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Don’t Go
My Woman of out plaintively from the back smaller Catholic resting place.
Stacey’s disability was being
“Sherry, don’t go,” she’d call
born with a strange elongated
head that required two surgeries
Distinction porch as I tried to get out of the – one at 11 months and one at 4
gate. I was on my way to school
years of age in which the doctors
- probably a junior, perhaps only
a sophomore. This was a fairly split her skull from her forehead
to the back of the crown on her
frequent event, yet it is this one head. She had to wear a helmet
By Sharon Hightower morning that stands out in my kind of covering that my mother
mind. Not sure why? I needed made of thick bedding fabric.
Women of distinction: strong women, perhaps to go to school, but I also knew Shawn’s childhood ended abrupt-
my mother was tired. Her three
ly when she was born and the
extraordinary or perhaps not. Maybe there is something youngest children were just a youngest never had much – all
in all women that is tough, that allows them to do what couple of years apart and the the attention went to Stacey and
must be done even in the most ordinary of circumstances, middle one, Stacey, had a birth her disability which rendered her
legally blind.
defect that took enormous
yet those same day in and day out events often require a amounts of energy. This partly And these three were born
strength that is difficult to measure, yet easy to admire. accounted for my mother’s love of after my mother’s biggest trial,
My mother was such a woman. Perhaps yours is, too. the bottle, which made life even when my oldest sister accused
more complicated. my dad of molesting her. In the
Mrs. Watson was the coun- months that followed, the girls
selor I was often sent to as my were sent to live with their “real”
dad in Iowa and my mother was
absences mounted. She was very
Photo Courtesy of Sharon Hightower my potential, that I had so much LA, she found a way to a window
kind, and we grew rather close
sent to a mental institution. When
over the years, but she’d lecture
she was admitted to a large hos-
me on how I wasn’t living up to
pital housed in a tall building in
going for me and just needed to
of the hospital from which she
buckle down. Little did she know
yelled after my dad, “Jack, don’t
that I often had the 6am feed-
leave me.”
ings and though my mom fixed
She was transferred to a
dinner and kept the home fires
facility in Norwalk where she
burning most of the time, there
was hospitalized for about 9 or
were many times when she just
10 months and was subjected
couldn’t get out of bed.
Not sure when she became
featured in the movie One Flew
so sad, but something happened
Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. My aunt
either when or shortly after I was to the shock treatments as were
moved in and took care of Steve
born, and as a result she couldn’t and I. He was a baby. I was 9.
get pregnant again. Well, that’s
My Mother not exactly the case. She got When my mom came home; she
was a different person. She sang
no more although her songs had
pregnant, but she couldn’t carry
a baby to term. Finally, after years always been telling – songs like
My mother may have been the saddest person I’ve ever known, of trying, the doctors put her Don’t Fence Me In and Tumbling
but she hid it well and never, ever voiced her feelings. In fact, she did to bed and our neighbor, Polly, Tumble Weeds and The Wayward
her best to hide them – resorting to lying when necessary. learned how to give the daily in- Wind. Clearly, she’d felt trapped.
I knew she’d practically grown up in a boarding school, but I’d jections that helped her keep this After being hospitalized, she
thought she went there after her father died when she was 8 or 9. It pregnancy and Steve was born learned to behave (to do what she
some 7 years after me, a healthy
was only in her old age that she talked about her father visiting her baby boy. Finally. My first younger was told; I guess) and even in my
and how she’d look out the window hoping to see him walking up the sibling. youth, I could see that she was
afraid. And she obediently deliv-
hill toward her school. Come to find out, she was sent to the school I had two older sisters, the ered 4 more babies, although one
when she was about 4. And she lived there until she was around 16 two girls my mom had from her died. At the same time, she began
when she was “aged out” to a family as a kind of nanny. first marriage but with a divorce to drink. It must have made things
As an example of how she avoided the uncomfortable topics, and remarriage there were lots of
when referring to her school, she never used the term boarding years between them and me, so smoother for her.
My sisters never came back
school, although surely that’s what it was. She only said it was a I wasn’t ever really close to them home. The younger kids grew like
Catholic school. And at some point I realized that she never even nor my younger siblings also weeds and I did too. Before I knew
went home for vacations. Indeed, I don’t think she had such a thing because of the age differences. it, I graduated from high school,
as a home. Anyway, after me the miscar- despite missing tons of days, and
I began putting this together when we went on a vacation to the riages began. In all, Mom bore 8 then I left home at 17. I felt bad
San Francisco Bay Area and visited several of her sisters and her children, but had 11 miscarriages, leaving them, but I couldn’t stay
Mom though briefly. One of my aunts lived near us, and I think she and 1 of the 8 children only lived and watch her pain anymore. I felt
talked a bit. a few days. Her name was Sheila, as if I was abandoning the little
The people she worked for must have been especially kind because and she came between Shawn ones, but I had to get out of there.
she kept in touch with them for the rest of her life, at least sending and Stacey who were closely I’d struggled on a daily basis just
Christmas cards. And we went to visit them the one time I remember followed by the youngest, Shelly. to finish high school. I couldn’t
ever visiting any of her family who all lived in the San Francisco area. Sheila was buried across the street stay although I’m not sure I’ve
from the family cemetery in a ever forgiven myself.
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