The Death of My Youth

At the innocent and delicate age of ten, I became convinced of two things: I had cancer and I was going to die. I’m not sure if my fledgling medical knowledge came from something I saw on TV or from one of my mother’s women’s magazines, but I knew with absolute certainty that blood emerging from certain bodily orifices definitely meant cancer. Followed by inevitable death. I had other signs as well: fatigue, extreme pain, and stomach distension. This was so unfair! I was only ten and already it was all over for me!

I retreated to my room and fearfully contemplated my next move. I had to tell my parents, I knew, but such uncharted conversation came with many potentially frightening possibilities. Would they be terribly sad? Angry at me? Angry at a God I wasn’t even sure they believed in? Would I have to go to the hospital and receive horribly painful treatments? Would they be able to find someone who could cure me? No, I was certain I’d be dead in a few months, may even weeks.

I went into my mother’s sewing room, where she sat at her old Singer focused on the current seam. I presented her with the bloody evidence and informed her I was dying. Instead of tears or anger or shaking her fist at the heavens, she just sighed and led me into the kitchen, where my father stood at the stove. Now, my father is an incredibly hard worker, but not someone you’d typically find stirring a large pot on the stove. No, this ritual happened only once a year and only if luck was with him. 

What my dad was doing at the exact moment I announced my imminent death was boiling the flesh from a deer’s skull and antlers. If my dad shot a deer during hunting season that had mount-on-the-wall-worthy antlers, the boiling off of the meat was necessary for sanitary reasons. Rotting flesh would not be a welcoming smell while showing off your collection of deer antlers. Thankfully, I never had to experience rotting flesh, but the smell of boiling flesh? Well, let’s just say that if I never, ever smell it again, I’m good.

As the smell permeated the kitchen, the house, and my dying nostrils, my mother said, “Remember what we were talking about last week?” “Yes,” my father said, still stirring. “It happened,” my mom informed him. “Hmm,” I heard my dad say as he attempted to scrape a particularly stubborn piece of brain matter from the skull. “I guess I’ll have to talk to the gym teacher at school,” she said.

And with that, the conversation about my death seemed to be over. At this point, I was several miles beyond confused. Had they been expecting me to die? Did I have some horrible diagnosis they never told me about? And what the hell did the gym teacher have to do with it?

The next day my mother, who was our school’s library aide, came home with a little pink pamphlet for me to read. It turned out I had an affliction that would be with me for a very, very long time: I was menstruating.

Taking Aim at Weight

When I was about 13 years old, my dad taught me how to shoot a gun. He was an avid hunter and gun collector who even did his own reloading. It was what he poured his spare time into and where he found joy. As soon as he determined that I was old enough, my dad and I drove to the shooting range at the conservation club where he was a member and the lesson began.

After stapling the target to a piece of wood that backed up to a large mound of packed dirt, by father commenced my lesson on gun safety. Always keep the safety on until immediately before you are going to shoot. Never, ever point a gun—loaded or unloaded—at anyone or anything. Treat every gun like a loaded gun.

When he determined that I understood these and other crucial instructions, my dad finally handed me the gun. I could feel its power immediately. I gently raised it to my shoulder and tried to find the target, but my upper body strength was poor and the more I attempted to hold the gun steady, the more it swayed. My dad then instructed me to kneel down. With one knee on the ground and the other raised to use as a brace for my arm, I was able to hold the gun steady. This was much better.

When I felt comfortable with the gun butted up tightly against my right shoulder and had the target in sight, my dad told me to turn off the safety. Then he told me to breathe in, hold my breath, and gently squeeze the trigger. The .22 caliber rifle gave off a mild popping sound at the same time that I felt the barrel of the gun recoil into my right shoulder. I hit the target—nowhere near the bull’s-eye—but I hit it. I instantly wanted to do it again. And again. I loved the singular focus of shooting a gun; the challenge of one person, one bullet, and one target. The sheer concentration it took to coordinate the actions: eyes, breath, focus, squeeze.

I bring this up because this is precisely how I go about losing weight. I zero in on my target, inhale, focus, and squeeze the trigger which, in the case of shedding excess pounds, is taking the laser-like focus of shooting a gun and aiming at nothing but my target weight until I hit that bull’s-eye. I am not always successful. Sometimes my aim is off or I close my eyes and lose sight of the target. But when I am truly focused, I can maintain my aim by closing my eyes to temptation, breathing through the triggers of emotional eating, and focusing on that target weight. Then I gently squeeze the trigger and begin. At that point, like the bullet piercing the air toward the bulls-eye, I am unstoppable.

If I Can Do It...SHUT UP!!!

If I hear one more weight-loss company ad, newly svelte celebrity making the talk show circuit, or any other humanoid within earshot of me utter the ridiculous phrase, “If I can do it, you can do it!” I swear I’ll scream, yell, throw a tantrum, have a hissy fit, or maybe even do something more drastic. Perhaps even violent—like rip the skinny wench’s picture out of the magazine ad and, I don’t know, maybe black out her teeth before placing her in the shredder. I cannot stand that phrase; I simply can’t bear it. What does it really mean? If some other person, be it a celebrity or a random person posing for a weight-loss ad, lost a bunch of weight, why does that mean I can do it? What does that person have in common with me? Are our lives identical? Does she have the same unquenchable sweet tooth I have? Does she hate to exercise as much as I do? Does she have the same aversion to vegetables that leaves me staring at kale in disbelief that people actually eat this stuff? Do we share any traits at all that would lead anyone to believe that she and I can succeed in the same way on the same weight loss plan? I mean, it’s just a stupid thought.

I suppose that, originally, the statement was intended to make the speaker appear humble. Like, if even a pathetic loser like me, the rich celebrity, can manage to dump these pounds then all of you schleps out there within the sound of my voice can most certainly make it happen. But to me, it comes off sounding smug. Kind of like I did it and if you can’t, then you really must be a moron. And a pathetic loser.

Beyond lifestyle and personality, I also think the statement is ridiculous because of any one person’s particular skill set. Just because Dr. Oz can perform heart surgery doesn’t mean I can. My brother Pete can treat patients; he's been doing it for more than 30 years. But I can’t, not because I don’t have the training but because I never would have made it through the training. I don’t understand the fundamentals of medicine because my mind simply doesn’t work that way. I don't get math or science. My brother can’t write a sonnet. Should I tell him, “If I can do it, you can do it?” And really, should he even try? Would anyone appreciate his diagnostic and healing skills any more if he wrote all of his charts in iambic pentameter?

Imagine Einstein saying, “This relativity thing? No big deal! If I can do it, you can do it!” Or how about a successful athlete or an amazing singer or a talented artist? Should all of us be able to do what they do? I think not.

What seeing others who have lost tremendous amounts of weight does do, I think, is speak to the possibility. Maybe what they mean to say is, “If I can do it, then it really is possible.” I see all the commercials and hear the testimonials of people losing 50, 75, or 100 pounds and, after screaming at them to stop using that idiotic phrase, I am left with this: the possibility that one can change one’s weight. It can happen, it does happen, and perhaps I, too, can make it happen. After I stop screaming.