[Not Just Any Other] Ghost Story

Chapter 29

What Goes Around

An op-ed by Sarah Beth Corwin for the New Bedford Bugle

In the midst of our collective trauma — whether those be from natural disasters, mass shootings, pandemics or terrorism – it's easy to forget about people struggling on an individual level. Why would one person's pain be more valid when we're all hurting? But survival isn't a game of who comes in first. We should all be given an equal chance at life.

Yet that isn't always the case.

Some people are lucky enough to have loving families, whether they're born into them or found by chance. A support system made up of blood relatives, adopted kin, or ride-or-die friends who'll never let you down is invaluable even if you claim to be an introvert who can get by on your own.

That isn't true, you know. No man is an island.

Even a relatively obscure 17th century English philosopher named John Donne realized that. And if anyone should have known about a hard-knock life, it was Donne. Born into a Roman Catholic family when that particular religion was illegal in his homeland, he finished Cambridge by the age of seventeen, but couldn't receive a degree due to his Catholicism. Married against the wishes of his new bride's family, his diplomatic career was ruined upon the discovery of their nuptials. With the birth of twelve children (many of whom didn't survive), Donne slowly fell into poverty and depression. He eventually returned to politics and was finally ordained as a priest. For almost a decade, Donne served in various parishes before contracting typhoid. During his recovery after nearly dying, he wrote a series of meditations, including one that contains the now famous, "No man is an island."

It's quite absurd how a deeply pious man who was often persecuted for his beliefs and who wrote poems and satires criticizing Elizabethan society would be best remembered for a quote that was brought into the mainstream (while falsely attributed to rocker Jon Bon Jovi) in the 2002 Hugh Grant film About a Boy.

Donne would likely be appalled by the invocation, but we can't control our legacy, now can we? It's always the victors who write the history books, and those with power and money who build grand memorials.

Those of us left behind shouldn't be fooled by fancy words or marble pedestals. Instead, we need to question the motivation and purpose behind how a narrative is shaped, not only to get the past right, but also to make the correct decisions about the future. Otherwise we'd be just as guilty in covering up the ugly truths as those who originally perpetrated them.

Our town is no exception.

New Bedford may seem like an idyllic hamlet tucked away from the big city bustle, a perfect place for raising a family with 2.3 kids behind that quintessential white picket fence. With its cutesy traditions and collegial neighbors, you'd think it was a town that has nothing to hide.

But you'd be wrong.

There once was a girl who came to New Bedford. She wanted a fresh start. She desperately needed a fresh start.

She had trouble making friends. She didn't know who to trust. Only a few people were allowed to get close to her, but even that turned out to be a mistake. The girl was hurt, more than once, but at first she didn't even recognize it.

How could those who were supposed to love her the most cause her so much pain? Why did everyone else turn a blind eye to her suffering?

She thought it was her fault. Did she do something wrong? She tried her best to fit in, and when that didn't work, just to disappear into the background. But it still wasn't enough. She wasn't enough. She'd never be enough.