magdalena

I asked Magdalena to tell me about herself.

Magdalena took me to the window again and pointed down at the small farmstead where yesterday we had seen her parents. "I grew up in that house," she said. "I was the only one of the children who was small but it made not the slightest difference to my mother. She treated all of us children alike and, although, I was never asked to do something I could not do because of my size, I was still expected to do my share of work for the family. I was treated with respect by my father who respected all of his children.  He worried about me though, which my mother never did.  He wondered what would become of me.  He assumed that no one would want to marry me. He hoped that I would always have a home with one of my brothers or sisters. My mother thought anything was possible.  My father did not."

When the people in the castle heard that a dwarf child was living nearby they came to my family and wanted to buy me. My mother and father refused.  It became clear that if they would not sell me I was in danger of being stolen. My mother didn't want me to become an entertainer and a jester. She didn't want me to be seen as "a dwarf" and not a human being.  But I made the decision to come willingly without having to be forced and stolen.  I also thought that possibly I could earn more money than I ever could otherwise and could help my family and that has been true. In their cups, people sometimes throw us money. At first it was whoever got to it first that got to keep it.  The audience loved to see little people scrambling and fighting on the floor to retrieve the money they threw, so they would throw more. I was the one that made the others agree that, scramble though we did for "the show", we would split the money between us after.  And we have done that for as long as I have been in the troop.

But it is hard to be a "thing" in other people's eyes. I see in the audience's eyes that they do not see me as who I am.  Even the other dwarves do not see me, but they respect that I am the leader because I respect myself and I am smart. Actually the others do not even see themselves. It is painful to be seen as an object, and all of them run from that pain by escaping into their role as a jester. It is easy to forget who you really are if for hours of every day you are in the painful situation of having to be someone who is not really you. I became the leader because, as painful as it can be, I have never forgotten myself.

Fortunately, I had a good mother.  I had a good father.  I had brothers and sisters who valued me and loved me. I have the courage to stay myself even when I am not recognized by others.