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Mommy Why Are You So Fat? |
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I never wish to receive a letter
like this again.
The letter below came several years ago
from a MountainWings subscriber...
 It’s
a true story. At times we are driven to take drastic measures because we have
not been fully exposed to safer yet reasonable options and information. The
ending of the story could have been quite different. It is time to read it.
My sister was overweight all her life. All
through grade school, high school, and then college she has faced kids (and
adults) looking down on her and even making fun of her because of her size.
When she was 32 years old, her
six-year-old son, Cameron, Innocently asked her, "Mommy, why are you so fat?"
With tears in her eyes, she told him that she was going to change that. She
had just realized that her only child was ashamed of her. He showed signs of
embarrassment when she picked him up from school. After all, most of the
other kids had mommies with beautiful bodies.
Her son did not have a daddy in his life
so she knew she had to do something about her weight. She wanted her son to
be proud of his mother since she was the only parent he had in his life. So
just a few days before her 33rd birthday, she went into the hospital to have
gastric bypass (weight loss) surgery.
Little Cameron's main concern was that she
would be in the hospital on her birthday. "Don't worry," she told him, "you
can have mommy a birthday party when I get out." Satisfied with that, he
kissed his mommy one last time before going into surgery. The surgery went
well, but the day after did not. My sister went into cardiac arrest (for an
unknown reason) and died.
It was the hardest thing in the world for
me to do, to tell my six-year-old nephew that his mommy was gone. He seemed
numb and did not cry for a good while. Then he looked up at me with tears
falling down his cheeks and said, "I wish Mommy didn't have that surgery; I
liked her fat."
My heart sank.
It was then that I realized how much of an
impact a person's words, remarks and comments can have on someone. She made
the final decision to have that surgery, knowing there was a chance she
would not make it, just because of what OTHER people thought of her.
To this day (four years later), Cameron
still looks up into the sky before he goes to bed at night and says, "Good
night mommy, you're a beautiful angel with a new body." And each year on her
birthday, we go to the cemetery with helium-filled birthday balloons and sing
"Happy Birthday" to mommy. Then we release the balloons and watch them go up
to heaven where mommy saves them all.
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