I found my stay in the rehabilitation unit
the most depressing experience of my life—not so much because of my paraplegia
as because of the insensitivity of much of the staff to basic human needs and
attributes. Although I acquired many
self-care skills and techniques there that enable me to live a full and
independent life now, I have not forgotten the daily dehumanization that was
part of that experience. Kathie Malley-Morrison
Mts. Twining was the only one who could
make the Stryker frame comfortable. The
morning I woke up from my spinal fusion, my chin and forehead were rubbed raw
from resting against the edges of the opening in the frame. Richard’s morning beard had always done its
share of face scraping, but nothing like the torture from the prone half of
that Stryker waffle iron. I begged the
nurses to transfer me onto the back half of the frame, but they said, “No, no,
doctor’s orders, three hours prone and three hours supine.” I had an hour to go on that shift, and three
months of discomfort to anticipate.
The
purpose of the Stryker frame was to keep me immobilized while the repair job on
my broken back was mending. For three
months, I couldn’t sit up or lie on my side or curl up fetus-like in a ball. It was either flat on my stomach on one half
of the frame, or flat on my back on the other. When it was time to change
sides, they’d screw the two halves of the frame together with me in the middle
and swing the whole contraption over.
Made me feel sort of like an omelet.
It also, for the first few days, made me feel compressed, panicky, and
claustrophobic, but within a week I was sleeping through the night turnings.
On the prone half of the Stryker frame
there was an open space for my face, through which I ate, read, and wrote
letters. On the supine half there was an
open space for my fanny, under which they placed a bedpan when nature came
calling all the way to the ninth floor of the hospital. It was these two face and fanny “windows”
that attracted goblins who furtively shifted all the padding away from the
edges and waited gleefully to see me squirm.
By the time Mrs. Twining came on duty that
first day, I had been flipped, and was lying on my back facing the
ceiling. She propped the long, lean
surfboard-shaped prone half of the frame against the wall, added foam rubber
and other padding, and increased the width of the opening for my face. She would make adjustments to both halves of
the frame several times in the weeks to come.
Occasionally other nurses would try their hands at adjusting the
padding, but none of them had her wonderful instinct for what was comfortable
and what was not.
I remember Mrs. Twining’s other kindnesses
too. She was one of the few members of
the hospital staff who would call out “knock, knock” before pushing aside the
curtains that separated off my little corner of the huge rehabilitation
ward. After twenty-five years of
increasing modesty, all my privacy was shattered along with my car and back. It wasn’t just doctors, it wasn’t just
nurses, it was everybody—the cleaning ladies, the magazine ladies, the drug
store ladies, the orderlies, all seemed to pass in a continuous flow through my
cubicle. None of them ever said excuse
me, or by your leave, they just pushed through the drawn curtains. I had fantasies that somewhere down in the
lobby of the hospital was a special desk manned by a volunteer whose task it
was to route all the traffic of the hospital through my curtains.
I particularly loathed the magazine
lady. She was one of those once-a-week,
blue-uniformed, my-thing-for-charity volunteers (the hospital angels, or some
such thing). She always arrived at the
rehabilitation floor at a particularly inopportune time. I’d be over the bedpan or a nurse would be
bathing me. Later, when I was off the Stryker
frame, I’d be struggling to bathe or dress myself. And in she’d come. “Any magazines, dear?”
Every week, every single solitary week,
I’d ask her to knock before coming in or not to come in at all—claiming in my
desperation that I never, never read magazines.
Every week, every single, solitary week, in she’d come without a
pause. She was tight-lipped,
tight-coiffed, prim and proper. I’ll bet
she slept fully dressed and conceived her children immaculately. But every week she’d push unannounced into
cubicles all over the hospital. Angel of
mercy. Fulfilling her mission. Spreading joy.
I suppose none of the staff were
unfeeling, they were just doing their jobs as efficiently as possible, despite
the patients who managed to get in their way.
Once when I was on the bedpan, the cleaning woman came in to scurry
around my cubicle. “Excuse me,” I said,
“but I’m using the bedpan right now.
Could you do my unit later or just skip it today?” “Don’t mind me, dearie,” was her reply. “I have a daughter full grown, just like
you.”
Inwardly I screamed at her, “And do you
clean the bathroom when she’s trying to shit?”
Despite the support of Mrs. Twining, I
began to feel that I must be wrong, or crazy, or sick, to get embarrassed at
the routine invasion of privacy. Even
after I got out of the hospital, I kept wondering if the mature, adjusted thing
for a crippled person to do was to leave toilet activities, all the post
personal functions, open to the world.
Doesn’t everyone have a daughter grown up, just like me? When strangers come up to me on the street
and ask if I am able to have a baby, it’s hard to believe that I have a right
to any privacy at all. Because of the
roundabout, crab-like way they approach the question, I’m sure that what
they’re really burning to ask is, “Can you have sex?” The great American preoccupation. What I would love to reply is that of course
we call girls are careful not to get pregnant.
The rehabilitation unit was a slow one,
not a lot of emergencies, not a lot of urgency, just a bunch of people slowly
and painfully recovering from their accidents and illness, and “adjusting” to
handicaps. The nurses usually weren’t
particularly pressured, and when Mrs. Twining had spare time she’d come to sit
and talk with me. She was the one who’d
watch when I tried to wiggle my toes.
Once we both became excited when the toes really did wiggle. But the doctors knew better. Just an involuntary spasm.
Mrs. Twining understood a lot. She didn’t lose her cool or beome uptight
when I asked her if I’d ever ride a bike again.
I didn’t yet realize that the question was whether or not I’d ever walk
again, even move my legs again. She
simply replied that no, I probably wouldn’t, but I’d do other things.
