The Beginning
Trigger Warning: Some of the descriptions in the following entry may cause severe reactions in those with a history of complex trauma. Please read with caution and proceed only as the Lord leads you.
Hello friends,
My name is JT. I created the Delfi & Friends blog.
Why did I create this blog and what is it all about?
Well, it could be that there comes a time in every survivor’s life when the fragments, shards, and pinpoints of memories come into focus just enough that they begin to create a cohesive story. A life beneath the life.
My life, in fact. Just as real as the one in which I am in as I write this to you now.
It’s a beginning. I am certainly in the middle of discovering my story. And eventually, inevitable, it will end, at least this part of it…
…as the good Lord leads. 😊
The Beginning
In the lives of many survivors, as memories begin to surface, the beginnings of “when it all began” can remain a fuzzy affair. I, myself, may never know. In utero? At age three? Again, there are snippets of memories. Events that happened. Scenes in my mind that, on some level, changed everything the minute I experienced them:
-A snapshot of a petri dish in transport on a high speed train moving past a forest scene. High mountains and snow.
I can see the green of the pines peaking through the ice. I do not know what “pine trees” are or even the color “green.” I sense the frequency of these living things, though, and it calms me amidst all the shaking and the rumble/rattle of the train.
-A ride at Disney. I am in a stroller in a yellow dress. Then I am in a tunnel. It may have been a ride. One of the kiddy ones. Mr. Toad?
Then I am not in the stroller or in my mother’s arms on the ride. I am in the arms of a slender young woman with jet black hair cut in a bob with severe bangs. She is walking with me on her hip. My arms are flapping.
We are somewhere in the dark. I remember the smell of what I can now describe as engine oil and cement. An acrid aroma. Dankness and dark.
-Panda eyes at age three. Standing in the middle of a circle of others. Adults looking on in curious interest.
Candle light. A fireplace. A woven rug of circular colors. I am standing in the very center of the rug in bare feet. My toes dig into rug’s scratchy surface.
Confusion. Pain. Why? My brain is tripping with confusion and pain. Why? I don’t understand and I don’t want to be here. I want my mother. My father. Someone to hold me.
Please will someone hold me?
I need comfort and warmth. I need loving, human touch. I feel so alone. So very alone.
A white light. Then nothing. A void. Blankness. A dark. Then resurrection.
-A reoccurring dream of a poppy field and a shack with a black candle, a book, and a human skull. Age 4? Then 6 then 8 then 12 then 14 then 16 then 18.
The dream occurred roughly every two years throughout my life until my early twenties, then occasionally until I was in my early 30s, and then once in my forties.
In the dream, I step inside the shack to have a look around. I always see the same thing. The walls of the shack are gumby green and stucco. The small windows are rounded at the edges and not screened, just open to the outside. A narrow shelf in the same color is to my right.
On the shelf there is a black candle that is lit and flickering and a human skull. At the far end of the shelf, an old book that is huge and the pages are yellowed and brown is open to a specific page. I see what looks like old english writing and illustrations on it.
I don’t like the feeling of what I am seeing so I high-tail it out of there. I begin to run through a field of the most brilliantly-colored bright orange-yellow flowers.
I hear my mom and one of my aunts calling after me but I do not respond. In fact, I run the other way. Then I am flying high. I begin to float…up and up and up.
I look down at them and am a little sad to leave them behind, but more excited about the adventure that awaits up in the clouds. I am meeting someone special there. I am not afraid.
How many memories have I “recovered” to this point? Too many to count. Dozens. Hundreds. Tiny pieces to a gazillion-count puzzle. The picture they create is the universe in which parts reside– behind cupboards, under tables, in a million places they remain in the shadows.
One by one (and occasionally by the dozens), these little ones come forward. With our gentle encouragement, they reach their tiny hands out to the Truth. To Jesus. True Jesus. True Holy Spirit. True Abba.
True Family, who are always present.
I am always amazed by the courage of these little ones. And always grateful for the eternal patience of True Family, who are consistently there with open arms, with creative ways to connect, and with patience beyond belief as one by one, we come into wholeness.