The Lamentably Short Life of Kathryn Susanne West

The year was 1985. I remember sitting in the empty and dry bathtub, hugging my knees, and thinking my time was up. I was going to die. I was bleeding internally. It was only a matter of time. I had accomplished little in my short life. Now I probably had only hours to reconcile the meaning of my time on Earth, and hope that I would make it into heaven.

I was not even a teenager. My parents were divorced and my brother and I were visiting my Dad for the weekend. I had been in the bathroom for about an hour. My Dad had been trying to get me to open the door, but I refused to budge. I didn’t tell him what was wrong. I didn’t want to worry him. I didn’t want him to know that he was going to outlive one of his children. My anxiety imagined the worst, and I continued to cry in the bathtub.

“Kathryn, open the door.”

“I can’t, Dad.”

“Your brother has to use the bathroom, too.”

“No.”

“Kathryn, what is going on? Are you constipated? Do you need medicine?”

“I’m not constipated!”

“It’s okay if you’re constipated. It happens to everybody.”

“I’M NOT CONSTIPATED!”

I could hear my brother giggling in the living room. My Dad spoke.

“Kathryn, what is wrong?”

“I’m dying.”

“What?”

“I’m dying. I’m bleeding, Dad. I’m going to die. I think it is going to be soon.”

Silence.

I heard my Dad’s keys rattle from the living room.

“I’ll be right back. Stay there. Everything is going to be okay.”

I remember thinking that he was likely headed out to find a doctor or an ambulance. He didn’t want me to hear that conversation on the phone. He didn’t want to put me through the stress. I had so little time left, you see.

I would have no time to say my goodbyes. My brother would have to tell my Mom. She wasn’t going to take this one easy. I knew she would be devastated. My Grandmother, too. This would kill Grandma. The thought of causing everyone pain was excruciating. The guilt was immense. I didn’t know what I had done to cause the internal bleeding. Maybe I had eaten too much, and my insides had ruptured. Nothing mattered. None of it mattered anymore. I was about to die. What had I done with my life? What had I accomplished? Nothing! Absolutely nothing!

I was a nobody. I was no one. My life had no purpose. Why had I even been born?

I sat in the bathtub and ruminated in my existential crisis for almost another hour. I let the dread soak in. I wallowed in it. Where had Dad gone? Maybe he was getting Mom. He probably wouldn’t want me to die without saying goodbye. My stomach was in knots. The pains were probably tied to the bleeding.

What if God wasn’t real? What if I died and there was no afterlife? What if I closed my eyes and never opened them? Would my ancestors be there to meet me? Or would it be like someone just flipped off a switch, like I was a TV that had been turned off?

I was considering the meaning of my life and mourning my lack of a legacy at age ten while thinking I was bleeding to death in a bathtub.

I heard a quiet knock at the door.

“Kathryn, if you open the door there’s a paper bag. You don’t have to come out of the bathroom. Just open the door enough to get the bag. I got you some things.”

I stepped out of the bathtub, unlocked the bathroom door, and opened it just enough to see the large paper bag on the ground just outside. I pulled the bag inside and shut the door behind me. I took the paper bag back to the bathtub and started to empty its contents all around me.

The bag was full of what I later learned was every possible feminine item. I found strange boxes, a bottle of pills, a pack of fresh underwear, and a book. I didn’t know what any of it was, or what it meant. I opened the book and read, realizing with horror that I wasn’t going to die, but was no longer a child. The more I read, the more terrified and disgusted I became. Outside of the bathroom door my brother was chanting,

“Kathryn’s becoming a woman! Kathryn’s becoming a woman!”

I spied a small, rectangular, package. The box said Tampons. I had never seen the word before. I fumbled through the package, ejecting half of the cotton cylinders from their cardboard containers while wanting to die. I stared at the descriptive pictures that accompanied the box, thinking about what I was supposed to do with them. I couldn’t. There was no way.

“Why didn’t anybody tell me about this, Dad?! Why?!”

Panic was taking over. I opened the box that said Maxi Pads and began opening package after package. One by one I peeled the wax paper off of the sticky backing until pads of all sizes were stuck to the walls of the tub and the tile that surrounded me.

“Kathryn, don’t rush. Just take all the time you need.” My Dad’s voice sounded concerned.

In the end, I chose the pads. I put on a new pair of underwear. I used three pads, just in case. The box said I’d just need one. I didn’t trust the box. I didn’t trust anything or anyone.

I waddled out of the bathroom like a duck. I felt like I was wearing a full diaper. My brother was rolling on the floor laughing. I screamed at him and told him to shut up.

I remember my Dad looking truly fatherly when I first saw his face as I walked out of the bathroom. I could tell that inside of him there was a little boy that wanted to laugh like my brother was laughing, but the father inside of him recognized the importance of his countenance at that time. He didn’t laugh. His eyes had that sparkle like inside he was laughing, but he didn’t laugh. I could tell that he cared. As I’ve gotten older every once in a while I’ve recalled this story to mind, and thought about what he must have gone through as he searched the aisles of whatever store, gathering everything he thought I would need. He was probably panicking as much as I was.

I picture him running down the aisles of some grocery store, nervously tossing items in a grocery cart while explaining to my brother what was going on with me, and why.

I suppose that transition to womanhood is difficult in any circumstance, and no matter how well a person is informed before the experience. I grew up in the 1980s, just around the time when evangelical Christians were terrified of Satanists killing and eating babies, so I didn’t know anything. I was completely ignorant. I didn’t know about the Satanic baby eaters either. Times are different now. I don’t have children. I’ve never had to have “the talk” with a pre-adolescent girl. I don’t know what I’d say in the situation myself.

I’d probably tell this story as a cautionary tale, then hand them a paper bag filled with tampons, pads, Midol, new underwear, and a book about becoming a woman.

Before anything happened.

There would be preparations.

I asked my husband what I should title this piece. He said, “Womanhood: Part One: The Bloodening”.