Mrs. Twining understood the games we
played too. One of the male paraplegics,
clinging, like me, to a need for some privacy, would pretend to be asleep every
morning when she came to give him a suppository. She would pretend to think that he was asleep
too, gently pulling down the sheet just far enough to do what she had to do
without disturbing him. Later he would
“wake up” and ask for the bedpan.
Neither ever hinted that he accomplished his functions in any except a
natural way, all by himself.
My own games, at least the ones of which I
was aware, were less subtle. They were
sort of mind games. Mrs. Twining never
reacted as though they were silly, or strange, or signs of “poor
adjustment.” There was, for example, the
“chances are” game. Ten thousand
Americans a year become paralyzed. Of
these, 85% are between the ages of 18 and 25.
I was 25; 25 and four months. I
figured that if I could have gone just another eight months without an
accident, I would have beaten the odds and been okay. Of the ten thousand, 85% are male. I’m female.
So all in all, chances were 85 out of 100 that I wasn’t paralyzed. Right?
But I was. Funny.
When the toes never did wiggle on demand,
there was the toe in the cast game. I’d
watch and Mrs. Twining would watch, and nothing would move. But I could feel my right big toe moving.
I felt as if the toe were ensconced in a lightweight but tightfitting
metal cast. The cast didn’t move, of
course, but inside, my toe was moving.
Mrs. Twining understood my conviction that if we could just get that
invisible cast off, everyone would see what was really happening.
One game I never played was the “I’d give
anything” game. That’s something I don’t
believe in. People are always saying
they’d give anything for something.
Believe me, it’s not true. I
wouldn’t, for example, give my eyes or my ears to get back the use of my
legs. Just my bank-book, my car, my
house, the things that don’t count, the things no self-respecting devil would
take in a pact. And I’m sure the reverse
is true. No blind woman would give up
the use of her legs to see, no deaf woman would consign herself to a wheelchair
to hear. Once you have a disability, at
least you know what it is, know how to live with it. Exchanging it for anything else would mean
starting all over again.
I developed new mind games after leaving
the hospital, games I’ll never be able to share with Mrs. Twining. There’s the “cure” game, of course. Suddenly there’s this new miracle medication
and they give it to me and zam! I’m
cured! I place my hands firmly on the
arms of my wheelchair. I rise slowly to
my feet. I take a few tentative steps,
when whoosh! I race to the arms of my
love.
Naturally it wouldn’t be like that in real
life. It would be a long slow
process. Lots of therapy. Maybe after the first six months I’d go into
his arms on crutches. After another six
months on a cane. Then maybe in six more
months I’d walk carefully into his arms.
But finally, finally you can bet, I’d run. I miss that, running into a man’s arms.
Actually, if I remember correctly, Mrs.
Twining and I really spent relatively little time discussing me, my toes, my
mind games. Instead we talked a lot
about her mentally retarded granddaughter, Lee. Mrs. Twining seemed to revel in baby-sitting while her daughter shopped or simply took a break from the demands of raising
Lee. I had been a teacher of mentally
retarded children before the automobile accident, and spent a lot of my
face-down time on the Stryker frame pursuing my studies in the area. Asking my advice was one of the nicest things
Mrs. Twining did for me. It made me
believe I still had something to offer the world. It made me grateful that I still had my mind,
and experiences and ideas to share.
Mrs. Twining left the hospital a few weeks
before I did. It had become more and
more difficult for her to spend time with Lee because of the constantly
rotating shifts that are part of a large hospital routine. Naturally the hospital couldn’t adjust its
policy for just one nurse, so Mrs. Twining left for a nursing home job with
more regular hours. The old people in
that nursing home have probably never been more comfortable than they are now. But who, oh who, I wonder, is adjusting the
Stryker frames back at the rehab unit?
Rehabilitation Psychology,
1973
Dr. Kermond told Kathie
he feared she was setting her sights too high in expecting to leave the
hospital within four months, fully recovered. He suggested she adopt
a more realistic attitude rather than be faced in the end with a crushing
letdown.
"But you're asking me to change
my whole personality!" she said.
However, she decided to heed the
doctor's advice and concentrate her positive thinking on progressing from one
plateau to the next. Every night before she goes to bed she
"sees" herself doing successfully whatever the therapist is working
toward. She was able to sit on the edge of the bed and balance
herself on the second day of therapy—an accomplishment that ordinarily takes a
week in cases like hers. All she had to work with were the muscles
in her upper back and shoulders; these would be strengthened through exercise
and daily practice until eventually she would be able to shift herself from bed
to wheelchair and from wheelchair to car.
She would be taught how to cook, make beds, and keep house from a
wheelchair. The doctor estimated that she would be in the hospital
from six months to a year, but told us she would be able to come home weekends
in the near future.
Now that Kathie had a clearer
understanding of what she was up against, she was concerned not for herself but
for Dick.
"He doesn't deserve a wheelchair wife—he's
too wonderful a person to be stuck with such a burden!"
"If the situation were
reversed, wouldn't you love him just as much and be happy to devote yourself to
helping him?"
That was different, she
said. She felts toward Dick as a mother did toward her child; she
wanted only the best in life for him. I said that she represented
the best to him. From the very beginning he wanted her back on any
terms. As long as her mind recovered, the condition of her body was
a minor consideration.
"You know what it would mean,
don't you," I said to Ed, this weary man who had just sent his last child
off to college. "You and I would be in the baby business
again."
"So what? We've done it
before, we can do it again."
February 10, 1966
As if Kathie wasn't going through
enough, she was recently harassed by a nurse who was a born-again
Christian.
"Every time she's shown up,
she's given me the same broken-record message: My only hope of
getting better was to accept Jesus Christ as my savior. I told her
politely that I had my own beliefs and wasn't interested in adopting
hers."
