Everyone Signed my Godmother’s Card But Few Understood her Pain

How long had my godmother walked around with something that felt like fire? And she knew what fire felt like. Had experienced it several times: carting piglets out of a burning barn, stupidly dashing back into the flaming shed to grab a favorite magazine, and of course the day her father’s sedan exploded in the street. Maybe that was why she chatted up firemen at the market as they shopped for chili fixings. Add a half teaspoon of instant coffee, she suggested to the men with a wink, to deepen the heat. Her gait was lively some days, sluggish others, but she played it off like a saunter. As an adolescent in convent school, my godmother was scolded for even alluding to the burning of her period cramps, a stabbing jolt like the kick of a calf. The nuns said this pain should be taken in stride as penance. So my godmother learned to carry a mending needle in her pocket and pricked her finger to confuse pain that constantly wrangled her hips. Once I found her mending needle—banked in a clutch of cloth—when I went looking for Life Savers candy in her jacket. She did not wrench it from my hands, but pointed out a fledgling on the windowsill, passed me a warm slice of bread with butter and cinnamon sugar. My godmother wore the pain as a girdle for over two decades. Joined us girls on the sidewalk for a hula hoop contest but stopped after a few rotations. Stood with her back against the gas dryer in the laundry room, paperback in hand. When she finally had surgery—doubled over at work, the matron brought her directly to emergency—my godmother brushed it off like nothing, but we knew she had been freed.