A Lost Diamond Elita Sohmer Clayman

My friend Elsie writes me from Florida how her heart hurts a lot. She has an indifferent daughter who does not care for her; even though she has been a great mom and friend to this person. She got her through a difficult time when she was a teen and off to college and came home one weekend and was down to about less than ninety pounds. In those days of 1970, the average person had never heard of Anorexia or Bulimia.  There was no internet or computers in those days and if you thought something was wrong medically, you had to confer with your doctor or go to a bookstore or a library called The Enoch Pratt Free Library, where you could get a book about everything. You were not allowed to take certain books out to borrow; you had to read it there in the library. You could go to a book store, though there were none like the now out of business Borders or the current place of Barnes and Noble to buy such books.

She took her to a gynecological doctor and he spoke to the young girl and told her she had better eat or he would put her in a hospital, where they would force feed her. He also said that she might want children one day and from this illness, she would not be able to have them. He really scared her up a lot and she went back to school and started a regiment of eating procedures and she abided by it. Elsie thinks she was scared by the not having children thought.

She recovered as far as her weight, she gained the appropriate amount for her height and though she is thin or slender today, she is healthy. She married and had three daughters and it seems through the years, she has harbored quite a lot of ill will to  Elsie and takes it out on her with emails stating to the mom, all the ‘things’ she did wrong as a mom. There is no mention of the good things and especially of Elsie literally saving her life by realizing then in 1970 what to do about the situation when it was not a talked about or knowing event. There were many teens afflicted with this illness, one was a singer named Carpenter and she eventually died from her illness. Only then, was there talk about the two diseases within the public areas.

So now the girl, now a woman of 58 finds lots of ways to upset her mom with things she relates that Mom did when she, the so called victim was growing up. Of course, she is a mom herself and her one child has told her a few times about things, she has done that she dislikes. Now she is seeing what a child now grown can do to turn on their giving and loving parents about what they neither did nor did not do.

It comes around full circle in a way, though the daughter as a mom now seems to control her children and they seem to report to her every aspect of their lives. Out of the three daughters, only one seems to remember everything minor said as a big deal action. She even reminded her mom that her mom ‘made’ her have long hair down her back and that she would not let her cut it until she was about eighteen. In those days, all the young girls had long hair and the ones who did not, did not have it, because they could not grow it to that length. She has related that Mom did not believe her about something that had happened and called her a liar. Mom Elsie remembers it in a different manner. She told her daughter, that it was hard to believe, not that she was a liar and went about making it happen that the daughter was not subjected again to this happening. All these events took place about in 1970-71 and it happens to be forty-two years ago. Elsie contacted a friend who is a practicing psychiatrist in Denver, Colorado and she told Elsie that it is time to tell her daughter, it is decades ago and no one was physically hurt, maimed or injured. If what she remembers about certain events differs from what Elsie remembers; both have their ways of remembering. It is so long ago and life is short, even though her hair was supposedly not cut because the evil Mom would not let it, it is ironic that now she at her age of fifty-eight still remembers it as an enormous weight on her slim shoulders and now her hair at this age is still pretty long too. Also, that the differences in remembrances are natural and it is time to let it go. Nothing bad ensued other than her upsetting her aged mom and dad and they were good parents and do not deserve it. Never take a person for granted, hold every person in your life close to your heart. You might wake up one morning and realize that you’ve lost a diamond while you were too busy collecting small stones. This statement from an unknown writer who is really smart as can be.

When my dad died, when I was only thirty years of age, it happened so suddenly, we did not have a chance to really say goodbye, Dad. He knew that I was a devoted daughter and therefore, I had no regrets other than the goodbye words. I hope that Elsie and her one daughter out of the three of them, get a chance to say goodbye one day like mom and child and that Elsie finds peace in this daughter’s revelation of finally knowing that Mom was a good Mom and did all she could for her and not remember any specific happenings that were if they happened at all, were carried out in her belief it was proper for this child at that time. She, the daughter, is a Mom herself and though Elsie said she believes she is not only their Mom, but their best friend; she Elsie was also a mom and this daughter age fifty –eight, her best friend and still is even with all this going on now. Never take a person for granted because you may be sad one day you did. The stones you gather to throw will never be worth the beautiful diamond you lost- your Mom and Dad.