When her continued badgering didn't
work, Kathie continued, the nurse tightened her lips and said, "It's your
choice. You will never walk again."
I was ready to kill the woman, but
Kathie said, "You're too late, Mom. I reported her and she's
been transferred to another floor."
This bearer of glad tidings has moved on to bullying
other captive prospects.
February 21, 1966
Massachusetts General Hospital
Dear Mr. Leivore,
Picture your favorite primary
special‑ class teacher lying on her tummy on a frame about one foot wide, with
an open space for her face, a tray beneath said gorgeous face, her left
hand clinging distrustfully to the aluminum frame, her right
hand steadfastly writing a letter to her
favorite principal. Awesome, isn't it? In
another hour, the nurse will lower a similar frame onto her back, bolt it into
place, strap her in, rotate the whole structure through space, remove
the tummy‑ frame, and lo and behold, she'll be reclining on her
back. It's almost as much fun as a roller‑coaster. The
name of this ingenious bed is a Stryker‑ frame—same thing Ted Kennedy was on
after his airplane accident. He, good fellow, was skiing this
weekend.
The doctors consider the operation a
complete success and are fairly certain my spinal cord wasn't severed—just
traumatized from pressure on it. It was a seven ‑hour operation, yet
already I feel as well as I did before.
The temperature in good old Boston was
five degrees today. A year ago we were camping on the
California coast with friends. Oh, how we miss that climate!
March 7, 1966
Massachusetts General Hospital
Dear Mom and Dad,
I'm writing to you to sort of fix my
resolutions and empty my mind. There's a me inside me that I'm not
always true to, and it frustrates me. And it's never really
excusable— not because of tiredness or discouragement or hospitalization or
anything. It's just a matter of trying hard enough, and always
keeping the focus on your values and beliefs—not on the petty little daily
acids that try to corrode the mind's
screen.
I know Dick's frustrations and
loneliness are equal to my own. I know it's natural to get
depressed or restless now and then, and a good cry is probably a release for
me, but it doesn't do anyone any good when I express those fears. If
the surface of my mind becomes recalcitrant and dwells on such probable
impossibilities as my ever riding a horse again, I want simply to draw a curtain
over it. I have too many months to go to give in to depression, and
too many wonderful people in my life to forget how lucky I am-- and yet these
foolish thoughts push into my brain and overflow hot and wet over my
face. And it doesn't seem fair that although I've been able to show
good spirits to almost all visitors, my weaknesses betray themselves to the
people I care about most—my parents and Dick. I
love you people so ‑‑ forgive all my words.
March 12, 1966
Massachusetts General Hospital
Dear Mom,
I'm picturing you and Daddy on your
way to Martha's Vineyard. It looks like perfect flying
weather. They cranked me up a little higher than usual for breakfast
this morning, and I can see almost to New York. The sky is a pale
but unmistakable blue; I can recognize the Prudential and John
Hancock buildings, and a tall dark church—Arlington St? I
can see the snow on the Charles River; it shouldn't be long before it is
replaced by boatloads of eager, rowing lads. The seagulls winging
along the river stand out in sharp relief today. Even in a city,
there is beauty waiting to be appreciated.
My study notes are open on my tray
and I do intend to tackle them with vigor but . . . I have been thinking about
you and Daddy. I worry sometimes that you'll think I take your
visits for granted. Nothing could be further from the
truth. Trouble with hospitals, they don't permit enough ordinary
conversations—or ordinary anything. . . .
March 15, 1966
Massachusetts General Hospital
Dear Mr. Lievore,
Mass. General is like any big
overgrown agency ‑‑ lots of mixups and confusions and
hysterics. Take last Saturday. Three of our
"rehab" nurses called in sick, so a new nurse "floated" up
from another floor. She gave fair warning of her dizziness. She
went from patient to patient handing out thermometers and explaining that she had been sick with the flu and still
felt deathly ill.
When she assured the head nurse that
she was experienced with Stryker frames, she was sent in to get me ready for
turning. This was an experience I shall never
forget. Assuming you know as little about ye fine Stryker as
the floater did, I'll explain that the basic frame consists of heavy
canvas straps with foam rubber over them; all kinds of pillows and padding
are needed to keep the victim—I mean the patient— from getting bed
sores from the forced immobility.
Miss Dizzy's first boner was to put
the other half of the frame over me, leaving out the pads and pillows I need
for my "on‑the‑back" position. Moreover, she
clomped the frame down onto my sheets, blankets, and pillow. I
protested, but she insisted all was well and started hauling sheets and
blankets out from under the top frame. Sheets and blankets may be
soft, but when they're dragging across my suture line and a bed sore . . .
Fortunately Dick was there, and by
the time Miss Dizzy had started pushing and shoving pads under the
top frame, he had fetched the head nurse. Off came the top
frame, and the project was renewed in a more normal and comfortable
fashion. Every time Dick and I think about that dizzy nurse, we have
to laugh.
Then there's Dr.
Constable. He's the skin specialist who recently grafted my bedsore
to be sure it would heal properly. He's a huge, craggy‑looking Englishman,
dedicated to his work. All the nurses are afraid of him
because he is so austere; he has been known to hit the ceiling if a dressing is
done incorrectly.
Since I'm not easily intimidated, I
soon discovered Dr. C. had a hidden sense of humor. When
I got indignant over his taking pictures of my bed sore (it's bad enough when
staff members stand around and gawk at my behind), he pointed out
that I'd need something for my Christmas cards next
year. And when he decided I wouldn't require the extra piece of
donor skin he had saved after my grafting operation, he said, "No sense
wasting it; I'll send it down to the kitchen." He
complained to Dick that the dressing he had put on after the grafting was
lopsided because he had never dealt with such a "jolly"
patient. Nothing makes me happier than jollying a grin out of Dr.
