Number 120

Requiem for a Boy (The Birth of a Girl)

This one's for my family.

Once upon a time a beautiful child was born in the middle of the night - January 9, 1966 to be precise. As these things go, everything went the way they were supposed to, and soon the child and her mother went home. The child was lucky beyond measure. She didn't know it yet; but she had parents and an older brother and sister that loved her. She would thrive as she grew up without knowing any hunger or want. But something was not quite right...

At first she was too young to notice anything, but as she got older something - she couldn't quite figure out what - felt a little bit... off. But mostly things were still good and she grew to become a young woman. By then the thing that wasn't quite right began to poke and prod with more insistence. She couldn't explain the thing - in fact she found it so scary she pretended it wasn't there. But no matter how hard she pretended, it never went away. For many years, she tried hard to ignore it; until finally, she turned around one day and said to the thing: "I'm so very tired of running away from you. I guess it's time for me to listen to what you have to say." 

And so the thing began to whisper its secrets to Nora (for that was the name of the now, middle-aged woman).  "Nora, it said, "When you were born, a mistake was made. Everybody thought you were a boy..." At first Nora found it hard to believe what the thing was telling her. Then Nora found herself scared of what the thing was telling her, and hoped it wasn't true. Finally, though, there came a moment when Nora gave up, and cried out to thing: "You're right! You're right! I give up - You win," as the tears streamed down her face.

Now dear reader: If you were paying attention, you noticed the fairy tale beginning; and everyone knows that fairy tales have happy endings.  Something magical happened in that moment of Nora's seeming defeat. Instead of feeling sad, Nora felt a peace that had always seemed to elude her. She felt calm. The anxiety that had always followed her like a shadow disappeared. In fact she felt a tremendous sense of joy. It was a wonderful moment when Nora embraced the truth and celebrated being the woman she had always been. And she lived happily ever after.