Page 15 - March-April 2026
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“And I know I should get a newer car. But it Louise blushed and ducked her head. “I
all feels wrong. I’m freaking out and I don’t forgot because it was never talked about. But
know why. It’s just so stupid!” she was raped by a German soldier. My mom
was born nine months later and after the war
It’s not like she came from a poor the family moved here to America.”
background. An only child from a solid
middle class family, she’d gone to good And there it was. All of her life Louise had
schools and had never wanted for anything lived in the shadow of that rape. Driven by
… except, as it turned out, anything concern for her safety, her grandmother had
fashionable or colorful. Her mother, a nurse taught her daughter to never call attention to
whom she desperately admired, never wore herself by wearing colorful things—to never
makeup. She had shopped for drab, look pretty or make a statement with her
unfashionable clothes for herself and Louise cars, clothes or makeup. Louise’s mother, in
at bargain basements and Goodwill. Even unconscious loyalty to her mother, raised
Louise’s bike, which she rode to school for Louise the same way. Now Louise, in
years, was old and ugly when she got it. “I unconscious loyalty to her mother, was doing
remember when I was twelve I wanted a the same thing. Almost 70 years after the
bright red bike with a white basket for fateful rape of her grandmother, she was
Christmas.” She sighed unhappily. “I got a dressing like a church mouse, torturing
boy’s used brown Schwinn.” herself with anxiety over buying new clothes,
upscaling her image and investing in a new
When Louise told me she couldn’t remember car.
her mother’s mother wearing anything but
black or dark brown, it became obvious there Once she saw the pattern and understood
was a family pattern of the women being the unconscious ancestral program that
extremely modest and self-effacing. As we was limiting her, Louise was able to make
drilled down, a light bulb finally went off for changes. She realized her fear wasn’t hers.
Louise. “Oh, my God!” she exclaimed. “I She also realized it was okay to make other
remember there was a picture of Grandma choices and that in doing so she would not
taken in Paris right before World War II. She be disrespecting her mother—something
had pink cheeks and was wearing this that was very important to her. The last time
beautiful pink dress with a pink bow in her I saw her she was still dressed
hair and she looked so happy.” conservatively, but smartly, wearing a little
makeup and a big smile as she proudly
“What happened to her?” I asked. showed off her new car—a deep burgundy
sedan. “It’s not exactly red,” she said. “But
I’m getting there!”
My Indigo Sun - 15
