A Half Dollar’s Worth of Pain

As I sit here, sharing this with you, I can feel the weight of some memories gently stirring inside me. It’s funny, isn’t it? How a small act, something as simple as being handed a coin, can carve such deep grooves into the soft clay of our young hearts. When I was six, moving to Guadalajara was exciting in many ways—new places, new faces, and the promise of a life that, at least in a child’s mind, would be full of adventure and joy. But those early years were not always so simple.

I remember how we would visit my uncle S and his family. It felt like the beginning of a new chapter for our families; cousins playing together, weekend dinners shared, laughter filling the air. It should have been enough for a child to feel safe and cherished. But in those small, intimate moments, I began to feel like I didn’t quite belong. There’s this tradition in Mexico, called El Domingo. Every Sunday, uncles give their nieces and nephews a little bit of money, a token really, but also a symbol of care and love. It should have been a small, joyful moment, but for me, it became a painful reminder of something I couldn’t quite understand at the time.

When all of us kids would gather around, excitedly waiting for our Domingo, I would watch as my cousins received their $5 pesos, their eyes lighting up with that simple joy. And then, there was me, standing there, heart quietly sinking, as my uncle handed me only 50 cents. Every time. Without fail. In that moment, the coins didn’t just represent money; they represented my worth. As a child, I didn’t have the words or the understanding to articulate why it hurt so much. But deep down, I started to believe that maybe there was something wrong with me, something that made me undeserving of the same love, the same recognition.

There was one Sunday I remember crying so much about it that my aunt C (his wife), bless her heart, came to me and gave me extra money on the side. And while her gesture was kind, it didn’t fill the hole that had been created. In fact, it only solidified that painful belief: that even in my tears, I didn’t deserve it, that it had to be given out of pity or obligation.

Even now, when I think about it, it still stings.

I can remember feeling this quiet, creeping sense of shame, as if I had somehow done something to earn that lesser treatment. And as a child, I did what children do: I internalized it. My innocent mind, still trying to make sense of the world, began to weave this narrative that I was less than, that I wasn’t enough. But what I didn’t realize then, and what I’m only beginning to understand now, is that this wasn’t just about my uncle and those 50 cents. This was another confirmation of a deeper, more painful belief I had already started to carry, a belief rooted in the wound I carried from my relationship with my mother.

Growing up, there was this ache I couldn’t quite name, a longing to be seen, to be held in a way that made me feel safe and valued. My mother, in her own struggles and pain, wasn’t always able to give that to me. And while I loved her deeply, I often felt unseen, unheard, and maybe even unimportant in the ways a child so desperately needs to feel. I started to believe that there must be something wrong with me, something inherently lacking that made me unworthy of that love and attention. My mother’s inability to show up for me in the ways I needed created a wound, a mother wound, that shaped the way I saw myself and the world around me.

So, when my uncle treated me differently, giving me less while my cousins received more, it wasn’t just a random act of cruelty. It felt like confirmation of the story I had already started to tell myself: you are less, you don’t matter as much. His actions echoed the same silent message I had felt growing up: you are unworthy. And I absorbed that message. I let it define how I saw myself, believing that I somehow deserved less.

What’s heartbreaking, looking back, is how that feeling didn’t stay confined to just those moments with my uncle. It seeped into other areas of my life, slowly and insidiously. I began to see patterns where I was always just a little less worthy, a little less important. It’s as if those 50-cent coins became the currency of my self-worth. It created this belief in me that somehow, my needs, my desires, my very presence in the world were not as valuable as others’. That maybe, if I could just do more, be more, I would earn that $5 pesos. I would earn the love and approval I so deeply craved.

But here’s the thing about wounds: they don’t have to stay open forever. They can heal. And as I sit with these memories now, reflecting on them with more clarity than I ever could as a child, I realize that my uncle’s treatment of me wasn’t about me at all. It was about him. His attempt to make me feel small, to diminish me in front of my cousins, was never a reflection of my worth; it was a reflection of his own wounds, his own insecurities, his own unresolved pain. I was just a child, an innocent bystander in his struggle with himself. He projected that pain onto me because it was easier for him to make me feel unworthy than to face his own feelings of inadequacy.

This realization is both painful and freeing. Painful because it makes me grieve for the little girl I was, the one who didn’t deserve to be treated that way and yet carried the weight of it for so many years. But freeing because I’m starting to understand that his actions were never a reflection of my worth.

They were a reflection of his brokenness, not mine. And so, as I begin to integrate this understanding, I find myself softening, toward him, and toward myself. I see now that holding onto resentment or anger only keeps me tied to his pain, his shame. I’ve carried it with me for far too long, believing it was mine to bear. But it’s not. It never was.

I’m not quite there yet, but I can feel that forgiveness is possible. Not because what he did was okay, but because I don’t want to carry this hurt anymore. I don’t want his wounds to define how I see myself or how I navigate the world. By forgiving him, I’m choosing to let go of that story of unworthiness that was never mine to begin with. I’m choosing to release the shame that I’ve carried, to heal not just the wound from my uncle, but the deeper wound I’ve carried from my childhood.

It’s a process, and I know it won’t happen overnight. But now, at 55, I’m starting to feel a sense of peace in knowing that I have the power to change the narrative.

I’m learning to show up for myself in ways I didn’t know how to as a child. I’m learning to love myself, not in spite of those wounds, but because of the strength I’ve found in healing them.

And maybe one day, when I’m ready, I’ll be able to look back on these memories without the sting of pain, but with compassion, for myself, for my uncle, and for the complicated, messy, beautiful journey of becoming whole.