“Again Vanessa!”

 A true story by Vanessa Angel

Once again, Vanessa’s coach, whom everyone simply calls Johnathon, tells Vanessa to do her beam routine over for the ump-teenth time. My daughter, Vanessa, is an elite gymnast. An incredible one who is not afraid to add her own flare and fight to all her routines. I look up in time to see Vanessa preform what seems to be a flawless double double on the beam, and land a beautiful dismount. Johnathon shakes his head. I see Vanessa starting to get frustrated. She works so hard, but it never seems to be good enough. I get up to go have a “talk” with Johnathon, but my husband pulls me back into my seat.

“Well, I have to go say something! That was perfect and you know it,” I say to my husband Juan.

Juan replies, “Yes, but we aren’t the professional coach here are we? He obviously saw something that we did not that wasn’t right.”

I stay quiet. Maybe it is just because I’m her mother, but why can’t Johnathan see how hard Vanessa works? He should walk into her bedroom and see all the first place medals, trophies, and college scholarships if he has any doubts.

“Hey Mom,” Vanessa says and she comes over to me after practice is over.

“Hey sweetie. Too bad on that beam routine. It was perfect! Johnathon obviously does not know what he’s talking ab-”

“Yes, he does Mom!” Vanessa interrupts me, “Of course he knows what he’s talking about. And he’s right! It was no where near perfect. I have to work harder. Nationals are in eight months and I know it seems like loads of time, but it isn’t! And I’ll never make podium if I don’t keep practicing.”

If she only knew how difficult she pushed herself sometimes. I worry about her. She has always had an elephants weight on her shoulders. I think back to when Vanessa was only four and she did her first back flip. I, for the life of me, cannot figure out how she did it. It’s like she read the directions out of the sky. That was the most critical reason for placing her in gymnastics. I just hope that it was the right decision.

A week later, everyone noticed that Vanessa was particularly distracted. Once we were all situated around the dinner table, I brought out the thought on everyone’s minds.

“So how was practice today, Vanessa?”

“Oh, just wonderful!” Vanessa replies in a voice that was way too merry for her.

“What happened?” Xavier, who at twenty is my oldest son, asks.

“I bet you she fell on her face and totally ate it!” Kristian, Vanessa’s other older brother by one year, jokingly blurts out.

“Johnathon basically told me that I was fat.” The atmosphere around the table took a violent downwards spiral. “I told him that I could do a double Arabian mount on the bars for nationals, and he said that that move favors tiny girls who are at least ten pounds lighter than me.”

“Vanessa, you are just fine the way you are. You don’t need some fancy- schmancy new move to win, okay?” I said as encouragement.Who was Johnathon to tell my daughter, who barely weighed over a hundred pounds, that she was overweight? However, I knew Johnathon well. He most likely said it in a positive and hopeful way, and Vanessa, being a drama queen, took it the wrong way.

“Yeah, well I’m not hungry anymore and I have slathers homework to do,” Vanessa said dismissively.

“Okay, well make sure you get a great deal of rest for training tomorrow,” I replied. I feel like I should have seen it there. That something was wrong with Vanessa, why didn’t I? Doesn’t a mother always know best and everything about her children? So why didn’t I? I guess maybe because I never thought that it could happen. At least not to my daughter. These kinds of things don’t happen in our family. The pessimistic part was I never noticed until further down the road.

A few days later when I called everyone for dinner, Vanessa again reported that she was not hungry.

“I had a monster lunch today. A jumbo salad with all the trimmings. It was so satisfying.”

Then the following day, “I was so hungry so I just made myself some mac n’ cheese for dinner.”

I looked over and sure enough saw the dirty pot, plate, and fork in the sink. For this reason, I thought nothing of it. For two weeks, Vanessa always had some reason as to why she couldn’t join us at the dinner table. The words “eating disorder” came to mind, but I just couldn’t connect them to my daughter. There was always proof that she had eaten before or after the rest of us had. Dirty dishes in the sink, the running out of fruits and foods she liked. So I had no reason to be suspicious.

On the third week, I finally asked, “Vanessa you never eat dinner with us anymore. Are you eating at all?”

