Between What is Said and What is Heard

Between What Is Said and What Is Heard
By J. Cafesin
Word count: 1,000


On our way home from school today my teenage son told me a classmate had offered him a joint. I'd been preparing for this day, staging it in my head for years, ready with my bag full of allegorical stories of my reckless youth before easing into the “Why drugs are bad for you,” speech.


But as I drove our minivan home that afternoon, I remembered back when I was a kid, walking in on my sister confessing to my mother... and my response to her troubling story.


My sister was anorexic and bulimic for over a year before telling our mom. It was another sunny day in L.A. and I came in sweating from my 20 minute walk home from middle school. I heard my mom and sister in our parent's bedroom, which was weird because usually their room was off limits. When I got to the doorway I saw them sitting next to each other at the foot of the big bed, and both were crying. I knew something big was up.


I stood in the threshold and asked if they were okay. They both stared at me. Even with 23 years between them they looked remarkably alike, with small, freckled faces and their thick, red hair cut short and worn sort of wild. I migrated into the room looking back and forth between them waiting for someone to speak. Again I asked what was going on and my mom looked at my sister and they shared some non-verbal exchange before telling me to sit down.


The only seat in the room was the little cushioned chair in front of the mirrored vanity. I sat there and listened as my mom explained that my sister had been starving herself and vomiting to be “skinny,” and somewhere in the telling she became overwhelmed with sadness, covered her mouth and succumbed to her tears.


Then my sister chimed in. She explained to me how badly she wanted to be thin, seemingly very thin, and how playing competitive tennis 6 days a week, and running 3 miles a day just wasn't enough to keep weight off. So she started eating less and less, mostly only vegetables- a lot of carrots, but within a few months her skin turned orange. A couple months later she lost her period. She tried eating more normally, but to keep the calories down after a meal she'd go into the bathroom and throw it up. She knew it was dangerous and that she needed to stop, but getting fat was fundamentally more frightening.


My sister sat perched on the edge of the bed and purged her sins. She was rail thin, like most of her high-school girlfriends. Thin and flat. And to me it was beautiful- what I too aspired to be. Her body was sleek, her face tight making her eyes look bigger, her cheekbones broader, more pronounced.


Slender women are not part of our lineage. Most of the women on both sides of our family were, shall we say- amply endowed, all over. My mother worked at maintaining a slender [though curvaceous] figure, and was always on my sister and me to keep our weight down. Thin was, and still is- in, and she didn't want us to be left out. My big sister had finally achieved what I thought to be impossible. She was unarguably thin.


And I wanted to be her.


And she'd just told me how to get there.


My sister confessed to us that day to save her from herself, though somehow I failed to acknowledge her detailed account of the toll the eating disorder took on her body and mind. What I heard was vomiting worked. I stopped listening right after she told me how she'd gotten so thin. Everything that followed was white noise.


From that day forward, and for the next 10 years to come I threw up frequently after eating to purge my body of the calories. And in the beginning it worked. It took weight off and kept if off for a while. I tried to ignore that I was tired all the time, and chronically cranky, and falling into a black kind of depression. The desire to be thin superseded all reason. If my sister could do it, I could, and would, and did, regardless of the health risks.


Following her confession, our mother arranged for my sister to see a Nutritionist. Several years in therapy gave her the emotional strength to combat paternal and social pressures and become more accepting of her body. She learned to eat right and stays active, and now maintains- a not exactly slender- but healthy build.


I still battle my weight. Racquetball and running eventually replaced retching, but my sister's words echo in my head- not all of what she said, but what I heard. Thirty years later, knowing it's dangerous and stupid, still sometimes when I overeat I fight the voice inside that assures me vomiting is an acceptable diet aide.


As I pulled the minivan into the garage I flashed on the burger and fries I'd eaten for lunch a few hours earlier. My stomach hurt, my heart hurt- lost for words of wisdom for my kid. I wanted to purge my body of the heaviness, and thought about throwing up, then laughed at myself, but not like it was funny.


I parked the car and we went in the house for a snack, and a chat. And I lied. I made up a tale of 'a friends' reckless behavior that lead to disaster. I told story after story of kids I went to high school with who were users and grew up to be losers (though I know none). I left no space for my son to surmise drugs were simple fun. I had no wish to travel the road with him that I did with my sister all those years ago.


Sometimes, between what is said and what is heard is the Grand Canyon.