“Meddlesome Tilde”. That’s what my Daddy called me, and with good reason. I had my nose poked into everything. I had an “inquiring mind,” and I just had to know all the secrets! I rifled through drawers, I peeked into closets. If a door was locked, that meant I needed find out what was on the other side. When the grownups were talking, this little pitcher had big ears!
It’s not always good to know the secrets.
At my Mamaw and Papaw’s farm, there was a small roll top desk made for a child. All those little cubby holes had interesting items tucked into them. Mamaw had told me not to meddle in the desk, that it was hers.
Y’all know that only made me more curious.
Yet, I couldn’t get the opportunity to rifle through the contents of that desk. Mamaw seemed to have a sixth sense. She could be in the kitchen at the other end of the house, but if I approached that desk, she hollered, “I told you not to mess around with that!” She couldn’t see me. How did she know? What didn’t she want me to know?
Grownups on a farm have a lot of work to do, and they aren’t often paying close attention to the children. On the particular weekend I am telling you about, I only had to wait until Mamaw went out to feed the chickens to find myself alone in the house, and up to no good. You bet, I went straight for the desk and began pulling papers out of the cubbyholes. There were postcards from my Aunt Pearl, who traveled to exotic places like Oklahoma. I found receipts for chicken feed. There was an old calendar, and there were grocery lists.
Hmm. What was so special about all that? Then I pulled on the desk and found a secret compartment! Inside there were letters to Mamaw from some woman I didn’t know. Then, I found a picture of my Daddy with some woman I didn’t know. Then, I found an official document. A marriage license. It had my Daddy’s name, and the name of that woman I didn’t know!
I was dumbfounded as I sat looking at this paper in my hand! The shock! My Daddy had married someone not my Momma?
Just then, I heard the screen door slam, and I scrambled to get the papers back in the desk. I rushed into the living room and flopped down on the couch. Though I tried to look nonchalant, my beet red face and teary eyes clued my Mamaw in that something was wrong.
She asked, “What’s up, gal?”
All I could think to answer was, “My stomach hurts.” And, it did. I wanted to throw up.
Mamaw felt my forehead, and wrinkled her own brow, “Hmm, you might have a touch of fever. Let’s put you to bed.”
That weekend, I didn’t get to play on the farm with my siblings and my cousins. I was propped up in that big feather bed, just in case I was coming down with something. I cried most of the weekend, as I wondered what this revelation meant.
Did I have brothers and sisters I didn’t know? Did my Daddy love me? Did Daddy still love that woman I didn’t know? Or, did he love Momma? Would Momma and Daddy stay together?
I didn’t know the answer to any of these questions. Finally, my Bubba came in to see me, and I tearfully whispered to him what I had found. He got a strange look on his face, and said, “Don’t tell anybody. Shhh! It’s a secret. It will be OK.” Then, he quickly left the room.
When my parents picked us up on Sunday, I could barely stand to hug my Daddy. All I could think was, “Traitor.” He seemed disappointed that I wasn’t more loving, but he didn’t say anything.
When we got home, my parents sent us all to our rooms. Then, they asked me to come and sit at the dining room table. I couldn’t look my Daddy in the eyes. But, he took my hands in his big rough paws.
“Gal,” he said. “Your Bubba told me what you found. Mamaw shouldn’t have had those things out where you could find them. I’ve made some mistakes in my life. I’m sorry we kept this secret from you, but we didn’t think you were old enough to understand.”
Daddy proceeded to tell me, as I stared at the table, that he had been married not once but twice before he met my Momma. Neither marriage had lasted for very long at all. Without me having to ask, he seemed to know all the questions on my mind. No, there were no other children. Yes, he loved me. No, he didn’t still love those women.
I suddenly realized that my Daddy’s big strong hands were visibly shaking. He was as frightened by telling me his secrets as I was of hearing them! I looked into his eyes, and then rushed around the table into his arms.
“Baby,” he said, “I love you and I love your Momma, and we will always be together. Don’t you worry about that.”
Secrets are hard to keep, and when they are revealed they can be very painful. But, what should one do when, as in the case above, you feel that there is something that a loved one might not understand? Keeping a secret is stressful, as it gnaws at your insides trying to break free. A slip of the tongue, an unlocked drawer…and it’s no longer a secret.
Ben Franklin said, “Two can keep a secret if one of them are dead.” Sometimes it seems in the blogging world that there are no secrets at all!
Top Blog Mag, an on-line magazine written by bloggers, picks a theme for each week. This week, the theme is secrets. They asked some intriguing questions about secrets and blogging. One of those was “Should you reveal your secrets, things that you wouldn’t tell the real people in your life for fear of hurting them or embarrassing yourself, to your readers?”
Now, when I started this blog, I considered getting a nom de plume; maybe something silly so that you wouldn’t know who I was. But, as a professional storyteller, I already had a “web presence,” so I decided to just be me. Because I work in schools, and kids might see this blog, I’m pretty careful about what I publish. But, y’all know a lot of my dirty little secrets (my secret addiction to bacon, my secret that my hair is really gray under the red, my secret that I’m a menopausal maniac, my secret that I weigh myself stark nekkid hoping that it will help make my weight lower, my secret that I really cuss like a sailor).
But, you only know the side of me that I choose to show you. How do you feel about blogs that blab everything? Do you think we should keep some secrets?
Tell me what you think.
{Note: Just as I put this e-mail together, I got a note from Heather, who runs Top Blog Mag, that she is seeking someone to take over the blog. It may or may not continue to exist. That’s a shame. It’s been a job well done.}
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{ 11 comments }
We had a similar secret in my family, except that it was my cousin who spilled the beans. I think I was probably about the same age, too. Talk about feeling betrayed. I felt like everyone knew the secret but me. Obviously it was ok in the long run, but it took me a while to forgive them for keeping it from me.
