(Read: ~9 minutes)
La Bohème talked now and then about the sadness of being studied. The feeling began in childhood, when people poked, prodded, examined her to figure out the cause of her strange memories, and followed her into adulthood, when plenty of people still wanted to poke, prod, test, evaluate, discuss or debate La Bohème. Instead of hiding, she mastered the feeling by inviting scrutiny, living her life in the spotlight.
At first, Letitia tried to ignore Rosa’s musings about intimate details in the lives of complete strangers. Adult comments she never expected from her daughter, or any child. Letitia told Rosa to keep the thoughts and comments to herself, especially at school. A few weeks later, she received a call from the principal’s office to schedule a time to meet and talk about Rosa. When Letitia asked why, the secretary replied the principal wanted to discuss the matter in person. Letitia questioned Rosa, who lied and pretended she didn’t know the reason for the call.
The scheduled day, Letitia walked over to the school an hour after sending Rosa on the school bus. She checked in at the school’s office and waited outside the principal’s door, focusing on her breathing to calm her racing pulse. The principal opened her door ten minutes late and invited Letitia into her office. She introduced herself and motioned for Letitia to sit down in one of two chairs in front of her ancient desk. The principal sat down in a worn leather chair and pulled a file from a squeaky desk drawer. She slipped on a pair of reading glasses and perused the file for a few seconds, then closed it and focused on Letitia.
“Rosa is a special young girl. Everyone here likes her and we’re glad to have her in our community.”
Letitia breathed a sigh of release and relaxed her shoulders.
“I’m sorry for withholding the reason for this meeting, but I didn’t want to sound strange. I’m not sure if you are aware, but recently Rosa has been exhibiting some new behavior.”
Letitia’s heart sank but she kept a smile on her face. “I have noticed some differences,” she acknowledged.
“Yes, the issue came to a head the day we reached out. Rosa told her classmates some personal information about their teacher, which of course got repeated and made it back to staff.”
“What did she say?”
“Rosa told a few members of her class to nurture their teacher because of her divorce.”
“And that’s a problem?”
“The sentiment is lovely, of course. The problem is Rosa’s teacher hadn’t told anyone yet.”
Letitia remained calm, unsurprised at the news delivered by the school administrator, who kept talking. “Of course, there’s plenty of ways a perceptive child like Rosa may have picked up the information, going through her teacher’s stuff, listening in on private conversations. When I asked Rosa to explain, she indicated she knows all kinds of details about people. When I asked how, she described the information popping into her head.”
The principal stopped and waited for a response from Letitia for several awkward seconds. Finally the principal spoke again. “I’ve seen this before, the product of a sharp intellect and active imagination. I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about. Still, letting a professional evaluate the situation for any potential underlying issues is always a good idea. The school system works with a great local pediatrician in mental health situations like these. I’ve already arranged a referral for Rosa.”
Letitia didn’t respond to the principal at first. She lowered her head and thought about the implications of whatever she chose to do next. “Of course, parents may worry about social stigma in a case like this,” the principal ventured, breaking the silence. “In my experience, the child is best served talking about their feelings with someone outside the family.”
“I need to think about what to do next,” Letitia responded.
The principal nodded in agreement. “Yes, of course. In the meantime, here’s the doctor’s info. You can call when you’re ready.” At the end of the meeting, the principal shook Letitia’s hand and told her not to worry.
For the next few weeks, Letitia delayed calling the pediatrician recommended by the school, then she received a phone call from the parent of one of Rosa’s friends at school. “My mom is dying,” the voice on the phone moaned. “We haven’t told the children yet. But your kid tells mine to spend extra time with grandma because she won’t be around much longer. What the hell? Keep your freaky kid away from mine.” Then the parent hung up.
Letitia took Rosa to see the doctor about the past-life memories and intrusive statements. After a brief exam, the doctor assured Letitia they saw nothing concerning and confirmed the principal’s assessment that Rosa’s experiences were not uncommon. The doctor recalled a young male patient who claimed to have lived the life of a famous stuntman in Hollywood. The boy eventually stopped making his claims and turned into an adjusted, contributing adult, which is what the doctor expected for Rosa too.
When Letitia asked what caused these types of thoughts in her daughter, the doctor explained no one understands for sure why past-life memories happen in kids or why the phenomena usually goes away with age. Their best guess, a child’s developing imagination confuses what’s real and what’s make-believe. Details picked up in their daily lives get mistaken for memories. The brain generates the story of a past life experience in order to make sense of the unfamiliar information. Over time, the brain naturally works out the differences between reality and imagination. An alternate theory argues having past-life memories made the junior stuntman weird in his culture. And when you’re weird, everyone else’s accepted reality pounds on you until you conform or die. The boy chose to conform. Hindsight shows Rosa deviated from other children experiencing past-life memories because her visions grew increasingly vivid as she aged.
