Joesph Merrick & Me

While cleaning out my place and going through my books I came across my old paperback copy of The Elephant Man. I still remember the day I bought it. At my grade school we would sometimes have a book fair and it was my absolute favourite thing. It meant my mother would give me money and I was allowed to spend it at the fair on whatever book or books I wanted. I can still see them all laid out on the table as I walked in line with all the other students, waiting for something to catch my eye. Back then I really liked ghost stories that featured a young girl as the main character like Betty Ren Wright's Ghosts Beneath Our Feet. Then I saw The Elephant Man. As an adult looking at this book reminded me of what made me buy it all those years ago. I so vividly remember looking at the photo of a terribly deformed man from so long ago and at ten years of age I thought to myself, "he knows how I feel."

In school everyone was friends in third grade and I genuinely liked going to school. Then in fourth grade it all changed. It was determined, upon returning and starting a new grade in the same school with the same classmates, those that were considered good and those that were considered tainted. I was, along with my closest friends, considered an outcast. It progressively got worse with each year and I never understood why I suddenly was "unpopular." It was made clear that I was disliked because of the way I looked. Reading this book and seeing the photos of Joseph Merrick made me feel like he and I would have been fast friends. I'd lie awake at night in my girlie pink bedroom, under my canopy bed and daydream of our friendship. I'd imagine all the fun we'd have because if we were together, we'd feel safe and know that neither of us would look down on the other and say mean things. Even now, the most important quality I look for in a friend or otherwise is kindness. Meanness is the one true ugliness.

 

So this is me around the time that I first became aware of Joesph Merrick. I still think he and I could have been best buds, even though he was a dapper young Brit and at the time I could be seen wearing this hideous puffy coat.