Constable.
I will have to be on the
Stryker frame for about two more months for my bone grafts to "take"
satisfactorily. Then they'll have me in a wheelchair and going home
weekends as soon as possible. I can't wait to be by the ocean
again. Dick better start lifting weights because I expect to be pushed
right down to the water's edge.
April 15,
1966
Wakefield, Massachusetts
From my sister, Janeth
I had a discussion with Kathie
about one of her roommates. Rose Marie was occupied with enough
company so I felt it was safe to speak with Kathie about her. I
asked if Rose Marie had been in an accident, and learned her problems had
begun in childhood. I mentioned that I always ask her how she
is, thinking how stupid it is of me—there she is, all strung up
in slings and ropes and pulleys—I can see how she is, and yet
I ask, because somehow I'd hate not to. I wonder, What
can she possibly answer? And she always answers, Fine, thank
you.
Kathie said, "Don't worry about
it. Everyone does that; we've come to expect it. In
fact we joke about it. I think it's just a social thing, don't
you? Besides, people can't be constantly on guard, asking themselves,
`Should I say this?' It would spoil the visit."
Of course, Kathie is
right: it is a social thing. What we all mean, but
don't say, is "in spite of it all—how are you!"
Thought of something else about
Kathie: I happened to visit on the day before her anniversary
last month. She remarked cheerfully, "At least Dick and I will
be together this time. We weren't for the first
one. Dick drew Reserve Duty and had to report to the base early
that morning. I was on the road with him at 5:30 a.m.!"
While I was swearing
sympathetically, Kathie was saying with a smile, "Well, three is a
charmed number, and according to that, our third anniversary is really
going to be something!"
Then for the listening Fates, she
added tartly, "Boy, it had better be."
The whole family was excited about
Kathie's first trip home after so many months of hospital life—most of all,
Kathie herself. Dick wheeled her out of Mass General's White
Building, loaded the wheelchair into my station wagon, and we set out for
Cohasset. When we neared home, I drove along Atlantic Avenue with
the windows down, so Kathie could feel the ocean breezes she had missed so
much.
I turned into our driveway, drove
past the barn where Heidi and Pokie had lived, past Ed's makeshift corral, and
up to the front porch. Dick carried Kathie up the narrow stairway to
the apartment over the kitchen, which I had made as attractive and appealing as
possible. Rather than return to the large, airy bedroom where she
had grown up, down the hall from Ed's and mine, my daughter had opted for
privacy.
I
busied myself in the kitchen, preparing a meal of her favorite
foods. Then I set the dining room table, and called up the stairs,
"Dad and I are ready for dinner whenever you kids are."
A half ‑hour wait turned
into an hour. Ed and I looked at each other, puzzled and
anxious. What was keeping them? Finally our son‑in‑law,
looking distraught, came downstairs and said Kathie wouldn't be joining us for
dinner.
"She's up there sobbing her heart out," he told us. "I
can't console her. It seemed to hit her as soon as we drove in the
driveway. She keeps saying over and over that she doesn't want to be
a paraplegic; she wants everything to be the way it used to be."
"Would it help if I went up and
talked to her?" What would I say? I wanted
everything to be the way it used to be, too. Oh, how much I wanted
that!
"No, she doesn't feel like
seeing anyone," Dick said. "Right now she's too unhappy, but give her
some time. She'll work through this, I'm sure of it."
Another episode: Some young
friends had dropped by shortly after Kathie was allowed to leave the hospital
on weekends. It was a warm summery day, so the visitors soon congregated
in the
driveway where a basketball hoop was attached to our garage.
One of the girls, whom I hadn't met before, began shooting baskets while
the other young people talked and cracked jokes with Kathie and Dick.
The girl was full of the zest of youth as
she leaped and twisted her body toward the basket. It seemed to me as if
she was flaunting her vigor and grace in front of my wheelchair‑ trapped
daughter. I hated her; I hated the basketball hoop; but when I looked at
Kathie, she was watching the girl serenely, without a trace of bitterness in
her smile.
Kathie's therapist said she had
never seen anyone, male or female, learn how to do so much so
rapidly. The very first time she tried to transfer from her
wheelchair into a bathtub, she managed with no help except the handrail
above the tub. She did need assistance getting out
again but is working toward executing the whole maneuver by herself.
Dr. Pierce doubted she would have
the strength in her upper back and shoulders to hoist the rest of her body
up a flight of stairs, in a sitting position. He was sure she
would be exhausted after only two or three steps. Longing to
see her room, Kathie insisted on trying. Up she went to
the first landing, grasping the railing with one hand and pushing herself
up step by step with the other. Way to go, Kathie!
She will spend the next couple of
months commuting to the hospital on an out‑patient basis. Dr.
Pierce sees no reason why she can't go back to teaching this fall and
start keeping house for Dick in a home of their own.
Dick has accepted an opportunity
with the Star Market Company, is making a good salary and training for an
executive position. Kathie regrets that he didn't stick to his
plan to be a history teacher, but he may return to that goal in the
future. For the present, he wants only to be independent.
Kathie was given a fellowship to
attend Boston University and get her master's degree in the field of
education for developmentally delayed children—including $800 for tuition plus
a $2000 stipend for living expenses.
Dr. Pierce called and urged her to
have an operation he hoped would improve her chances of walking with crutches
and braces. She had been having trouble with spasms that sabotaged
early efforts to walk. Her feet would lift out of the special shoes
attached to her braces and throw her off balance. Kathie wanted to
put the operation off until Christmas vacation, but Dr. Pierce argued that she
shouldn't waste the fall months when she might be practicing walking with
crutches if the operation was successful. She had the procedure on
September 14th, a week before school started.
