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Chapter 1

Early Life and Misfortunes

My name is Dawnmarie Deshaies. I was born and christened in a tiny town called Old Town, Maine. My parents are John and Barbara Desjardins. I have one sibling, and his name is Mark. He’s four years older than I am. When I was at the age of two years old, my parents moved our family to a small town called Baltic, Connecticut; the population was only eight hundred people. My family and I lived a simple life. Both of my parents, John and Barbara, worked blue-collar jobs. Our lifestyle produced a simple outlook on how life should be. I was your average girl in a small town. I loved to draw and dream of what my life would be when I got older.

I went to school, played outside like any other kid. I loved music, especially Queen. I was naturally silly with my friends; we would ride our bikes and play outside for hours on end. I had one close friend, named Meg. As a young girl, I struggled with sickness and the constant rotating door of hospital visits due to my severe asthma. It seemed that everything inside the house and outside would attack me personally, often causing flare-ups with my asthma, suctioning air from my lungs. The constant threat and fear of losing that last breath. My parents did everything they could, from taking all my stuffed toys out of my room to putting an air conditioner in my bedroom window. The air conditioner seemed to help me breathe, especially during the winter and cold months. When my lungs began to feel crushing from constant attacks, my parents would admit me to the hospital. The doctors would put me into what they called the green tent. It was a plastic and see-through tent pumping pure oxygen to aid my breathing. They would also administer an IV into my arm and give me medications to make my lungs healthy again. I would usually be in the hospital for over a week at a time, in the cold and sterilized place.

I began to shape my world around the idea that everything was normal. I did what my doctors told me and followed my parents’ instructions to the letter. The next thing I had to go through was the dreaded allergy shots. Every week, I had to revisit the doctors for a continuing series of allergy-diagnoses formulating and even more disfigured version of a “normal” life.

Due to the constant hospitalizations, I missed so much school that I had to stay back in second grade. How awful it was for me to discover the cruelty of my fellow classmates. The constant bullying and humiliation for being held back due to illness. The innate hatred and cruelty bestowed in every human being surrounding me burned a hole in me so deep I was retreating into myself more and more. It became tough even to crack the shell of exposing myself to the world. I began to find solace in my imagination, and I began to express all my misfortunes onto a canvas.