I strolled down the concrete street like any other day coming home from Woodland Elementary school. I knew a few friends, but I always enjoyed the serenity of walking alone up the street to my house. I was only 8-years-old, but I understood the value of quality me time.
I passed the neighbor in the black and white cottage-styled small home. I loved to walk past her, and she if she was tending to her garden or not, usually she was. I heard the echoed voices of children’s laughter, and horns from the countless cars that drove down the street. As I approached my house two seconds later my mother greeted me with an unusual smile on her face.
Either I was in trouble, or she was just weirdly happy today. I had been cursed with women’s intuition even at an early age.
“Hi mommie,” I said.
“Hey, Eartha come sit down I have some good news for you,” she said.
“Your cousin Alicia is getting married, and she wants you to be in her wedding,” my mother said with glee.
“Really?,” I asked. “You sure she really wants me to be in her wedding,”?
“Yea, she really does,” My mother said.
I had never spoken to my mother in detail about how I felt about being in a wedding, but, in my mind, weddings were the equivalent of a little girl’s prom. I was young, but I noticed all the pretty little girls my age were in someone’s wedding as flower girls. I didn’t fully comprehend the value of marriage, but I was smart enough to observe the importance of a wedding. I wanted, so badly, for someone, anyone to consider me beautiful enough to carry their flowers down the aisle on their special day. I was ecstatic, and finally I wasn’t invisible anymore.
“Wow,” I said.
“Yea, Aunt Carol said you are going to hold your cousin Alicia’s wedding dress as she walks down the aisle,” my mother said.
It was a far cry from being a flower girl, but it was something, and I was delighted to be given the privilege to be in my first bridal party.
It was the eve before my cousin’s wedding, and I would bet anything that I was just as excited as she was. My mother had bought me the most gorgeous white two piece ensemble that I’d ever seen. My eyes lit up when she first unraveled it from plastic. The jacket was all white, and completely lace. It had pearl buttons, and was fitted in the waist. The skirt was also remarkable. He was, too, lace and it stopped at my knee.
I told any and everyone I came into contact with that I was going to be in a wedding. It was like I’d been told I was the greatest little girl that had every lived, and now the rest of the world agreed, and no longer did I have to wonder because it was official. I was stunning.
The Wedding day
I was up by the crack of dawn. I woke everyone in my grandparents’ house up. I don’t know why everyone was so sleepy anyway. “Didn’t they know there would be a wedding today,”? I thought.
I ate a full breakfast, but didn’t get my usual seconds because I didn’t want to be too full. I had a big day ahead of me. I showered, and began getting ready.
I felt like a solider being dressed in his uniform for the first time when my mother put on my suit. It was like the old Eartha didn’t exist anymore. I was something new, something gorgeous. I was something to be adorned.
My great aunt came by to put the finishing touches on my hair. My head still hurt form the burns of the straightening comb from the previous night, but I still made sure I slept like a perfect angel so there wouldn’t be a strand of hair out of place.
Fumes of burnt hair accented my grandmother’s kitchen, but I was finally complete. I had my curls, my outfit, and my mother even let me put on red lipstick. The only thing that was missing was my glass slippers, and my fairy godmother, but I imagined I would have even given Cinderella a run for her money that day.
I looked in the mirror, and I couldn’t believe my eyes. I was something like amazing.
“I am pretty,” I thought to myself still unable to actually verbalize it.
I took a few pictures with my mom, and my grandmother, and we headed to the church. I didn’t know how this day could get any better.
I walked into the white building trimed in gold gripping my mother’s hand. I quickly scanned the place in search of my cousin Alicia. We both had something to be happy about today, and I hadn’t gotten the opportunity to even thank her for asking me to be in the wedding, after all.
My mother, and I looked for her a minute or two, but we couldn’t seem to find her.
I assumed she was far too busy getting ready to be bothered so I sat in the hallway in the church when a few seconds later I saw my cousin LM. She was the epitome of pretty, which was nothing new. Her hair was tied up in a curly pony-tail, and she had on a ruffled white dress with a pink ribbon around her waist. She skipped through the church holding a bouquet of white lilies.
“She was the flower girl,”. I thought to myself.
