Pretending...

To be sure, the most striking feature of our mystery person's earliest memories is the fact that she witnessed something mysterious and remarkably painful every day of her life from age six until she became a young adult. And try as her family might, no one, not her parents, their friends, the doctors, her extended family, or friends of friends … no one was able to solve the puzzle of her brother’s painful leg for many years. Even after moving to another country and consulting with a whole new set of physicians, the riddle of the leg persisted.

In fact, when the mystery was finally solved, it brought new pain and different challenges for her brother and also for the whole family. Even she gave up her college degree to be available to him after the surgery. Everyone’s focus, including hers, was on her male sibling.

We can appreciate, therefore, that to manage the upset of watching her brother live in pain every day, she would have to do what she could not to notice, and to go on with life somehow ignoring the agony of his situation… and the angst of her own (having always to set aside her needs in lieu of his).

If accomplished, such a feat would be similar to what family members of alcoholics do to carry on with their own lives when they feel managed by a family member’s drinking. As the saying goes, they learn to ignore the elephant in the room, even though it is always present, always controlling everyone and everything. In time, people learn not to see their own realities.

As a result, the concept of pretending is especially significant for our mystery writer. Keep in mind that she is looking back at these particularly significant moments, because they hold special meaning for her in present time. In each there is an element of pretending…coupled with a reality that something else is going on. What is that "something else," do you suppose?

Recall her first group of one-line memories. The first involves a battery-operated toy. When a child plays with an ordinary toy, he or she creates imaginary connections and exchanges with the toy, staying engaged for some time. Oddly enough, when a toy is also battery-operated, it can seem to have a mind of its own, in that it is programmed to produce the same sounds or movements over and over, in effect “controlling” the interaction between the child and the toy. Our mystery writer remembers "chickens pecking at rice." Perhaps you recall a battery-operated toy from your childhood.

I remember a talking doll. Inside her back could be found a small opening for a large battery. I knew my doll always “spoke” the same words and in the same order, but I pretended not to notice. We chatted with one another, although it was my doll who directed our conversation (at least when the batteries were working!).

And what about a so-called dead snake at the end of a stick? Snakes may appear to be dead, but they are just being still – as is their nature. Slithering snakes startle us. They grab our attention and typically increase our anxiety, if only by their reputation.

And finally, what about a teacher who punishes the wrong child? Perhaps the wrongly accused is only pretending to be innocent. Then again, perhaps the teacher favors one child over the other. Regardless the explanation, we know the students are at the mercy of the teacher. It is she who rules the day.

And moving on to the memory of a glorious day at the beach, we find a degree of pretending in this memory, as well. The beach may be delightful, but it can also be difficult – with too much sun, too much heat, and sand that is too hot on bare feet, among other discomforts.

Going to the beach can also be a good escape, as suggested by the mention of Bruce Springsteen’s refrain… “Down the shore everything’s all right.” It’s easier to endure “sand so hot you had to dance your way to the refreshingly cold water and waves” than to watch a brother in pain. But try as one might to walk casually toward the shore in bare feet, it is the burning hot sand that controls the speed of the steps.

Thus we see that these are not memories from someone “taking care of others” or simply being “moved by life.” To select either of these worldviews, we would have to ignore all the references and metaphors related to “pretending” and to “something else going on.” And what is “going on,” we are wondering. Well, the “something else going on” is a reference to control. Even her childhood toy reminds her that she is not in charge. And keep in mind; she collected all these images because they represent her life now…and tell us her worldview.

Batteries controlled the chickens’ movements. A slithering snake controlled her actions with the stick; her teacher controlled who received blame; the hot sand controlled her steps toward the water; and most important of all, a mystery illness controlled her family’s every choice, even including who received attention, what country they lived in, and the degree to which she could enjoy or even have her own life.

Not surprisingly, the owner of these memories never realized that she, herself, had become battery-operated, if you will, programmed to be controlled by someone for whom pretending was a way of life.

In the end, the worldview of our mystery owner, Dina Matos McGreevey, former First Lady of New Jersey, is “I miss the obvious.” As we know, it was her husband, New Jersey governor Jim McGreevey who resigned his office in August 2004, with the revelation that he was a gay American.

Even today, people wonder how McGreevey’s wife could miss that he was gay. But in reviewing Dina McGreevey’s earliest memories, we can appreciate that she was trained by life to miss the obvious. She was well-prepared not to see.

In her own words… “The Jim McGreevey I fell in love with was passionate, direct, and plain-spoken, a charismatic man whose warmth and easy manner rapidly took him from the mayor’s office to the New Jersey governor’s mansion. The Jim McGreevey I married turned out to be passive, evasive, and secretive, a hesitant man whose duplicity and unchecked ambition proved to be his downfall and derailed our lives. And I never saw it coming.”

“And now,” as Paul Harvey would say, “[we] know the rest of the story!”

Three memories from a mystery person...

(1.) I recall a battery-operated toy - chickens pecking at rice that I received for my fourth birthday; a dead snake that appeared to come back to life as it slithered off the end of the stick I was carrying; and the time the teacher slapped my hand with a ruler because she said another girl had copied off my paper during a test.

(2.) Among my most vivid memories and pleasurable memories, though, is one of a day at the beach, the sand so hot you had to dance your way to the refreshingly cold water and waves. It was on the shore, where we rented a house for the summer with my grandmother, and it was the start of my lifelong love of the ocean, because as Bruce Springsteen sings in “Jersey Girl,” “…down the shore everything’s all right.”

(3.) My most indelible memory, however, is not of long, pleasant days at the beach, but of a day that would change my family’s life forever. I was about six, and my mother was riding home on her bicycle from visiting someone in town, with my brother, then two, in a seat on the back. Somehow he got his foot caught in the spokes, causing the bike to fall over. In the moment, the spill seemed unremarkable. My mother got herself and my brother back on the bike and headed home. But that would be the last untroubled day my family would have for many years.

That night my brother was in pain, crying and unable to sleep. Within a few days, his left thigh had become grotesquely swollen and his veins blue and bulging. His leg looked like the leg of an old man. There was no improvement in the days that followed. Our family doctor didn’t know what was wrong, though he saw my brother and examined his leg several times over the next couple of weeks. It wasn’t a break. It wasn’t a sprain. Maybe a torn ligament? No one really knew. But my brother was in constant pain, and he limped as he walked. My mother was distraught because she felt so responsible. She believed that it was cancer and that he would die.

(Note: This person’s parents then began a journey to find out what was wrong, using all their resources to do so. Eventually, when this person was 8 ½ years old, the family left their home and moved to the United States in search of a cure for their son. It took another ten years or so before the family finally learned what was wrong with him. He had an inoperable lymphatic tumor in his leg. Perhaps the bike accident assaulted the tumor, bringing it out of its dormant stage – no one can say for sure. At age 18, the brother’s leg was amputated to the top of his thigh. The owner of the memories was in the last year of college, but took a leave of absence to be available to the brother and the family.)

Please select from the choices below what you believe to be this person's worldview. Cast your vote in the poll to the right. Thank you!

1. I take care of others. (6%)

2. I miss the obvious. (31%)

3. Chicken soup is for the soul. (0%)

4. Life moves me. (61%)

(By the way, when the owner of these memories is revealed... and unless you have been living on another planet, you will know of him or her.)

This poll is now closed and the correct answer is in blue. Thank you for voting!