Author: Dackel Princess

Growing up I was pretty much of a Tom-boy. I loved to climb trees, ride bikes, play in the dirt with Tonka Trucks and run around our neighborhood like a little street urchin.

I remember the day my mother had enough of trying to keep my hair snarl free, and she took her sheers and chopped off my hair into a very short pixie cut! (See, I was ahead of my time!)

But Grandma and Dad both didn’t like it, and so my hair was left to grow out.

Just before my fourth birthday, I was supposed to be a flower girl in a wedding, instead I got appendicitis! I was rushed to Falmouth Hospital and operated on.

I remember waking up in the night with terrible stomach pain! I made my way into my parent’s bedroom and I remember being laid on their bed. My legs were tight to my chest. When Dad tried to pull them down, they snapped up so fast I think I might even have hit him!

Off we drove to the hospital and my Dad drove the wrong way and ended up going to the Community Theater! Eventually we made it, and Dr. Wessling removed my appendix.

All I remember about all of that was, he was nice and the ether smelled terrible!

I remember looking through the bars of my hospital cot to watch “Captain Kangaroo” and “Bozo the Clown”. I think I was in the hospital for a week.

My sister was not allowed to come up. She was beside herself with worry! So, my parents thought it was wrong to keep us apart and they snuck her up to pediatrics so Melodie could see me.

I was given all sorts of presents while I was in the hospital. I think Digger the Dog was my favorite.

The only problem was, that by the time my birthday rolled around, I’d gotten all the gifts.

I remember coming home and going up the stairs to my room when I slipped on the steps and fell. I cried out to my mother, “Oh no! I’m bleeding!”

My poor mother came running, thinking my stitches had ruptured, only to find I had cut my finger!

Somehow Mom managed to make a party for my birthday a few weeks later in November. And magically, there were presents for me too.

All this from the earliest memories in my mind. I do admit to fact checking one part, but everything else was accurate.

Amazing what a three and a half year old can remember!

Well, yesterday at Weight Watchers was thrilling. I’ve really been working their Simple Start Program and yesterday I lost two and a half pounds!

The plan is easy to follow and I finally have my head in the right place. I know I cannot eat anything and lose weight. I must eat good whole foods and watch my portion size.

You know it was nearly five years ago that I actually reached my goal. Then life happened, and I was not being truthful with myself, and I will now admit that I gained it all back.

So now I am on the road. I do not know how long it will take me to get back to my goal, but that isn’t important. What is important is that I have learned from this and I will not let anything let me stop from succeeding on the plan this time.

I was a member of The Rainbow Girls when I was growing up. Everyone (or just about) in my family had been involved in the Masons, Eastern Star and the Rainbow Girls. In our local chapter of Rainbow, my sister Melodie even went throught and became Worthy Advisor.

I never really got on too well with the Advisory Board, and so the farthest I ever got was Secretary. Each year a girl was selected to represent our group in Boston for The Rainbow Ball. A beauty contest.

My sister Melodie was selected a couple of times, but she was happy just to go. She was adorable and I certainly would have picked her!

Anyway the year I turned 16, no one else was going from our Assembly, so they said I could go and represent the group.

When we checked in at the event in Boston, I got my number. It was 13! I remember thinking that there was no way on God’s Earth that I would win.

I wasn’t all that pretty, and with a number like 13 (bad karma) I should just forget it. But here I was and when they called everyone up to do the grand March, my former husband (and date that night) got in line.

I was wearing a dress that my Mom had made, my sister helped with my hair and my make-up and I had a wrist corsage.

We walked and paraded, and the line kept being thinned. It got down to about a dozen of us, and then they called the winning number.

Mine!

I was so surprised and happy. It was the one thing I had managed to do in Rainbow that no one from our Assebly was able to do.

Of course my ex-husband still contends that it was because he was my escort that night. All I do know it that we did it! I did it!

I’ve been thinking a lot about the journey I have been on since my own facial cancer surgery and the plastic surgery after. What I am about to confess here may seem stuck up, but after some real soul searching, I am only just now, starting to understand the dynamics of why I have been so shaken by all of this.

You see, back as a child and a teen I felt very confident in my body and of my appearance. As a little kid I practiced how to smile for pictures and it’s hard to find any bad pictures of me.

Of course my daughter is funny because she could always tell the real smiles from the fake ones.

When I was about 15 my grandmother took me aside.

I sure loved my Grandma Honey!

She told me that I was a beauty for sure, now, but beauty is short lived. One must work hard to be a good person, inside and out!

I didn’t really understand then, what she was saying. Certainly if one did all the right things they could keep the clock from ticking away at their looks.

No one ever told me that Mother Nature could jump in and have her way with my face, leaving me to discover, it is time to find my inner beauty.

Well, I have to tell you, it isn’t easy. Being pretty was the easy stuff. You just were. Now I am trying to figure it all out.

I’ve gone back to Weight Watchers after a catstophic weight gain last year. But I still feel bad when I look in the mirror that this unprepared woman, must find her inner beauty or forever be lost.