Cutting the tendons in Kathie's
ankles was not as simple as it sounds. An incision had to be made
in her lower abdomen where the musculature attached to her ankles had its
origins. I didn't know all this when I brought her to the hospital a
few days later to have the stitches removed. I pictured the doctor
snipping at stitches located somewhere in her
ankles.
When she returned to my car, Kathie
transferred from curb to front seat with difficulty—this was an easier maneuver
at street level. I put her wheelchair in the backseat and was about
to turn on the ignition, when Kathie said, "Oh shit!"
She pointed to her lap, which was
red with blood. Horrified, I didn't understand where the blood
was coming from. Shaking her head and swearing with frustration,
Kathie told me she had asked the doctor if he was sure he wasn't removing the
stitches too soon. She thought the edges of the incision didn't look
fully closed. He brushed off her concern.
Returning to Dr. Pierce's office in
her bloodied state, Kathie was stitched up again and given a harsh
lecture. "Why did you throw yourself around like
that? If you'd been more careful, this wouldn't have
happened."
Thus did he absolve himself of blame by
humiliating my daughter. Thus did a busy doctor become callous about
paraplegics he saw day after day. It was hard for a mother not to
think, "It should happen to you."
Kathie came home from her first day
at B. U. aglow with enthusiasm for her professors and her
courses. She said the standards were tough—as tough as
Swarthmore–-but she was prepared to meet the challenge.
One problem had her in
tears: two flights of stairs leading to one of her
classrooms. To use the elevator, you had to have a key.
After two weeks of pleading phone calls and repeated explanations, she
was finally given her own key.
I drove her to school three mornings
a week; Dick picked her up after work. He started classes at
Harvard night school.
A year later, we sold
the house at Sandy Cove and bought a ranch house in Westwood near the one
Kathie and Dick had bought in Framingham.
July 29,
1966
Westwood
I'm getting ready to fly Kathie and Dick over to Martha's Vineyard where they will spend the weekend together. Ed and I were originally going to spend it with them, but business problems have cropped up.
I'm getting ready to fly Kathie and Dick over to Martha's Vineyard where they will spend the weekend together. Ed and I were originally going to spend it with them, but business problems have cropped up.
Kathie wanted to wear the dress she wore
the last time she and Dick visited Martha's Vineyard. It was then, three years ago, that they first
began to feel serious about each other, and she gives quite a bit of credit to Dick's enchantment with her
dress. When she tried it on yesterday,
it didn't look the same. Her neck and
shoulders have become thinner, and consequently the bodice looked too big.
She was a good sport about it, smiling and
saying cheerfully, "Well, it was worth a try," but I felt like crying. Somehow the little disappointments and
frustrations are harder to take than the tragedy of her not being able to
walk. We have adjusted to the latter; it
is the lurking "unkindest cuts" that hurt.
Kathie is excited about today's flight and
has asked me to give her a flying lesson.
She wants to learn as many skills as possible.
Dec.
13, 1966
Kathie's
spirits are up and down-‑recently, it seems, more down than up. Her
emotional barometer affects mine -- I can't bear it when she's depressed.
I feel almost suffocated by the awareness of all she must cope with for
the rest of her life. It's so cruel, so unfair. But after a day or
two, she pulls herself together and is once again her valiant, animated
self. Right now it can't be easy to keep smiling when she is facing an
operation that may or may not prove to be helpful.
Getting engrossed in her school work is the best therapy in the world for
Kathie ‑ on a recent mid‑term exam she received an A‑minus. Her other
courses have only one exam at the end of the semester, but I'm sure she
will handle them equally well.
We took Kathie and Dick out to dinner Saturday night to celebrate his promotion -- and $1000 raise! They came here first for cocktails, and for a minute I
hardly recognized Kathie when I first opened the door. Dick had
decided it would be good for her morale to spend the afternoon at the beauty
parlor. She took him up on it, announced to Mr. Arthur, "Do with me
what you will," and the result was a cute new short haircut, very
becoming. In fact Ed said he'd never seen her look prettier. I just
wish she'd put on a little more weight. Even Dr. Kermond, who had advised
her to avoid gaining pounds that would make it difficult for her to lift
herself, now says she is too thin.
Ed's folks will be arriving any minute to see our new house. Ed and I
can't get over how lucky we were to find it. He has been talking to the local conservation committee about the possibility of dredging out the
swamp on the left side of the property and creating a pond. Looking at
our lot from the air last Sunday, we could see that there was already a small
pond adjoining the swampy area, so it shouldn't be too big an undertaking to
expand it. We have heard that the state, interested in preserving
sanctuaries for wild life, helps defray the cost of such projects.
Quincy
From
Vonnie to her parents
I was really depressed about Bob the other
day and felt nothing but regret about the divorce. After I talked to Kathie, she convinced me
that I have been living too much in the past and only torturing myself. I hadn't realized how much I kept looking
back instead of ahead. Ever since,
whenever I find myself thinking of Bob I change the subject. It's not easy, but I'm making progress. If I can't control my own thoughts, who can?
The baby and I have each other and love
each other's company. Now when I'm alone
at night after Michael has gone to bed, it's because it's a normal routine, not
because my husband is out with his buddies.
When I go to bed alone I know I'll stay alone, and I don't have to worry
about when my husband will come home.
I'm far from content but at least I have some peace of mind. It's easier to have nothing at all rather
than something that's never there.
(Yikes! I understand it, do you?)
Michael is the man in my life now and I
owe it to both of us to make it a good life.
I have to accept the fact that the past is over and I should close the
doors behind me.
