Lessons in Love

A close friend told me that she was once in love with a narcissist. He dragged her up and down for years and nearly destroyed her. I crawled into her skin and wrote a poem. I searched for a name. Another friend, similar experience, said the name is Abyss.

Abyss

I fear that man

I cannot explain

After months

Years of silence

From me

So lame

The only way

To seal the cracks and crevices

Those tiny roach holes to my soul

Is to stop, stop, stop

The drip, drip, dripping

Of his lyrical, cryptic prose

Upon my heart

Caught unaware

My arms too weary, hands too slow

To cover my ears from the sirens

So beautiful to me once again

Why did you leave me?

He pleads

Twisting the facts

And nature of love

Threading doubt and self-doubt in his story of us

Discarding one plot for another ending, a new beginning

Reeling me in like a snake charmer

To his head filled with poetry

and dream fragments

Where he finds me and calls out

The one, the only one

For him

Today

I wrote this poem while creating a character in a novel, No Simple Truths, that I am currently writing. In the story, Alma, an associate professor, is the victim of a narcissistic lover who is the department head in her university. Perhaps some of my readers can relate to this story and could help me portray the nuances of her internal conflict as she struggles between drowning and swimming free. If you've been there, I would be so pleased to hear from you. writeme@deborah-llewellyn.com. If authentically told, Alma's story may help others.

There are lessons in love for distinguishing bad from good. Do not allow your soul to be stolen by a narcissistic man or woman; you deserve better. Open yourself to love that validates and honors you. Love that brings joy, not pain.

I've been reflecting on some things I learned about love from my daughter, Bronwyn.

My husband, three-year-old daughter, and I were living in a small adobe cottage in the Andes, steps away from Lake Titicaca. The thin air was frigid year round. Choices were to layer up, sit by the fire and play board games at home or take brisk, long walks in the austere, wind-swept terrain. Both were good for relationship building and we were a tight three-some.

You can also love a place. Like true love, it takes time. Our precocious daughter held a little piece of heaven in our NC tree-lined neighborhood, with two darling playmates a stone's throw away. She also had an imaginary dog, Spot, that she played with when her friends were not around. My husband and I dreaded her reaction when we told her that we were moving to Peru a few days after her third birthday. We wiped her tears and told her that Spot could come along.

We arrived in Lima, picked up our car, and drove for several days over 18,000 feet mountain passes on teeth rattling roads to reach our cottage in Puno. During the drive to Puno and in the months ahead we asked our forlorn little girl the same question, "How is Spot?"

"He is not here," she replied sullenly, still painfully homesick for Durham.

We found new friends for her but they all spoke Spanish. That's ok for kicking a ball, but not for the imaginative language-based play that she relished. That said, we planned adventures with the children and their parents, and occasionally Bronwyn enjoyed herself enough to emit a big belly laugh. Small steps. We furnished our house with arts and crafts that Bronwyn helped to choose. She played in the wet clay of the potter who made our plates. On our first Christmas, we cut a scraggly little pine and made colorful ornaments to brighten our "Charlie Brown" Christmas tree, since we had no lights. We hung, and still use, the paper angel Bronwyn made for the top.

In the Andes, lamb was the one meat tender enough to eat. Sheep managed to survive on the fresh shoots of course Ichu grass that poked through the rocky terrain. On Fridays our Brazilian and Danish friends hosted a barbecue, roasting leg of lamb and potatoes for several expatriate families who had developed a close friendship. After the meal, leftovers were shared to take home. Bronwyn's favorite lunch on Saturday was shredded lamb stuffed into fresh baked, pita-like rolls, which we bought warm from the corner store each morning.

Just before her fourth birthday, the three of us were eating that yummy lunch, enjoying a rare splash of warm sunlight that made Bronwyn's bronze hair glisten. In the middle of our lunchtime chat, she pulled a piece of meat from her pita and threw it under the table. Astonished and a bit angry, I asked her, "Why did you do that?"

"It's for Spot," she replied.

My husband and I looked at each other, and then chuckled. Puno was finally home, where Spot belonged.

We had always planned to have another child when Bronwyn turned four. But we kept postponing pregnancy; life seemed too perfect as it was. Bronwyn started asking us for a baby brother or sister. We told her, "One day, maybe one day."

Soon after, as if receiving her message, we decided it was time to have a second child. Three or four months into the pregnancy we told Bronwyn. She squealed with delight, and bounced around the house with Spot and our new puppy, an English cocker spaniel that we named Perucha. That night we tucked Bronwyn into bed, under layers of blankets with a goodnight story. We felt relief that she now knew our important news.

