A Memoir by Alison Colwell
In the photograph, I am sitting with my kids, leaning back against the driftwood log. Emilie and Eric are ten years old. It’s my forty-fourth birthday and we’re having a picnic at Pebble Beach. I am painfully self-conscious in the first bikini I’ve owned since I was 14 years old. In the photo, dappled sunlight filters through the alder leaves above us; pieces of dried eelgrass stick to Emilie’s leg. Eric’s wearing the shirt he lino-printed himself. The kids and I collapse against each other, frozen mid laugh.
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It’s just a tiny moment in time and I have carried it with me in my purse for the last year. I have stared at that photo so many times I only need to close my eyes to see the macrame necklace I was wearing, the friendship bracelets that circle Emilie’s wrists, see how Eric’s eyes crease in laughter. That photo is my talisman. That photo belongs to the time “Before”. It belongs to a time when my family was whole and healthy. When the only thing I worried about was whether I could wear a bikini at my age or my size. It’s not like everything was perfect in that time “Before”. The house was always a mess. Eric was coping with anxiety, and we never had enough money, but we were happy then. I know we were. That photo of arrested laughter is proof.
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In that time “Before” I didn’t understand how corrosive an opioid addiction could be, and how the lies and deceit needed to hide such an addiction could undermine and unravel a marriage before I even understood what was happening. In the “Before” I am happy, but I was already living in ignorance. I just won’t know that for another five years. When he leaves in an explosion of guilt and rage, does that mean the happiness wasn’t real because the foundation it was built on wasn’t true? I don’t think so. But I often circle that dilemma in my mind. Wondering why I pushed for honesty when ignorance had made me happy.
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In the time “Before,” the voice of anorexia hadn’t yet taken up residence in Emilie’s head, and turned our lives into a constant state of triage, where each day was spent battling the disease, forcing me to make one impossible choice after another. I hadn’t left Eric home alone at fifteen years old to go live part-time in the hospital with her, to sit with her, hold her while she struggled and slowly, so very slowly, came back to herself. Emilie has three more healthy years ahead of her in this photo.
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In the time “Before” I’d never stood at the top of Lover’s Leap, tears drying on my cheeks. I’d never stared down into the water of Trincomali Pass below and wondered what the point of all this pain was. There had been laughter before. The photo was my proof.
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In the time “Before” the three of us had found laughter together on a beach in July. In what came after, laughter erupted at unexpected moments, like when Eric took the handles of Emilie’s wheelchair, bumping over sidewalks and doing wheelies on the hospital parking lots late at night. Laughter was edged with grief, as I watched the clock and counted the minutes until we had to return her to the hospital ward.
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The photo served as my talisman, reminding me of a time of laughter, a time when our family remained intact. It acts as a promise, because if there is a “Before” then there must be an “After.” The easy laughter that I knew existed once can exist again in some future time. The photo of the three of us at the beach, leaning into each other, is hope.
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Alison Colwell is a writer, mother, domestic violence survivor and community organizer. Her work has been published in several literary journals including: The Humber Literary Review, The Ocotillo Review, Roi Faineant Literary Press, Hippocampus Magazine, Dorothy Parker’s Ashes and is forthcoming in Grist and the Literary Mama. She lives on Galiano Island, Canada. Connect with her at: alisoncolwell.com.