What helps keep your inner flame alive when life at home feels frightening and unpredictable?
Sometimes it is not a grand rescue that carries us through, but one small place we return to. Growing up between home and foster care, Liz Kuhn found that place on the volleyball court. In this story, she shares a moment of light as a teenager, and what it meant to find a place of her own in the middle of it all.
Life Lessons & Key Themes From This Story
- You already have ways of coping that are uniquely yours. Look for them.
- A place that helps you focus or breathe is not a distraction. It can be the thing that steadies you and becomes a moment of light in difficult times.
- When life feels unpredictable, one consistent space or rhythm can give you something solid to return to.
- When you look back at your story, you will often find moments of light you didn’t recognise at the time.
📍 From United States: This story is part of our worldwide collection of inspiring true stories.
What could possibly go wrong in the two hours I was gone to play volleyball at Welles Park?
Mary told me not to go to Welles Park.
“I don’t have a good feeling about Ma,” she said. “Don’t leave me alone with her.”
Ma had been acting strangely over the past few weeks. She’d go into these catatonic, vacant staring sessions and look at me with her dark brown, angry, silent eyes. Those eyes scared me. They said, “don’t mess with me, this could be very dangerous for you.” No one knew what was inside her head.
The eyes told me to go along with whatever illusion she might come up with to keep the peace.
Like the day she was beyond agitated and insisted my trophies were radioactive.
The Day the Trophies Had to Go
I had earned at least ten trophies. Tall shiny red ones, short shiny blue ones, my name engraved on each of them for some volleyball game I won.
On this day Ma pulled me by the arm into our very tiny bathroom and closed the door behind us. All of my trophies were lying submerged in water in the bathtub. She turned off the lights.
As I stood in front of the toilet, she pulled one of the trophies out of the tub and held it in front of the mirror. She pulled me close, so we stood shoulder to shoulder. Her arm draped tightly around me while the other held the trophy.
“I had to cover the trophies with water to contain the radioactive material.
Look, I will prove to you the trophies are radioactive.
Do you see the glow reflected in the mirror when the lights are out? This means they are radioactive. The trophies need to be destroyed; I am throwing them out.“
No Ma you can’t throw them out, were the words I held in but dared not speak.
She put them in a large black garbage bag, dragged them clinking and banging out the back door, down the stairs to the apartment complex dumpster.
Volleyball - Nothing But the Present Moment
So on this particular afternoon, Mary knew something was wrong with Ma. She had pleaded with me to call the doctor because of Ma’s odd behavior over the last two weeks.
Mary had good reason, but I didn’t listen. I couldn’t help myself. This was a volleyball game, not just practice. I would only be gone for a couple of hours. What could possibly happen?
“I will only be five blocks away. If anything comes up, call me at Welles Park.”
Volleyball was my respite, my escape from the never-ending silent treatment and those dark, vacant stares from my mother.
I was consumed with playing volleyball, improving my skills, and getting stronger. My goal in life at that time was to prove to my coach and to anyone on the court that I was a good player. I was good.
I was the first to serve the ball. An ace serve. No one could return the ball.
I was always in the ‘zone’ when I was in the gym. When nothing else in the world existed except this present moment.
I was always in the ‘zone’ when I was in the gym. When nothing else in the world existed except this present moment.
Jump as high as I can, make sure the ball stays in front of me, hit the ball as hard as I can.
To underhand pass or dig a volleyball from the opposing team came with so much satisfaction, a sense of accomplishment. I knew I could do hard things.
The Phone Call
I was on the volleyball court “playing out of my head.” When everything clicked. In my zone. I had completely shut out the outside world.
A voice from the ethers snapped me out of my safe, special world.
“Will Betty Jones please come to the front desk?”
I left the volleyball court, went to the front desk, slowly leaving my bubble of light, my bubble of peace, and took the telephone receiver into my hand. When I looked at the phone in my hand, it was as if I didn’t know what it was, like I was an alien visiting Earth.
Mary’s words sputtered through the phone like a choking animal, barely able to breathe.
“Betty…
you need…
to come…
home…
right now…
it’s Ma.”
I dropped the telephone receiver onto the counter and sprinted as fast as I could the five blocks home…
On that day, while I was playing volleyball down the street, hoping for someone to set the volleyball to me so I could hit it as hard as I could, our mother had trapped Mary. She had attempted to strangle life out of my twin.
In one of our darkest moments, while I was in my bubble of light, my mother broke.
Meet the Storyteller: Liz Kuhn
Liz is a twin, a writer, a horse-lover and a part-time bookkeeper. She is currently writing her memoir with her twin sister — Together - Apart — two voices telling the story of twins, sometimes together, sometimes apart from their mother, their father and their home.
In their memoir the twins recall pivotal moments side by side, without having discussed the details of each memory. The thread of their stories is the same. The perspectives, however, are often different — even though they were born just fifteen minutes apart.
Connect with Liz by leaving a comment below. Read more of her writings and twin shared stories on Substack https://substack.com/@twinslizandmary
The part about the trophies really stuck out to me. Scary, actually, but also sad. The shift from something that should be prideful to this, which was hard to read.
This was so insightful. It’s life’s little moments that can have a truly deep impact on how we lead our lives. It’s life altering.
Oh, wow. This story really hits me hard. I love the way you wove the ideas of volleyball and such deep emotional themes together.
I can’t imagine how frightening something like that would be for a child. It was difficult dealing with my mother as an adult when she descended into dementia.
An ordinary spark on an ordinary day. One of those moments that does not shout for attention but lingers long after its over. I like your post about volleyball court and transform it into something deeper about connection.