Susan F. Morris - The Sensitive One: A Memoir

Copyright 2021, Sue Morris

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Published 2021

Printed in the United States of America

Print ISBN: 978-1-64742-161-8

E-ISBN: 978-1-64742-162-5

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021902733

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Book design by Stacey Aaronson

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Names and identifying characteristics have been changed to protect the privacy of certain individuals.

To Bruce and my children
Your love is everything to me

This above all; to thine own self be true.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

W e all enter the world a blank slate. Free of thoughts and ideas. Who we eventually become is determined by the upbringing and experiences that fill that slate. We dont get to choose who will raise us. We dont control whether theyll be caring and loving, or distant and rejective.

If you were born lucky, home can be a pillar of strength. Supportive, safe, nurturing, and protective. A safety base from which we venture into the world. The root of our self-definition. A secure place to dream.

For those of us less fortunate, home can be a backdrop for pain. The place where growth is stunted. Where nurturing is nonexistent and dreams are slain. A place where love is replaced by apathy, compassion replaced by indifference.

I could tell by the vibrant intertwined colors of red, blue, salmon, and scattered bits of green against a dark background that the flying carpet was the carefully handmade kind. An oriental one of Persian origin. Intricate woven patterns of tiny flowers and leaves along the border matched the multi-leaf pattern that adorned the middle. The beige fringe that dangled at either end is what I remember the most. It was this fringe that Id clung to for many nights of my childhood.

The nightmare was a recurrent one. Every time, it began with the flying carpet floating through chilly air on a dismal day. I was nine, ten, elevenalways somewhere around there. My mom and grandmother sat cross-legged on the carpet toward the front, as if in the front seat of a car. I sat alone behind my grandmother, shivering. A vast dark ocean lay below. Suddenly, the wind would pick up and knock me around. Id grab the beige fringe that hung off the edge and hold onto it for dear life. Terrified of the ocean below, I screamed, Momhelp meIm falling!

My grandmother, my mothers mother, to whom I was close, always exclaimed, adamantly, Joan, Susan is falling off! If she falls, shes going to drown! You need to grab her!

My mothers response was always the same: Im too busy driving this thing; I cant stop. If I stop now, were all going to drown.

Screaming for help, I tumbled and spun toward the oceans surface and slammed into the icy cold water. Then I began to sink to the bottom, still hoping my mother would save me. It was there on the dark ocean floor that my breathing slowed and became shallow. As I was about to take my last breath, Id wake upshaking and crying out.

As a child, I didnt know the meaning of the dream. I knew only that it was terrifying. There were many nights when I refused to go to sleep and begged my mom to stay with me in my bed. When I told her about the dream, she said, Susan, that could never happen; try not to worry about it. But for years the nightmare returned.

I eventually stopped having that nightmare, but the memory of it has stayed with me. I think about it often. As an adult looking back on that horrid dream, I can see that its a clear representation of my life.

Having courage
does not mean
that we are unafraid.

Having courage
and showing courage
mean we face our fears.

We are able to say,
I have fallen,
but I will get up.

MAYA ANGELOU

W hat the heck was that? I silently asked myself. I was sitting in a meeting on patient safety with about twenty-five other nurses and doctors at Yale New Haven Hospital when out of the blue, I felt a pins-and-needles sensation in my right breast. Why would I experience something that felt like a mini-letdown reflex at this point in my life? I hadnt felt anything like this since breastfeeding my three children. For a moment, I smiled at the memory of them as babies: Sarah with her dark almond-shaped eyes and toothless smile grinning at me for the first time. Patrick who could be soothed only by being curled up in a snuggly attached to my chest. And, Samantha, who could sleep anywhere, playing in the snow. I would turn fifty-one next month; my youngest was thirteen years old, and I was pretty sure I was going through menopause. Though the pins-and-needles feeling was brief, it was enough for me to take pause. I looked away from the meeting and gazed out the wall of windows.

I WAS AN RN and worked at Yale New Haven Hospital as the manager of the postpartum units. Despite my nursing background, I knew very little about breasts other than teaching new mothers how to breastfeed. So, after the meeting was over, I sought out my friend Mary, a lactation consultant whose office was down the hall, to see if she had any insight into the sensation Id felt in my breast. I figured it was just hormones, but I still wanted her opinion.

Mary was in her office working on her computer when I approached.

Hey, Mary, do you have a second?

Turning her chair around to face me, she replied, Sure, Sue, whats up?

Well, I dont know, I just felt this tingling in one of my breasts, and I thought it was kinda weird. Cracking a smile, I said, Youre the breast expert, so I wondered if youd ever heard of anything like that before. You know, maybe because of hormones in menopause.

Not really, Mary said. I havent heard of anything like that, but you never know, right? Hormones do crazy things. Then her eyebrows crinkled as she asked, How long did it last?

I dont knowfive seconds or so.

That is kinda weird. I can do a little research into it if you want.

I didnt want to waste her time over what was probably nothing. No, thats all right, I said. I just realized its June, and I totally forgot my mammogram is due this month. Ill just make an appointment and mention it to them.

All right. Well, let me know what happens.

After thanking her, I walked back to my desk, rested my hands on my forehead, and closed my eyes. My mind wandered back to my surprise fiftieth birthday party, almost a year earlier, and how that birthday had catapulted me into a new decade. I thought about all the changes Id been through and what the next few months would bring. Because my husband Bruce had taken an 80-percent cut in pay when he entered the fellowship program, the one major change for me was that after working part time for the past thirteen years, I had gone back to work fulltime, not as a staff nurse but as a nursing manager to support our family while Bruce was working on his fellowship. I actually loved being the breadwinner for a change. And knowing that it would only be three years made it easier for me. The tables turned, Bruce had more time with Samantha, while I had less. He did all the things that I used to: bus pickup and drop off, soccer practice, making dinner, and countless other tasks that had filled my days.