The Well and Me

Blog post description.

5/27/20232 min read

For me, the marble block came in the form of a well, a well of illnesses. Just as I felt I could accomplish something that would let me bring creativity into the world, finish a project, pay the bills, help my family…I would be picked up and thrown into the well. It was wet and damp. The sides were made of brick. The bucket was way above my head. When I looked up, sometimes I would see the sky, sometimes I would hear my children cry, sometimes the sky would be black and the silence deafening. I was tired, I wanted to ignore my life. Just hide, not forever, just for a while.

My mother told me, “if you would just learn the lessons the Universe is trying to teach you, you will stop getting sick.” Over and over, she asked me, “What do you think that lesson is?” Finally, I screamed at her, “Sometimes the Universe looks away, and you just get a bum body!”

I fantasized that I was a changeling. I was only supposed to be here till I was three when I died on an operating table, but chose to come back. All the rare illnesses were a result of my body not being prepared to grow up in human form.

Later in life, the attacks caught me by surprise. I read (luckily well after I had survived one) that there was only a 30% survival rate. My children got used to playing by my hospital bed. They learned, among other things, compassion. My oldest son brought me his security stuffed duck to mend. Then he said, “I thought…maybe you should keep it to help you get better.” That act filled and broke my heart at the same time.

People can only deal with someone’s pain and suffering for a limited amount of time. I tried to be upbeat. Look to the future. One day, I confided to my best friend that I didn’t think I could make it out of the well one more time. I just wanted to crawl into bed and stay there. Not do myself in (bad Karma you know), just retreat. I saw a look in her eyes, saying she couldn’t cope with that choice. When she went home that day, I knew she wouldn’t be back for a long time.

I had an amazing doctor who did research and found me a drug that kept me out of the hospital. Of course, that was wonderful, but the damage to my life was done…the lost time with my husband and the kids, my house was falling apart, and this body of mine keeps coming up with new things that only one in a million people have.

While I was down in that well, I learned to levitate enough that I could grab the bucket and hold on until someone, angel or human, would start tugging, helping me out of the well. But sometimes, that someone had to be me…climbing the rope, grabbing onto the rim…freedom within reach….Feeling a rush of adrenalin propelling me over the side to stand, firmly on the ground.

a dark tunnel with a tree in the middle
a dark tunnel with a tree in the middle

The
Well
and
Me

By Melissa K. Tolliver

This is published in the book
The Marble Block & the Poems It Inspired by Starlit Swan.
A collection of writings inspired by the Marble Block Poem. Visit her website for more information about this inspiring work.
https://starlitswan.com/the-marble-block