March 4, 1967
Westwood
When I
was exercising Kathie's ankles recently, the cat jumped up on the bed. "Come here, baby," Kathie
crooned. "Your grandmother's
allergic to you, so you mustn't wave your tail in her face." She petted Lurch for a few minutes, then said
to me, "Tell me if your nose starts to drip—and I’ll have you leave the
room."
The
fresh kid has a genius for coming out with the unexpected. Gets it from her father, no doubt. He and I were reading and half listening to a
radio discussion featuring a guest who believed in reincarnation. Ed put his book down and said, "Would you
marry me if we were reincarnated?"
I
stopped to think about it for a minute.
Under what circumstances did he mean?
Would we be the same two people or two other people? How old would we be? Would we . . .
"I
don't need to hesitate," Ed said, interrupting my pondering. "I'd marry you again in a minute— which
just goes to show," he added, "I never learn."
March
9, 1967
Quincy,
Massachusetts
From
Vonnie to her grandmother, “Isha”
I just love getting your letters. There you are, miles and miles away and still
you think of me and write to me. I don't
know quite how to explain it, but it's a thrill to come into work and find a
letter sitting on my desk waiting for me.
It's like an adventure, really.
Don't you agree? Opening it, not
knowing what it will say, knowing that the person who wrote it cared enough to
sit down and pass a few words on to another, so far away. I truly love it.
Oh, Isha.
That baby of mine is getting brighter every day. He's not even two years old and he can go
potty by himself. He's not trained, by
any means, but I can put him in training pants and feel relatively safe as long
as I grab him every five or ten minutes and bring him into the bathroom. He gets such a kick out of being so grown up,
and he loves the way I clap and cheer him on while he's doing his business. . . .
March
28, 1967
North
Terminal, Inc.
South
Boston
From
Vonnie to her parents
This stupid typewriter is driving me
crazy. I think Mr. Malley should think
about getting his faithful little secretary a new one -- BEFORE SHE QUITS! There's a threat for you. If I ever said that to his face he'd think it
was Christmas and this was his present for being good all year.
Today and tomorrow I am going to bring
Kath to school on my lunch break. I love
seeing her and being able to fill in for Mommy while you're in Florida.
I really hope this will be a good
summer. Last year it led to my
divorce. Maybe this year it will lead to
something wonderful. It's hard for me to
cope with the way things are now, with everything I've worked and strived for
crumbling at my feet. I signed our house
away today. That house at one time meant
a great deal to me and Bob. Why do
things have to turn out so empty? Guess
what? I think I'll shut up.
I have a lot to be thankful for -- my
family, my baby, my job, my health. I do
love life. However bad things seem at
times, there are always good things to involve myself with. I'm so lucky to have Michael as one of my
involvements.
My favorite time with him is right after
his bath when he's all fresh and ready for bed.
We have such a good time tickling each other or playing hide and seek or
just hugging and loving each other. He
looks like a little angel with his blond, blond hair and deep blue eyes and
rosy red cheeks. His nose squinches when
he smiles, his mouth is soft and never stops or shuts up, his eyes sing, and
his little frame is perfect.
Something else makes me tickle all
over. Sometimes he'll tell me something
and I won't quite understand him. He'll
look at me with his big eyes, as though I were the child, and patiently try to
explain himself or make his words a little clearer. What a charmer. I could just squeeze him. We have each other.
Yikes, I gotta go get Sissy. I love ya.
April
2, 1967
Quincy
From
Vonnie to Dr. Clay, administrator
Dear
Dr. Clay:
I've never had the displeasure of writing
a letter like this. Last week I brought my sister, Kathie White,
into Mass. General Hospital at about 1:00.
I drove the car up to the main entrance on Cambridge Street and parked
where I thought it would be easiest and quickest for her to get out of the car ‑‑ in front of the door. Kathie started to organize herself as I got
out to help her. The parking attendant
came over and roughly told us we'd have to move, his tone implying what a
nuisance we were.
When I asked him where we should go, he
told a taxi driver in front of us to move and signaled me to follow. Kathie got out as fast as she possibly could,
and just as we were ready to head for
the entrance, the attendant directed another taxi to pull up behind us, so
close that Kathie was wedged in.
Then he came over and began yelling at us
for blocking traffic ‑‑ after he
had told us to park there. I was horrified by the way he was shouting while Kathie
struggled to get unstuck. He added to
all his other mean words that neither of us should ever return to Mass. General. What a wicked man. He may have his own problems too, but no problem justifies being
unkind to an unfortunate girl.
Kathie finally maneuvered the wheelchair
between the two cars, no thanks to the
attendant. I grumbled some indignant words, said goodbye to my sister, and drove
off with a lump in my throat and a sick feeling in my stomach. I love my sister dearly and it hurt me to see her treated in such a
cruel way. All I could think of as I
drove away was how she was feeling. If
I felt so bad, how must it have affected
her?
What do you think, Dr. Clay? Wasn't this a horrid experience for a patient
to have? I realize she's going to have
many unpleasant moments, but it's these
unnecessary ones that are the most
unbearable. How could this attendant
have caused a situation like this and then have the stupidity to be so
impatient and unkind. Kathie can't help
it if she can't simply get out of a car and walk away, as he can.
I
understand you've got a fine staff at Mass. General, but I thought you should
know there’s a rotten apple in your barrel.
April 4, 1967
Westwood
Now that we’re back in the Real World, it
seems as if our two‑week vacation must have been a dream. My first day started at 7:45 when Ed dropped
me off at Kathie's. She had practiced
driving my car with hand controls while we were away, but is understandably nervous
about driving her own car. I spent the
next three and a half hours putting her house in order.
