The Fairy Godmother

 

 

I was a lucky child.  I had a fairy godmother.  Did you have someone in your life that was like a Fairy Godmother?  Let me explain about mine.

I had a story before I was given to my new parents.  It is a foggy kind of story, with broken time lines.  I ony have the real story from the time I was dropped off from the train and handed over to a mother who was grieving for her own baby.  I was that angel-baby’s replacement and I was the luckiest baby in the world.  I was a non-thriver, had crossed eyes, only weighed 11 pounds at six months, and my new mother’s first thought was, “Oh, no, I am going to lose another baby.”  Apparently my Grandpa smith fell in lvoe with me the moment he saw me.  He said, to the family, “All this baby needs is love and we are going to give it to her.“  And he was my hero before I could even express it.

I do not remember when my mother told me I was adopted.  But, it felt like I knew it all my life.  I never questioned it.  I internalized the story and the only way I could understand it was that I had a birth mother who had given me to this mother (which was not true, as I found out when the family found me in 2006) .  She became the only lovely thing I could think of her as, A Fairy Godmother. 

I also had an imaginary sister.  Her name was Janine.  She was an amalgamation of the angel baby and the naughty me.  Mother would teach us to do right, when we had not, by telling a story about us.  She would start a story…”One day, Carol went to the store without her mother…”  Yes, I had, but I made her change the name to Janine.  She was the one who took the bubblegum off the lower rack.   

I was a very intelligent child, talked early, read when I was four.  My adoptive mother gave me the best of all world thriough the playing of cklassicalk music and having me tell stories the music told me.  Mother was a teacher and knew how to teach me.  I skipped kindergarten and went directly into Grade One.  Then came the sad things.

When I was sad, I would go out to a clutch of willow trees which was my hiding, secret, place.  And I would think of my Fairy Godmother making it all better.  If my mother or father was angry at me, I went out there where I had a fairy godmother who would not think I was naughty, even if I was. 

There was succor there, in my imagination.  It helped me through some pretty rough things.  I told no one about her or any of it.  It was my secret that I had a Fairy Godmother. 

In 2007, when the phone call came in that clarified my birth name and matrnal family, after days of being in shock, I was flying to the West Coast, from Maine, to meet my birth mother and my siblings.  I was asked what I wanted of/from her, my birth mother.  I explained that she had given me a wonderful gift of the parents that raised me.  I said she was like my Fairy Godmother.  Meeting her was terrifying.  What if I was abandoned again; saying this, I must add that I dealt with the Primal Wound all my life, and anandonment is huge in my life, even yet.  I went to her full of trepidition and love.  She met me with her own trepiditions and love, and the bond was immediate. 

Hands are huge to me.  I notice them and they carry meaning to me.  I wanted to hold her hands.  We did.  And we smiled an eternity wide.  And she looked right in my eyes and said, “Where did you get those green eyes?”  I laughed and said (because I am the only ne with green eyes), “Yes, Mother, where DID I get thee green eyes?”  It broke the ice for everyone gathered.  We held each other constantly during the whole visit.  I was home.  We were home.  I had finally met the woman who had given me the greatet gift in life that a mother could give.  Of course, she was a Fairy Godmother.

 

©Carol Desjarlais 3.16.22

Rika does a lot of art with fairies.  My first thought was that I do not beieve in fairies so I ha no interest in doing one.  But she inspired me.  

I did not draw with pencil.  I did it with paint.  Perhaps I thought I could slapstick it off and be done with it.  But, something took hold.

As I began shading, I realized that \i did believe in Fairy Godmothers, so why not regular fairies.

I began throwing color at the portrait.  I do love this technique ad it so fit the fictional fairytale theme, I thought.

The orbs fell into the picture unintentionally, yet it so fit.  I used round foam on a stick and triple dipped it in colkiors and then set it on oaper and twisted it in a circle.

I have to say, she is one iof my favorites now.