parents listened and spent time with them, freely dispensing hugs and kisses and ‘I love you’s.’

Those kids were so lucky, we thought. But we would never say it. Complaints weren’t allowed. As the years went by, we raised our own children with all the emotional supports we were denied. Lots of time in a comfy rocking chair, listening to their little stories. Even now, a late-night phone call from one of my grown children will find me saying, “oh, no, I wasn’t sleeping. Tell me what’s going on.” And I’ll listen, as long as they like.

I know Older Sister does the same. She told me once, when we were new moms, “you can love, even if you didn’t feel loved.” She knew.

Now, I sneak an “I love you,” into the phone before I hang up. She hesitated at first, but now she returns those unfamiliar words freely. If I forget, she gets it in first, with that familiar-but-no-longer-hurtful air of superiority.

We can laugh about that now.

The hardest part was getting all that negativity out of my head. It still creeps in, with the occasional nightmare. I’m still working on erasing all those hurts, flung at me by a scared little girl. She was hurt too, though I didn’t understand that then.

There’s a popular saying in the New Testament, in 1 Peter 4.8: “love covers a multitude of sins.” We can grow past the hurts. We can undo the damage inflicted when we were too young to process it.

Love isn’t just a ‘feel-good,’ cover up the past, wishy washy thing. Love is a useful weapon, and a powerful one, overcoming any obstacle.

Look back at those who hurt you. As Mother Theresa said, ‘love them anyway.’ Love puts you in control. You choose to love. You choose to overcome. You keep speaking love, no matter what.

Because you are beautiful and loved.

If no one’s told you that today. I’m telling you. You are loved and lovable and an amazing gift to everyone else on the planet. Let yourself be cherished and cared for, listened to — and loved.

I love you.

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