After dropping two dozen of Dick's shirts
at the laundry, I drove home to Westwood, picked up our mail, set my hair, spent
an hour trying to figure out where I stood with the bank due to a slip‑up on
Ed's alimony check, got a phone call from Kathie telling me her automobile's
hand controls had arrived C.O.D. and would I please bring her $75 dollars when
I came back to Framingham. I arrived at 3:30, exchanged the $75 for Kathie's
check, picked up library books that were to be returned and a list of others
she needed, and drove into Boston to the library.
By 5:30 I was standing on the corner of
Dartmouth and Boylston Streets, holding
a fresh stack of volumes about four feet high.
A man also waiting for the light to change remarked, "My, aren't you studious," but
didn't offer to carry my books for me.
Nor did I offer to explain that the one who would plunge into these
textbooks was my resolute, unsinkable daughter.
April
10, 1967
Westwood
I was supposed to pick Kathie up at 3:30
at the B. U. School of Law, which is the most accessible place for us to
meet. I got caught in a traffic jam that
made me an hour and a half late. I was
frantic, picturing Kathie sitting there wondering what was keeping me, worrying
that something might have happened to me.
When I finally rushed into the lobby with
regretful explanations on my lips, Kathie blew up at me. This was so unlike her, I was stunned.
"How do you think I felt sitting here
for a solid hour and a half, while people walked by me and stared at me? I felt like a circus sideshow. Why didn't you allow enough time so we'd get
ahead of the rush-hour traffic? Dick is
going to be worried sick!"
Now I
was angry. I snapped that I'd done the
best I could, I had been worried sick myself, did she think I'd let her down on
purpose? Then I was immediately repentant.
"Kathie, I'm sorry, but I feel as if
I just can't do this any more. The
stress is more than I can take."
By the time she transferred from her
wheelchair to my car, we had both calmed down.
"Do
you think you could work up your courage to start driving yourself?" I
asked her.
"I'm working on it right now,"
she said. "I think I can, I think I
can, I think I can."
It was a long, stop-and-go trip to
Framingham. Dick was waiting on the
doorstep.
April
20, 1967
Westwood
Mom and I drove down to Duxbury to give
Ted and Joyce the poodle pup I'd
promised them and to see their new house.
I was driving along, enjoying the scenery, when she let go with the kind of shriek that used to embarrass us kids
in movie theaters. Whenever there was a
newsreel of a bullfight and the bull-fighter came out second best, Mom got
gored right along with him. Bronco‑busting
mishaps, chariot races, fencing matches had the same effect. Anyone who heard one of Ernestine's blood‑curdling screams couldn't give blood for a week. She was a pro, I suppose, because of her
Metropolitan Opera career .
She proved she hadn't lost her touch when
the puppy threw up in her lap. Somehow I
managed to keep the car on the road, despite my shattered nerves, and while
poor Mom tried to keep from gagging, I drove to a friend's house where we
tidied her up. She never has been fond
of animals and I guess they sense this because she's the one they zero in on
when they feel like doing something inappropriate. A couple of nights ago she stayed at Jan's
and roused the entire family with her E above high C when the cat jumped up on
her bed.
When we arrived at Ted's house, Mom and I
had recovered, and she enjoyed the visit.
The kids named the pup Patrick, despite his French ancestry.
Kathie reached a new milestone last week, driving herself to B. U. and home to
Framingham again, using hand controls. She'll have her master's degree in
a couple of weeks and has volunteered to help out in a clinic for emotionally
disturbed children until mid‑June.
June 23, 1968
Sunday night in San Francisco
Dear Hubby:
One
thing I forgot to describe on the phone was my fascinating traveling companion
on United. He was a youngish attractive chap with a friendly, smiling
face, who said when I asked him how to
tilt my seat back: "Parrdohn?"
He spoke a leetle English, and since I could remember even leetler
French (un peu), our conversation was punctuated by many long, brow-furrowing
pauses. He said if I spoke very
slowly he might understand, although he deed not study the English, he
confessed, as well as he should have in school.
Between us we established that I was going to San Francisco for the
first time to visit my daughter, and he was going for the first time on
business ‑‑ nuclear engineering business (adieu, cher monde). After a while he asked me if my doctor was
a hippo. "Comment?" say I in French, meaning: How's that again? He repeated his strange question, so I said
confusedly, "Do you mean hypnotist?
Is my doctor a hypnotist?"
Bruno (I think that was his name although it could have been his
home town) took out his pen and wrote the word h y p p i e. "Your daughtaire‑‑she is hip‑peh?"
"Oh, hippie! Yes! I mean no!
Well, un peu, when . . . she's .
. . in . . . the . . . mood."
Bruno laughed appreciatively or politely—I was never sure whether he
understood all my little quips.
Nevertheless I kept cracking jokes, figuring it was good practice in
case I ever again met anyone who spoke English.
What with the movie being a dud, it was a long five and a half hours to
San Francisco.
After we landed I boarded one of those leave-the-driving-to-us-but carry-your-own-damn‑
suitcase buses which deposited me, bag and ten tons of baggage, in their San
Francisco terminal. The driver explained
that he couldn't even touch a suitcase and pointed to a sign that said
something about union rules. I asked him
to keep an eye on my valuables, especially my hair dryer (I'd noticed several long‑haired youths eyeing it
acquisitively) and went off to look for
a porter.
I
ended up in this $75.00 per week two room kitchenette efficiency without so
much as a toothpick in any of the cupboards.
Don't you think it would be fairer if the landlord quoted a rent charge
that included housekeeping necessities and then said: “However, if you don't want any silver or
dishes or pots or pans in the kitchen,
you rent will be $3.00 a day cheaper”?
Thump, clump, crash, bang. Mr.
305 is stomping around again, banging into furniture and dropping bits of
plaster on my head. He must be twelve
feet tall and weigh 940 pounds.