The next morning, early-early, barely dawn, a small set of knees landed in the space between my husband and me. We opened our eyes to see her cheeks cupped in her hands that were propped on her knees. Her most serious expression stared down at us, a clear indication that she was about to say something really important.

"I changed my mind."

We didn't need to ask what this was about. I was alarmed, and then, from somewhere deep inside, I had one of my most brilliant parenting moments.

"Oh," I said, slowly sitting up. "You think if we have a baby, we will take love from you and give to the baby."

She nodded affirmatively, briskly enough to tell me I had nailed the problem.

"Oh that's so funny," I continued cautiously. "We won't take love from you to give to the baby. We will grow new love." I paused, until I knew what else to say. "When I met your dad we fell in love with each other. When we had you, your dad and I didn't take away some of our love for each other to give to you. We grew new love to give to you. That's how love works."

She smiled, and then romped off to play with Spot and Perucha. "You just grow new love", we heard her tell the pets, as I collapsed back onto my pillow.

Our son Chas was born, bringing more lessons in love. I went to North Carolina for his birth and a month later, we moved from the highlands of Peru to Lima, where my husband started a new position and Bronwyn enrolled in kindergarten at the Roosevelt International School.

Even as an early childhood development specialist, the differences in the two children surprised me. Sometimes, I felt I did not know how to respond to a second child so radically different in personality as the first.

Chas was quiet and peaceful, and rarely cried. By 18 months, Bronwyn spoke in paragraphs and never stopped talking. At 18 months, Chas was an intense observer and did not talk. Our friends called him "Little Buddha" or "The Judge." I was caught off guard. I did not know how to "read" him, reading us.

One day I noticed that he had taken a National Geographic magazine from the living room to his bedroom. I found it on the floor, open to photos of buildings designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. This was such a surprising act for a two-year-old. I should have taken it as an omen. Soon after, Chas began to build.

We went to Disney World for his fourth birthday in route from Bolivia to NC for summer vacation. More than any of the Disney attractions, Chas was most interested in a display of Legos in a gift shop. He had ten dollars to spend and asked to buy a small set designed for ages 12+. We discouraged the purchase and asked him to look for something more age-appropriate. On our final day, he still had the $10 and insisted on buying the Lego set or nothing.

He opened the box and spread the pieces and instructions before him. To our amazement he put the figure together. Once we realized his talent we bought other complicated block sets. He was passionate about a set called, Capsella, and worked with it until he understood what he could make it do.

When I asked his kindergarten teacher how he compared with other students, she told me that he was below average academically. My question threw her off guard and she seemed at a loss for something to make me feel better. Then she made a remark that was repeated by almost every teacher in subsequent years. "Chas is the kind of child you don't notice until you realize that the entire class is under his spell."

Suddenly she stood up and led me to the back of the classroom to show me something Chas had built with Duplo blocks. Chas hated Duplos, baby toys, but since that was the only block available, he made do and figured out a way to make the blocks move. His enormous structure, using every block in the class, had an interior maze and trap doors that opened when a ball went through. If you know Dupo blocks, they don't move. The teacher then looked at me as if something had just dawned on her. Perhaps a little respect for a child different from the others.

Summer after kindergarten, we were back in Durham and he was in his room playing with Capsella. He asked me for some rubber bands. He had constructed a helicopter and wanted to figure out how to make the propeller turn all the way around. I watched him, deeply intent on his mission, refusing to eat. Trial and error, trial and error, with me handing him more rubber bands provided by the neighbors when our supply was diminished. About five hours later, Chas announced that he had figured it out. The blades turned beautifully. "I want to make a perpetual motion machine," he announced.

While Chas showed no interest in the alphabet or learning to read, he was smart, really smart in other ways that didn't count for much in school. At home the workings of his mind astonished us, even though he was bottom of his class, academically, for the next three years. I began to worry that school's "you are dumb" messages would destroy his self-esteem. We had to help him develop school smarts, while also making sure he was placed with creative teachers that promoted multiple ways of learning. Chas taught us that sometimes you have to blaze trails for the ones you love.

In the summer after second grade, we enrolled him in a six-week program for children with learning disabilities at the Hill Learning Center, once an off-shoot of Duke University department of education. His anger over having to spend his summer doing reading and math made us wonder if the expense was worth it.

Every day he sat at a kidney shaped table with three kids and a reading or math teacher who had an advanced degree in learning disabilities. They taught the kids tricks for learning basic skills. Methods that should be taught in school. He stopped hating it because the teachers were helping him unlock the door to something he was really interested in – reading a computer programming manual.

