Fat, Fear, Love

When my husband left me (for another woman), I lost 25 pounds. I didn’t set out to lose weight. I just stopped eating.

And I cried. I drank too much. I listened to music. I sang at the top of my voice. Linda Ronstadt: “I’ve been cheated, been mistreated, when will I be loved?” The Eagles: “I’m already gone, I’m feeling strong.” My little daughter cried and asked me not to play that music.  And I stopped eating.

A friend told me that her mother said that a man leaves his wife for a reason. I cried and pondered: Was I too serious, too tense, too caught up in school? Was I too attentive to my daughter, not to him? Was I . . . was  I .  . too fat?

Was I fat? I prided myself on the fact that I didn’t look bad in a new bikini when my daughter was six months old. But in taking care of a child and going to graduate school and being poor over the next few years, I’d let my body, well, grow. I wore peasant shirts, elastic waist bands.

At first I didn’t notice weight loss, but then my clothes no longer fit. Friends told me I was too skinny. But I loved my new body. I began to look in the mirror again. Began to appreciate myself. I looked good. I let my hair grow, highlighted it with blond streaks.

My little daughter watched. She learned resiliency. And what else?

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My father never had an extra pound of weight on his body. Never. He had some sort of internal mechanism, I guess. He ate ice cream every night, sitting watching TV in his big brown recliner. When he finished he’d call the dog to lick the bowl. It didn’t take long for the dog to simply hear the bowl being scraped to come running.

But, if my father somehow perceived (what did he see?) that there was extra weight on his body, he’d stop eating ice cream And in a week or two he’d resume his nightly habit.

I was a pre-teen when I noticed my father’s careful observance of his weight. Both my parents were careful about their bodies. They didn’t use the word dieting, but after vacations my mother would talk about having to fit into this or that. Somewhere along the way, I even managed to put a name to my parents’ attitude toward fat: prejudice.

I never thought much about my weight or my body when I was a kid. But I watched and I listened.

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When my mother was ill in the years before she died and weighed less than 100 pounds, she once said to me: “I still find myself sucking in my stomach.”

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My children are all slender. My youngest son, who went through a brief bout of chubbiness in pre adolescence, would—after he became slim—pinch a piece of his skin between his thumb and forefinger and say, “I’ve gotta lose this.”

“That’s skin,” I’d answer.

I think my older son takes a kind of secret pride in the fact that at 135 pounds, he weighs less than his mother, his sister, and his wife.

I asked my daughter recently if she felt an excessive attention to body size, if I made her worry about her body. She generously answered, “Well, no, but you always seemed to be on a diet.”

It’s true. I’ve always been on a diet. I’ve done a bunch of fad diets—Nutri-system, the Scarsborough diet, several rounds with Weight Watchers. I’ve kept up fitness regimes—step class,es, aerobics classes, Jazzercise. bicycling, and hiking.

Self-control and self-indulgence are in a constant battle.

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I’ve always thought my daughter was beautiful—from the time she was born.

Did I say that too much? Too little?

* * * * * * * * * *

I watch my daughter with her little twin girls. She’s never been happier, she tells me. They make music, read books, take walks, have picnics, sing songs, play hand and toe games.  

When John comes home from work the four of them have dance party time, all of them laughing and bouncing to the music, before settling in for bottles and stories and bed. I watch a little jealously her fulsome expressions of love to her husband and children, the bright ring of family she’s constructing.

My daughter fusses about the stubborn remaining pounds after the babies are born. “Give yourself time,” her husband reassures, supports.


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John’s father died when he was twelve year old. Emily’s father left when she was four years old.

“He’s afraid I’ll die; I’m afraid he’ll leave,” she once told me.