From one of the last page of David Small’s autobiographical graphic novel ‘Stitches: A Memoir’:
‘My mother died in 1970, age 58. Maturity, reflection and some family research have unearthed a few facts, which gave a slightly different picture of this taciturn and difficult person. Her physical problems were beyond what I could imagine or understand as a child. Because nothing in our family was ever discussed outright, I only became aware of some of them years after her death.
Born with her heart on the wrong side of her chest, she suffered multiple heart attacks toward the end of her life. She also had only one functioning lung. If this had been her story, not mine, her secret life as a lesbian would certainly have been examined more closely. I keep recalling a line from the novelist and poet Edward Dahlberg:
“Nobody heard her tears.
The heart is a fountain of weeping water
which makes no noise in the world.”‘
Throughout the earlier pages of the book, Small’s Mother was depicted as an idiosyncratic and unpleasant person, someone loveless he struggled to live with when Small was… very small. The true story with its hindsights as above reminded me, that behind every person’s seemingly unkind or difficult nature is great suffering. The more loveless and misunderstood a person seems, the more that person needs love and understanding. If we ought to be compassionate even with the less compassionate, compassion is indeed for all. Together with wisdom, it is what will truly save us all!
We often want too much love, while we give too little love.
When others are loved too little, how can they love us much?– Stonepeace
[ad#stitches]