LM was always in someone’s wedding. She was perfect and flawless. Because we were exactly the same age I always felt like I was always in direct competition with her and no matter how I tried she always won. She had better clothes, better hair, and my family just seemed to generally like her more. I knew there was no comparison. LM was just better by far.
I could feel my entire body tense up as she skipped closer, and closer to me without a care in the world. Jealously enthralled my body, once again I had come into second place to her. She was the flower girl that everyone would gaze in awe over, while I hung in the back like a second-class citizen holding on to the back of my cousin’s down like a simple peasant. I couldn’t help, but feel like shit.
“Hi Eartha,”. She said, but before I could respond someone grabbed my arm, and I could hear yelling.
“Eartha get your coat,”. My mother screamed. “We are leaving,”.
I didn’t know what was going on. Why were we leaving, and why was my mother screaming and embarrassing me? I didn’t want to leave. Sure I hadn’t gotten the best seat in the house, but it was still a seat. I had come all the way from Mansfield to Youngstown to be in this wedding.
“Eartha sorry, but apparently you ain’t good enough to be in this damn wedding,”! My mother blurted out as family members, and strangers began staring at her.
We were standing in the middle of the doorway at this point, and everyone was looking at my mother, and I. I didn’t understand what was going on, but her words pierced my insides like Swiss army knives.
I felt my entire body go numb. My little feet ran as fast as they could across the burgundy carpet into the bathroom as tears soaked my eyes. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
“Where was my cousin Alicia,”? I thought. “
Swoosh. The bathroom door flung open quickly, and I was greeted by about five women covered in elegant white dresses with flowers, and bows in their hand .I looked to the right , and there stood my cousin Alicia dressed and covered in all white, and diamonds. She illuminated the room, but her face didn’t match the occasion. No one’s face did, for that matter. There was a cold stillness in the room. The kind of awkwardness that is present when you walk into a room where people were just talking bad about you. For some reason, I felt ashamed. I looked at my cousin Alicia with pleading and teary eyes. I knew she wanted me in the wedding.
Before Alicia could mum a word to me I felt someone clinch my chin with cold hands. My tears dripped in between my cousin Tamia’s thumb and forefinger as she proceeded to twist my head in the direction she was standing. She crouched low to get to my level, and was about less than an inch from my face when she uttered a sentence that left imprints on my soul like feet in the sand. It was a sentence I will never forget.
“Eartha, stop crying this is all your fault,”. She said.
I felt like I was a deer surrounded by a circle of wolves in the wild. I felt like I had committed the worst atrocity known to man, and they all were seconds away from stoning me. The only problem was that I didn’t have a clue as to what I had done. I was devastated. I didn’t understand anything that was happening. I just wanted to leave.
I ran out the door screaming and crying. I just wanted to find my mother and get the heck out of that sanctuary. These people were cruel, and whether they realized it, or not, they had just completely demolished an 8-year-old’s self esteem, which already hung by a thin, and fragile thread.
I could still hear my mother yelling, and cursing out anyone who would listen. I nudged her towards the door hoping we could just leave. I was crying so hard my beautiful white lace ensemble looked more like a used dishrag.
We proceed to walk to my grandparent’s house, which was only a block away when my uncle stopped us.
“Come on Sheila, don’t go,”. He said.
I really loved my uncle, but I couldn’t have disagreed with him more. Those people in that building of God, were acting more like demons, and I just wanted to run away from it all.
“Don’t listen to him Sheila,” I thought.
She turned around, and I wanted to die. We were almost home free.
My uncle escorted my mother and I back into the church. It felt like leading us right into the pit of hell. People were staring at us like we were common criminals.
At this point it didn’t matter what happened. The damage was already done. I didn’t feel beautiful anymore, and I’d wished I could go back to simply being invisible.
No one ever explained to me what transpired that day, and I never spoke to either cousin about how their actions murdered my self esteem. Everyone seemed to keep going through the motions as if nothing had happened. I sat in the back of the church on a wooden chair with eyes as red as cherries, and extremely swollen. I was delirious, and as my cousin said her vows, I too, made a silent promise to myself that I would never be in anyone’s wedding ever again.
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