One of my favorite quote is from Johann Wolfgang VonGoethe:
Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness, concerning all acts of initiative (and creation). There is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of evens, issues from the decision, raising in one’s favour all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now.
Don’t you love that? Providence. It has been my mantra as a writer. Taking the first step and seeing where God would meet me. When I wrote Stardust and chose polio as the backdrop for the story, I had no idea that through a casual online conversation, I would meet someone who was a polio survivor. Not only that, but she was also a fellow writer. AND this is where it gets chilling. She contracted polio in the very year in which Stardust is set: 1952.
I’m going to step aside and let her tell you her story.
The Survivor
Linda S. Clare
I’m a survivor. Officially, I survived the Polio Epidemic of 1952. That year, in Phoenix, Arizona, more than 50,000 people—including yours truly, eight and one half months old—contracted the feared disease. I’m told I had bulbar polio, the most severe type. Because I was an infant, only my left arm suffered permanent paralysis. I don’t remember being any other way. But I do remember my mother’s courage.
Linda and her mom
Mom was young too, barely seventeen.
In 1952, many still believed that infantile paralysis was spread by dirty, poor, ignorant people. Children were banned from public swimming pools. Mothers were accused of poor sanitation or bad hygiene if their children fell ill.
Polio does spread through feces, but privileged children contracted polio too, because they had limited immunity. Mothers weren’t breastfeeding anymore and they sterilized everything. In the two years just before the Salk and Sabin vaccines wiped out the epidemics, misinformation prevailed, causing panic every summer. The day I came down with polio, panic tore through my family.
My teenage mother must have been terrified. In her mind, she’d caused my illness. Would I have been okay if she’d kept me indoors? Had she put me at risk by not sterilizing everything? Did she somehow cause the sickness that changed me forever? The weight of such regret must have almost smothered her.
When I was around eight or nine, I remember her crying in the middle of the night after she and Dad had been out late at a party. She sobbed again and again, “It’s my fault Linda got sick. All my fault.”
She wouldn’t have admitted this if she hadn’t been tipsy, but that night I decided never to do anything to make her unhappy, ever. My mother carried so much guilt that I had to help carry that burden too.
Like most polio survivors, I grew up and figured out a way to do almost everything. I learned to type one-handed and to serve a tennis ball, although I look ridiculous doing it. Despite my occasional frustration—I probably will not play the guitar in this life—Mom cheered me on, always supportive, always proud of my achievements.
Linda, post-polio
As Mother’s Day arrives, I’m going to tell her how much I love her, how much I admire the courage she showed long ago as a young mother with a special needs child.
It finally dawns on me. My mother is a survivor too.
Linda S. Clare is the author of several nonfiction titles and her debut novel, The Fence My Father Built, released from Abingdon Press in 2009. In addition to teaching writing for Lane Community College and George Fox University, Linda’s a popular writing coach and conference presenter. Her next book is A Sky Without Stars, part of Abingdon’s new Quilts of Love series, releases in 2014. Contact her at Linda Clare’s Writer’s Tips.
My heartfelt thanks to Linda for sharing her story on Those Were The Days. I’ve read it several times and still get tears in my eyes. And isn’t that picture of Linda in the stroller adorable? She had a twinkle in her eye and such a great smile even with her arm wrapped.
My question for you is a sober one this time. Have you ever known someone with polio? I’d love for you to share.
Next time, a love story that began forty years ago.