I
wish we could work things out so you could come out here and see me and San
Francisco and give me an English speaking seatmate to fly home with.
I'm
lonesome, I miss you, I love you ‑‑
June 30, 1968
San Francisco
Dear Kathie,
Like
Vonnie, I have fallen in love with San Francisco. My defense against the wind is a beehive
hairdo that looks strange to me, but your sister likes it. A woman about to leave the beauty parlor lifted
the canister and added spray to her hair until there was surely more spray than
hair covering her scalp. What a nuisance
our crowning glory can be in a windy city.
I
went along on one of Vonnie's "swinging party" tours last night and
had a quiet, mature, unemotional discussion with a man who turned out to be a
bloody Goddamn hawk. His basic argument
was that "they" had started it.
"What would you do if I pushed you, like this?" he asked,
giving me a shove.
"Kiss you," I said, having recently seen Tim and a couple of
his flower children buddies back in Massachusetts.
"Hmm," he said.
"Well, suppose you were a man, and I pushed you like
this." Another shove.
"From what I've observed in San Francisco . . . I'd still kiss
you."
Somehow the subject of Christianity came up. I was assured by the hawk that Jesus would
tell us we were doing the right thing.
I
met another man whose name was Jim Knowles.
He mentioned that his brother had written an article or story for Esquire‑‑or
maybe it was Playboy, he decided vaguely. Rather than shock his mother by sending her
the magazine, he sent her the tear sheets.
His brother, I realized, was John
Knowles, who wrote A Separate Peace and an excellent story in a recent Playboy
titled "The Reading of the Will."
I
phoned your friend Phyllis and introduced myself. She sounded warm, happy, delighted with your
progress and achievement—and asked me to convey the news that she is
pregnant. I also talked to your
principal who will be, as you had heard, transferring from Manzanita to a
smaller school with less demanding
responsibilities. He sends you
his affectionate regards.
Your
friend Roscoe Dellums urged me most cordially to call her if I came to Berkeley
so she could show me around. I took the
bus over today, but during the two hours I spent exploring the campus, I was unable to get through to the
Dellumses. Their answering service
thought they might have attended church; and it was such a beautiful day they
might have gone on to the beach. I was
sorry to miss seeing them but had fun on my own, picturing you and Dick in
these surroundings.
Give
my fondest love to Dick and your other pets.
April 4, 1970
Westwood
To Vonnie
I think you're going to make it, too. Let's not think it, let's know
it. As for Michael, I'm saving your
letters for you to share with him some day.
You express your feelings so eloquently, he'll have no doubt about your
love.
"Privacy of mind." That's such an insightful phrase,
Vonnie. If only it applied to Mimi,
whose mind is an open, endlessly talking book.
She has been visiting for a few days, and as usual, keeping her
entertained is no problem. All I have to
do is let her ramble on about the man who bumped into her fender down in
Florida, the saleswoman who was rude to her, Mickey's finicky eating habits
(". . . he won't eat beef kidney, it has to be lamb kidneys, only twenty-one
cents for three, down in Florida they cost eighteen cents apiece,” etc., etc.)
Late this afternoon I went into the
bedroom to change and get ready for dinner in town with your dad. Mimi followed me and continued her monologue
about everything under the sun and inside her digestive system. Suddenly my attention was caught . . . what
was she saying?
"You never can tell about a lot of
men, Barbara, even after you've lived with them for twenty-five years you just
can't tell what they'll do next, but I'll say this for Edward, he really loves
you a lot, he even wrote me a letter once telling me how much he loved you, he
said if anything ever happened to you he wouldn't want to go on living."
"When was this?" I asked,
astonished.
"Oh, a few years ago. I found it when I was cleaning out my desk,
he said you'd taken Kathie and gone down to Florida to visit your mother and Vaughan -‑ "
"That was thirty years ago!"
" ‑ and he missed you both so much,
he said, `you know, Mother, she's only a
little baby herself, only seventeen years old' -‑"
"Nineteen," I said, memories
squeezing my heart and leaving me breathless.
Did she have the letter? I didn't
dare ask.
"He was explaining why I hadn't heard
from him at Christmas, he was looking for an apartment for you and the baby, he
wanted to be sure it would be something
you'd like, it was really a beautiful letter,
Barbara, I guess that's why I saved it so
long."
"Mimi -- did you -- do you still have
it? You can't imagine how much I would
value it."
"Oh no, dear, I tore it up, I thought
of sending it to you but then I thought maybe it was confidential between
Edward and me and if some stranger ever went through my things it wouldn't mean anything to them. It was eight pages long, four double sheets
on both sides."
"Can you remember anything else,
Mimi? You have such a good memory, I'd
appreciate whatever you can tell me."
"Well, it was the nicest letter he'd
ever sent me. He started out apologizing and saying he was
sorry he hadn't written before, and then
he said `I'm going to weep on your shoulder, Mom, I'm going to tell you how
much I miss Barbara, he said you'd gone to Florida with the baby and you were
just a little girl yourself, `she's had no experience with married life,' he
said, `it takes a lot of learning' and he said, `I'm looking for an apartment,
I don't know exactly what she'd like but you know, Mother, you can't get much
on $30 dollars a week, I'm hoping Dad will give me a raise.' I found the letter
in a cigar box when I was destroying all those old bills and things, it was a
real pretty box I got in Havana for Ed's dad."
This was as much as I was able to salvage,
but I was grateful for every little bit and piece she was able to
remember. All awash with romantic
feelings, I greeted your father with the news about his long-ago letter. Instead of sweeping me into his arms like
Rhett Butler, he said, "We were two different people then."
His romantic button needs a new battery,
wouldn't you say?
~~~
Kathie has received her doctorate and is
now Doctor White, but she wants her students to continue calling her
Kathie.
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