I was a child of many, but my reality was … I wasn’t wanted by any. I grew up in several families, within my one and only family, passed around and discarded without malice, but still the harm would be done. I will explain the love that was given to me , was it real or just out necessity?

A story of a child born out-of-wedlock and given away in a stance to save a failing marriage. I was bartered for the love of another child, my brother. I will grow up throughout my entire childhood thinking… I was a  “necessary evil”. The premature death of a woman who raised me and for all practical purposes was my mother shed incredible light on her death-bed… The truth, and it was what I had suspected all along. I felt exonerated to know the true. The truth meant… I wasn’t this crazy little insecure kid that had created this notion that I was a” necessary evil!” I am alive today because I was strong enough to realize then … I didn’t ask for or deserve the life that I was given. I made the best of  it, and  only God’s true grace got me through. I am more  than a survivor, I am living my best life!

I was a very young 22-year-old man , when my mother died…It was one of the most devastating events of my life to date. It meant the end of an era, and life coming full circle. I would ponder my adult existence from this point on. My life would be mine to live! But I must first tried to put the pieces of the puzzle of my childhood together. I would give reasons , excuses, and most of all forgiveness for the past!  At 22 years, I was wise for my age, a state of being that existed for me even at the age of 4. You see, I had no choice but to gain wisdom as a child. I was processing the love of  my family, a family that made many selfish decisions that always kept me unsettled in my place in this family and even in this world! I was just a child, but as a child, I was very in tune with everybody actions, almost to the point of  my own detriment. I always knew from an early age that I was different, maybe what some would call an” old soul”, but my family would term it as being “odd”. I would laugh and play as any normal child, but I would also hear and see the actions of the adults around me. As my mother said on many occasion  “you have the ears of an elephant,” and with no explanation I might add. I always thought she was implying that I looked funny.  It wasn’t until years later that I would grow to understand the meaning of what she was saying. I was dealing with family problems that weren’t any of my concern for a child of my age.

I think my family loved me about as well as they understood me. I don’t fault them for this as… I did not fall into their normalcy…  Stephen Spurling

I still have that little silver spoon my mother would only feed me with.  I was literally born with a silver spoon in my mouth! As we all know, this saying became a derogatory term used to accuse ones upbringing as being privileged, to being plain spoiled. I certainly couldn’t be called spoiled in my upbringing, far from it. But my mother still used a silver spoon and not because she thought of it as a shiny status token. No, she thought that babies should only be fed with a silver spoon because it was healthy. She did not like plastic or metal and she had been told by her mother that anything other than a silver spoon could carry germs. This is true and it is a tradition that began during the plagues of the Middle Ages for the same practical reason, that it was safe. Silver didn’t spread infection or germs that could kill you or make you sick! Silver ware in general was developed for practical hygienic reasons. The baby’s silver spoon was a frontline weapon against disease and infection.

So there you go, the humble silver spoon Stephen Spurling