“Bwahahaha! That’s a good one Mom. Are you kidding me? I love food to much to not eat!” Vanessa answered in a tone with confidence. And that is what always got me. My daughter was such a good little actress. Shortly after I approached her, Vanessa began eating dinner with us again, of course with me too blind to see that she would drink a sip of water after every bite or use the restroom right after dinner. You never imagine that these type of things can happen but they do. Because during this time Vanessa was still going to gymnastics every day to train, and doing a ton of school work.

Four months later Vanessa came home from the gym super hyped up. “Mom! I did it, I finally did it!”

“Whoa, girl calm down, did what?”

“I nailed my double Arabian mount on the bars! I told Johnathon I could do it and he didn’t believe me, but boy, did I prove him wrong! He even said he’d think about putting it in my routine at nationals. This is major, Mom! I could actually win.”

I didn’t say anything. I was shocked at how elated Vanessa was. So much different from the grouchy, distraught girl I’ve come to know in the last few months. I was just grateful to have old girl back, even if only for awhile. However, our joyous moment came to a halt with a knock on the door.

“I wonder who that could be?” I thought aloud.

“I don’t know but I gotta pee. Be right back!” And with that Vanessa runs out of the room. At the door was Johnathon.

“Hello Johnathon. Sorry to say that Vanessa already beat you. She told me the incredible news!”

“Sorry, but I’m afraid that my visit is more serious than that. Can we please have a seat?” Johnathon insists politely. And so, while I sat and listened, Johnathon explained that he believed Vanessa had starved herself and continues to, in order to achieve her double Arabian.

“That’s impossible. Don’t talk about Vanessa that way. You know she wouldn’t do such a thing.”

“Well if your so confident why don’t we test her?” He went to the bathroom and came back with a scale.

“Vanessa! Can you come here for a minute?” I shout down the hall.

“Oh hey, Johnathon. What’s going on guys?” Vanessa inquires as she eyes the scale on the floor.

“Vanessa please just step on the scale and shoe Johnathon that he’s crazy about this eating disorder thing.”

“Uh, yeah okay…” And while a little hesitant, Vanessa stepped on that scale with ease. It read “106”.

“See. Exactly within her proper BMI,” I replied boastfully.

“Okay. Sorry I was wrong. Just worried about you Vanessa,” and with that, Johnathon was gone. But how could either of us known that Vanessa had slipped weights under her clothes?

It could not be avoided, five months after Johnathon had told Vanessa she weighed too much, she was emitted into the hospital. With the situation staring at me in the face, I was forced to admit it. My daughter had developed an eating disorder, anorexia and bulimia. It could have been worse. She wasn’t in the worst shape people with eating disorders usually are, considering the fact that she also exercised everyday. Vanessa had lost a total of twenty- one pounds, leaving her at just a littler under eighty- five. Vanessa’s eating disorder was something that came into our lives like a hurricane and tore us all apart. Everyone blaming themselves. How could we all have been so naive and careless? However, it also brought us closer together. With the help of everyone, Juan, Xavier, Kristian, Johnathon, and myself, we breathed life back into Vanessa. We all knew how excruciating it must have been for her. To stop gymnastics for a month and just work on gaining weight in a healthy way. It wasn’t pretty, and she still has nightmares about it, but we, and especially Vanessa, became one again.

Two months after Vanessa was released from rehab, she stood on the first place podium, medal around her neck, twenty pounds heavier and gorgeous. A huge smile on her face and tremendous blobs of tears rolling down her face. Don’t ask me how she did it, but she did. Johnathon had a lot of convincing to do about Vanessa being truly healthy, but in the end, she was allowed to compete. I guess it’s true that nothing is impossible. Vanessa wanted to get better for nationals and she did.

Afterward, on the plane ride home I asked, “See, it wasn’t worth it. Going through everything and yet, you still got what you desired in the first place.”

Vanessa sounded so wise when she spoke, “Yes. It was Mom. It made me the person I am today. We are products of our past, but that doesn’t mean we have to be prisoners of it.”

And perhaps it is because of her wisdom that Vanessa had remained healthier than ever for over a year now.