The following was written by little Micha as I followed the exercise and wrote with my left hand:
I am cozy in my bed. I like that you are here. My needs are met, but Mommy is upset with me. She doesn’t love me. Already, I feel as if I’m in the way. I’m as quiet as I can be. I am so alone. Will you
really be my friend? I need you. Stay with me a little while. Take me in your arms. Hold me tight.
My reaction was unexpected. So much crying; so much emotional pain. Crying aloud; still crying as I write.
Little Micha’s physical needs were met. I had been fed, my diapers had been changed, I had been bathed. But that was it. My mother resented me from the start. She left me in my crib, and I tried to remain as quiet as possible.
She had me, so she says, “because it didn’t matter anymore.” She was a respectable married woman and could pass me off as her husband’s child. But Paul was never around, and everybody already knew I wasn’t his daughter. They knew I was different. That made my mother angry — she’d thought she could hide her sin but she couldn’t; I was living proof.
She never cuddled me or cooed babytalk, never really held me in her arms at all. She played no games with me. I was a finger pointing disapprovingly at her, a constant reminder of a one-night stand with her husband’s best friend. I thought my brother was more important to her, that she loved him more than she loved me. I still believe it.
She resented me all my life. That changed only a few years ago when she lost Simon; that is, he did something that really hurt her and she stopped seeing him. He tried to have her put away. He wrote to her doctor, saying she was crazy, a drug addict and an alcoholic. He frightened her into soberness. She’s petrified of him now. Then, after an operation to fix her broken hip, she turned to me for love. As the unwanted, shunned child, I was more than happy to oblige.
Did she know that I was tortured by my grandfather? I hesitated before writing that word, yet I can think of no other accurate word.
He did torture me. It wasn’t just incest. It was vicious sex. To him I was worthless, I had no soul. I was a bastard child and bastards are lowlifes that deserve to be used as sexual objects; there is no question of morality where they’re concerned. You can do what you want with them; why would anybody want to defend a bastard?
So little Micha was tainted, dirty from the start. Nothing could make her clean. No hugs for her, no love, only resentment from her mother and leers from the others. Bad girl, bad Micha. Bad, bad girl.
How could you shame your mother so? It’s your fault. You shouldn’t have been born.
But I am so glad you are here. God smiled when you were born.
Oct. 10, 1999 — 10:44 p.m.