Secrets aren’t easy to keep, and they can be pretty hurtful. I almost think it’s best to just tell kids the truth. Maybe my folks didn’t think I was old enough. I dunno.
Shelly, you would have made an excellent Nancy Drew!
In real life, I’m not much of a secret keeper, but more of a “you’re making me mad” keeper. I rarely tell anyone if they make me upset about something unless it’s really serious. I chose to remain slightly anonymous on my blog so I could rant and get it out of my system and I always change the names to protect the guilty.
Jessica
Yes, but you rant so well!!!
Maybe you should tell folks where to see your rants?~skt
First, great post, as usual.
I almost stayed anonymous so I could write about things that I knew that involved other people because I thought reading it would benefit others, but I decided against it, only because I knew the possibility always existed they would see it and it would cause them more harm than others good.
Some secrets are made to be told, but not necessarily to everyone or to certain others. If everyone’s lives were complete open books… hmmm, that might be interesting.
Guess it is like white lies.
But secrets need a release, especially dark secrets that some people have suffered through — otherwise someone else suffers at the hand of the cruel person….
PS. I loved the happily ever after line.
Thanks, Marcia. Yes, I suppose there is a time to keep secrets. This one seems so silly after all these years, but it was deadly serious at the time.
You raise an interesting question. I’m still pretty new to the blogging world and it amazes me the things people reveal to the world at large. I have started to wonder if I could be that honest about my secrets. After reading your thoughts on the subject I think maybe it’s okay to continue not sharing some things, especially when writing about other people in my life. It’s not my privilege to share THEIR secrets. Thanks for the thought-provoking article.
I think you should create the world on your blog as you want others to see it. Sometimes telling everything makes it all seem so much less exciting. Again, I tell you what I want you to know, but there are a lot of things I won’t tell you, too.
My husband would shoot me!
What a great post. Sometimes the third time is the charm. What a wonderful post. You write so very well. Have a great day.
Sometimes the third time, some people get it right on the first try. As long as you finally get it right (and my daddy did) I guess that’s all that matters:grin:
As usual a great job of storytelling. Naturally we have the “separated at birth” think going, except it was my mother who married twice before marrying my father and they didn’t live happily ever after. He must have been taking lessons because they managed to rack up nine weddings between them, and it would take an ability at higher math to count the irregular attachments.
The above paragraph demonstrates my rule. If someone else could be hurt by the disclosure, then it stays quiet and hidden. If it is my secret or the parties are deceased and beyond hurting, then I’ll tell a story if it helps to enhance a subject.
I agree with you wholeheartedly! I also think that telling the story should not necessarily be “therapy” for the storyteller, but entertaining or educational in some way. Nine weddings? Whoo! I love your “irregular attachments” euphemism!
It is an interesting topic, and beautifully told.
You know, I like to comment in my blog some anecdotes from my life, but I think that there are some things we must keep for ourselves.
Well, I am practicing knitting, the samples are a bit odd, but I am trying to do my best.
Thank you, Lola. If it feels like something that you shouldn’t tell, then it probably should be a secret. It’s one of those things you have to decide for yourself. Just think twice before hitting the post button!
A well told and touching story, Shelly. I think that there are secrets and then there are SECRETS. I try not to tell secrets that belong to others, and I admit that I’ve taken a bit of crap for sharing parts of myself that others feel should be secrets (like my webmaster who thinks that my politics and lesbianism have no place in my tattoo business even by 6 degrees of linkage). I have an old abandoned blog at an unnamed site that I let go because I exposed a bit too much of myself sort of all at once. Still, I don’t delete it, because it’s real; or it was at the time, anyway.
I suppose in the end it’s like making amends in AA. “except when to do so would injure yourself or others”. Beyond that, I’m pretty much an open book because this is real. Blogging is life. Like me, hate me, approve or don’t. In the immortal words of our favorite sailorman “I yam what I yam”.
And, that’s OK, Thorne. I like yams
What!!!!! People out there actually weight themselves in their own bathroom with clothes on? Hellooooo…don’t get that one.
So you know that I tried to stay anon through my blog, but then I started sharing. I wouldn’t write secrets b/c they come back to bite ya. However, that said, it was kind of funny that I know more about my Mom’s mom then my cousins do and they didn’t know about two other sisters, one a step and one that died young. But don’t you think we can all figure out when something is not being said?
I look at my blog as fun, not as a confessional. Good post to get us all thinking.
I don’t use mine as a “confessional” but I’m delighted to tell the idiocy that I bring upon myself. Like Jamie, I don’t feel bad about telling a story on someone who can no longer be hurt by it. I don’t see the point in trying to be anonymous, though. Not for me, anyway. People will have a way of finding out.
Shelly this was a wonderfully touching story and made me remember that I was once married before; something that I don’t often think about, simply because it was no big deal to me but it may in fact be a big deal to my kids one day. Thanks so much for sharing.
Don’t know how you will deal with telling the kids about the fact, but make sure they don’t find out “accidentally!”
This made me cry! I had a Mamaw and Papaw too. They passed while I was in high school, and I didn’t get to know them as well as I’d like. I remember my Mamaw writing me a letter once and sharing that she had something she wanted to talk to me about. (We only saw each other like, once a year unfortunately.) I’ve ALWAYS wondered what that was…. (((((HUGS))))) sandi
I hate it when that happens! Make up a story…one that you like! My Mamaw and I got very close when I got older. We talked about things that my Momma and I never would have mentioned!
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