(c) Stuart McClymont
When I was younger, I had a friend who wore the same size clothes as her mother. It seemed like she had an endless wardrobe because it was, essentially, doubled. I don't remember, in the two years we knew each other in high school, her ever wearing the same thing twice in the same way.
This was a completely foreign concept for me. Sharing clothes with your mother.
When it comes to weight, I have the type of genetics that hardly leaves anyone envious. Let's face it, I'm genetically prone to gain weight and keep it on. This isn't something that just came out of the blue, but one that crept up a little each day and when paired with an inactive lifestyle and a propensity towards drowning my sorrows in food, leads to a perpetual cycle of weight issues. I'm not alone.
In photos, I begin to identify our shapes as nearly identical. More than merely round, we are built in much the same way. More than that, my feet touch the path in much the same places; this is partly why I know that gastric bypass - while a challenge - is the right choice for me.
I watched my mother struggle with her weight and I've watched her successfully lose hundreds of pounds on the seemingly endless dieting Ferris Wheel - up and down, down and up. Now, after so long, I am seeing her win this battle, pound by pound. It's amazing, watching what emerges - a collarbone, muscular and striated legs, a change in the shape of her face - and literally seeing what lies ahead for me. Yes, my feet are firmly planted on this path which she has walked before me.
In my entire life, it is only now - weeks before my surgery - that my mother is a smaller size than I am. We chat, with excitement, about what changes will come next. What the next size will be. What else may be revealed. I tease her that she should take good care of her clothes because I'll be wearing them next.
It may seem small - even trivial, to some - this bonding we're experiencing. But for me, right now, it is everything.
They say you cannot know where you're going until you know where you have been. She is a reflection not only where I have been, but who I am and what I can become. She is hope. She is strength. She is courage. She is beating the odds.
I spent a long time being resentful and angry when people would call me by her name. "I am me!" I'd exclaim, exasperated. In truth, I am fortunate that people make that mistake. I finally understand, after all these years, just how much a compliment it is.