Playing it safe, the doctor recommended Letitia take Rosa to see additional specialists to do their own evaluations. Subsequent experts concurred with the wait-and-see approach. Since Rosa’s memories never became violent or dangerous, she didn’t pose a threat to herself or anyone else. And examinations and testing revealed no abnormalities with the child physically. If the situation failed to improve, plenty of drugs could be tried later.
While she and Rosa packed up their stuff to leave, a nurse came into the examination room. Letitia looked up at her wearily and the sympathetic nurse took the mother’s hand and smiled. “It’s scary when you’re unsure what’s going on with your kid, or if you can help,” she said. “The Lord works in mysterious ways. Maybe your daughter is special and these folks can help you understand why. God bless.” She handed Letitia a folded piece of paper, then slipped out of the room to visit whoever required attention next.
Letitia felt too exhausted for advice and slipped the note into her coat pocket unread. She took Rosa’s hand, leading her through a short maze of hallways, then finally outside the medical office building. They walked several blocks to the bus stop and Letitia sighed with relief when she sat down to catch her breath. Their bus dropped them a few blocks from home. Despite feeling fatigued to her core, Letitia cooked macaroni and cheese out of a blue box while Rosa watched from the table. After dinner, she drew a bath for Rosa, then dried and brushed her hair before bedtime. Rosa read a story to her mom, “Curious George,” a favorite both mother and daughter enjoyed. Rosa fell asleep the second time through the book. Letitia snuggled next to her, worrying.
She woke up later when Rosa whispered, “Momma, I’m thirsty.” The red numbers on the kitty alarm clock next to Rosa’s bed already screamed 4:15 A.M. She fetched a glass of water for Rosa, who soon fell back asleep. Letitia stayed up with her worries, sitting at the kitchen table with a glass of milk. She wrote checks to pay bills, fixed a hole in a work shirt and tidied up around the apartment. Letitia grabbed her coat draped across the back of a chair and pulled two pieces of paper from a pocket. She looked at one, a piece of scrap she used to scribble her work schedule for the week, though not the nurse’s note. She figured the nurse either wrote down the name of another doctor or some church she attended. The thought of taking her baby to another doctor just to wind up without answers made her heart ache. Letitia doubted the sincerity of judgy churches and their opinions of people deemed deficient or different. But, with tired apprehension, she unfolded the note for Rosa.
The nurse wrote a phone number, and scribbled a bunch of letters which looked like gibberish to Letitia, DOPS @ UVA. She had no idea the acronym stood for the Department of Perception Studies or the doctors working there studied cases of reincarnation, near-death experiences and psychic mediumship. But, the thought of calling the number, no matter who answered, felt overwhelming. So, Letitia did what a lot of us do when we feel stressed, she procrastinated and placed the note with the rest of the documents and receipts from Rosa’s recent medical evaluations. Later, a glossy envelope filled with school pictures got placed on top of the pile. Letitia never took Rosa back to the museum though Rosa continued to speak of new memories anyway, some of which she claimed originated from her own past lives while others involved complete strangers.
No one knows exactly what she remembered, no one wrote her words down yet. But a jarring memory shook Letitia enough to look for more help. A few days after Thanksgiving and a few months after the trip to the museum, Rosa woke up sobbing. The noise woke up Letitia, who slept on the pull-out sofa in the small living room. She got up to check on her daughter, but froze in fear when she got to the doorway and saw how Rosa sat in bed, hunched over, resembling a rickety old woman. Her shoulders heaved and drooped along with the sobs. Her face turned pale and her eyes swelled red and puffy from tears.
“What’s wrong, baby?” Letitia asked, heart pounding in her chest. One hand trembling on the doorframe, the other on the knob, she kept her balance with both feet in the hallway.
The child’s sobs turned to whimpers and then she spoke in a different voice. “Oh Pierre, mon amour. Je t’aime. Non non non!”
Letitia pushed past the initial fear and sat down on the bed next to her baby, held her, rocked her, and started to cry too. The girl whispered “non, non, non” for a few seconds, then the light in the hall flickered, the air in the room tingled, and Rosa let out a deep sigh. She twisted and hugged her mother tight, the feeling Letitia recognized from her baby. After a few minutes spent gripping the child, Letitia asked again what caused the outburst. Rosa claimed to feel Lise’s sorrow. Letitia asked why. Rosa answered, “Pierre died today, a long time ago.”
Letitia and Rosa ate their breakfast without talking. Neither spoke while walking to the school bus stop, or during the wait for her ride. Finally, the yellow bus pulled up with a grumbling engine and flashing red lights. Letitia kneeled, pulled her daughter’s coat tight, kissed her on the forehead and told her “Mommy loves you.”
Rosa replied, “Love you too,” turned, and bounded up the black rubber steps. A few stragglers, older kids, pushed past Letitia and jumped on the bus at the last second, eliciting a scolding from the driver. Then the door closed, the engine revved and the bus rolled away towards the next stop.
Letitia called the number for DOPS when she got back home. She described Rosa’s statements and behavior, then asked for their help.
Arlo Gust 