Model Essay

[Peter Lento]
Professor Griffin
Honors 392G
5 November 2008
Reader Response Essay 10

“I am as perfectly alone as a sphere made of glass suspended in the void that is the center of my chest, and if I don’t move too close to anyone else, I will remain as I am. I am a body no one really knows how to touch. I am a mother and I am not a mother and I love a son who is not my son, a boy who is a man I have never seen” (McElmurray 227).

Karen McElmurray’s memoir, Surrendered Child, is a testament to her extraordinary struggle in an unforgiving world. McElmurray is determined to battle her inner demons and fill the void which consumes her heart.  She attempts to fill that void with drugs and other men who she refers to as her “boy lovers.” However, with each attempt to regain order in her chaotic life she finds herself falling ever further from her goal. She states, “My life was chaos and I was being pulled down and down, drowning in a maelstrom of loss and its ordinary repercussions” (McElmurray 137). Alone and scared she would do anything to feel whole again.
McElmurray’s void and her search to fill it are mentioned often throughout her memoir. She looks to drugs and her new husband as an escape, but learns neither of these can stop her pain from growing. Without a positive role model to guide her she begins to seek other men as a quick fix. She refers to these men as her “boy lovers.” These “boy lovers” are an important aspect of McElmurray’s life because she needs them to ward off the loneliness which consumes her. She states, “Their [The boy lovers’] purpose is to sanction me, to pick me up and hold me until I am complete” (McElmurray 173). She needs them, but in actuality they only make her weaker inside. With every new “boy lover” is another reminder that she is unable to carry on by herself. She makes a clear distinction that these “boy lovers” are not true lovers because they can not help hold her together long enough to regain her bearings.  She calls them “boy lovers” because, “…they are not big enough to contain my grief, because they try and they inevitable fail. They can’t keep it together, these boys who want me, can’t hold together all the parts and unfinished pieces of who I am” (McElmurray 178).
Each “boy lover” she encounters numbs the void only slightly, until they no longer help at all. Then, a moment comes which redefines her purpose and allows her to take a step back and look at what her life has become. Someone that is truly concerned for McElmurray asks her, “How can you love anybody when you don’t even love yourself?” (McElmurray 188). She had been so focused on finding others to recognize her beauty that she forgot recognize the beauty within herself. As she looked deep inside herself she realized her idea of beauty was controlled by others. She felt as though she was a failure in the eyes of society because he was not as pure as the Virgin Mary free from sin. She was doing the best should could with the little she had. No one ever comforted her when relinquishing the rights of her son. She was only chastised and left to wallow in her own self pity. She told herself, “…I did the best I could at sixteen as I traveled from mothered to motherless to mothering. I was riding the waves if change without a map, without any one direction to trust” (McElmurray 124). There was no simple solution which would return her life to normality. Her desire to obtain structure from chaos was a burden she always fought alone. She had no one to guide her and no one to truly comfort her.
Her self pity only slowed her down and she needed time to refocus her life and get back on track. She began to write books that expressed her emotions. Many of these books were about women that were lost. Mothers like her in search of their children and the helplessness in which they all struggled. She states, “I am seeking a sign. A story that is everything. A name I ought to know but can’t remember. Directions to a time or a place. An exact definition. One word. The only word to describe a blank at the center of myself that has never been filled” (McElmurray 213). She acknowledges her void as an issue that has consumed the entirety of her life. These stories help her come to terms with reality so that she is able to solve the pain which her void creates instead of endlessly trying to fill it. It is reassuring to know that by her forties she has finally met her son, and because of her loving husband no longer requires new “boy lovers.” Ultimately, McElmurray discovers that some voids may never be filled, but true happiness is a struggle worth fighting for.