I gave Charles, my husband, much of the credit for Chas's new found motivation to learn to read. Earlier that summer, Charles purchased the latest Macintosh computer to take with us to our next post in Nepal. Chas overheard his dad telling me about some of the computer's features, as he scanned through the manual. "It says here, that you can program the computer for voice command." That's all Chas needed to know.

At the end of the six-week summer program, we met with one of the Hill Learning Center teachers to discuss Chas's progress. The teacher told us that Chas had advanced from a first grade reading level to a sixth grade reading and comprehension level in six weeks, which seemed amazing, even to her. She asked, if we had seen the new movie, Apollo? "I thought of Chas as I watched the movie. There is a life and death scene where the astronauts are sitting around a table with every available part and tool on board to fix the problem. Chas was at that table." Based on the teacher's recommendation, we took Chas to see the film, and indeed, at that point in the movie he sat on the edge of his seat.

Summer ended and we flew to Nepal for our next overseas post. Chas was enrolled in third grade at the Lincoln School. The school computer lab had the same Macintosh that we had. So one morning when I couldn't get our computer to turn on, I walked over to the school to ask the computer teacher, Mr. Granan, for advice. He thought for a moment and said, "Chas has been reading the manuals. Perhaps you should talk to your son." When Chas got home from school I screamed at him, "Have you done something to this computer that causes it not to turn on?"

"He answered with a smile, "Did you ask it to turn on?"

Chas was suddenly obsessed with learning how to program computers. At school he asked Mr. Granan if he could learn a certain computer program. Mr. Granan told him that they teach that in ninth grade but he would be willing to set up a tutorial on the computer in the library. Chas convinced his third grade teacher to allow him to work in the library during outside playground time. Soon he had programmed his first game and a bulk of kids in the class disappeared from the playground and could be found standing around Chas and the library computer.

The Lincoln School of Kathmandu believed that every child has a gift and that each teacher is accountable to support that gift through some additional activity beyond the regular curriculum. In Bronwyn's case that meant she was invited to join a small Russian literature book group with a few other girls and a teacher with a passion for Russian classics; and was also given the opportunity, as a ninth grader, to join some upper grade students for a challenging, week-long kayak trip on the Kali Gandaki river because she had proven herself to be a tough outdoorswoman, able to keep up with seniors.

In Chas's case the computer teacher recommended that he be given permission to leave his third grade classroom for a couple days per week to work as an assistant teacher in the computer lab. His task was to teach the computer program that he had self-learned to the ninth grade class. It was a humorous situation for his big sister who was in the class. The teacher told the class, "if you have a question, ask Chas first. If he can't solve the problem, then you can come to me." What a heady experience for a fourth grader. How far we had come.

We discovered that Chas actually had academic skills to write eloquent essays and stories if allowed to use the computer. His seventh grade teacher in Bangladesh called my husband and me to the school. She accused us of doing his assignments. She told us that there was no way Chas could express ideas in the form she received. The papers were clearly written by an adult.

We told her we did not have a clue what she was talking about. We were equally astonished at the work she showed us. She had given him a failing grade, assuming he did not do the work. We told her that if she let him use a laptop in the classroom she could see for herself. It was that year that we went to battle to gain approval for him to use a computer in all his classes. These days most kids use computers for their classroom work. In those days, he was a first.

During his last three years of high school he made mostly A's across all subjects and began to see himself as intelligent, not just in his hobbies at home, but also in competitive school work with other kids because he was allowed the tool he needed to succeed.

Chas taught us that when you love someone you have to be open to an evolving concept of who they are. Love them for who they are and meant to be, not to fulfill your own destiny, and be willing to go to battle for them.

When you help the people you love to be their best self, the rewards are returned to you, in the deepest kind of appreciation. And from that you grow beyond all that you were before.

Before I found my three loves, I felt good about my capabilities and who I was as a person. But the person that I am today is so much more and I owe it all to love. Perhaps I captured it in my

simple Valentine's poem written for my husband and two children.

Poem for My Valentines

The landscape of my heart is known

by three regions

Charles, Bronwyn and Chas.

In the landscape of my heart

You will never be lost

Where my journey begins each is an eminent domain

If you find yourself in one, delight and do not worry

You’re steps from the truth

Maps of the heart are a navigator’s guide to what and why and how

Or look again through lights and prisms

There’s one more thing to see

The beauty of the three forms and reforms the map called me