Journey to the Gates of Hell

I spent my lunch hour conquering demons and facing my innermost fears.

How I Lost My Thumb

Losing my thumb was sort of my mother's fault, but I don't hold this against her -- at least not consciously. Growing up, I never thought about it much. I mostly just thought it was cute. I'd stick bubble-gum on the head of the stump and pretend it was hair. I'd pretend my fingers were people, with whom I'd have long conversations. I'd had a lot on my mind then.

When the kids at school would ask how I'd lost it, I'd say, "It got cut off in a door when I was two." And that was true: My mother and I had been shopping in West New York, NJ for a gift for my half-sister Heide, my father's daughter from a previous marriage. We were entering a department store when the mechanical horse next to the entrance caught my eye. I hopped on the horse and asked my mother if I could have a ride. She said yes, released the door, and pulled some change from her pocket. What she hadn't realized was that my thumb had been wedged in the hinges of the heavy door, so when once it slammed shut, my poor little thumb didn't stand a chance. It was torn to pieces.

I don't remember the actual event, but I have glimpses of memories surrounding it. I remember my Asian doctor showed me his index finger, whose tip had been severed when he was a boy. He told me that my thumb would look like his finger when he was done with it. I remember the African-American receptionist named Karyn -- "with a 'y', not an 'i' like you," she always reminded me -- who kept a really neat lamp with a lampshade made of rotating clear beads, with a multi-colored light bulb on the inside. (It was 1978, after all.) I remember being deathly afraid of the cast saw, which I encountered regulary because of my numerous reconstructive surgeries. I would hide under the couch in the waiting room and my mother would drag me out kicking and screaming. I remember having dreams of amorphous purple monsters coming in the night to steal my arms and legs and eyes and teeth.

Sometimes I think this event lies at the root of many of my fears and anxieties. I can be a complete hypochondriac. Often I wake in the night convinced I'm having a heart attack, or an aneurism, or that I've contracted bird flu, or whichever disease is currently making the biggest headlines around the world. It probably didn't help that my mother (and my grandmother) overindulged my health fears growing up. If I had cold, they thought I had pneumonia. If I was vomiting, I had food poisining. A fever, meningitis. I can see why she might respond that way. I can't imagine what it would be like to feel indirectly responsible for severing my daughter's thumb.

So, a few years ago, when I awoke from anaesthesia after having my wisdom teeth removed and heard my doctor ask, "How did you lose your thumb?" I heard myself say, "My mother did it." The doctor and nurses exchanged shocked glances. I mumbled something dismissive, but kept wondering why I said what I did. Is that how I feel deep down inside?

God, the mind is peculiar.