The only drawback, as I moved into puberty and then became a teenager, was that my polio leg was pretty dismal looking—embarrassing at the public pool. At pools during high school, now I was being stared at even more, because in clothing, with a foam calf prosthetic and stockings and shoes, there was a slightly less disturbing crip thing going on, so it was more of a spectacle for my friends to see my bare, naked leg.
I just had to get in the water and then you couldn’t see it. Or, if we were sunbathing or talking, I’d sit on the side with my strong leg crossed over my little one. (I still do this at times.)
I realize that it may be easy to think, What the heck, why care about what all those other teenagers thought? In a few years, you might not even know them anymore. Be proud of who you are. Possibly there are polio women who really didn’t care what they looked like or what others thought when they were teenagers. But I really wanted to be accepted, and to be seen as pretty. I wanted to be the same as everyone else. I had a somewhat severe physical deformity, and it made me want to blend in all the more.
Now, I don’t care much. People stare, and I look at them and either smile or just make eye contact and look away, depending on how I feel. But as a kid, it was very hard. I was mortified about my disability, particularly in that time when boys were looking at girls as potential dates and discussing their physical attributes. I did my best to hide or mask my leg and gait, but that really was impossible. And this added to my pretense of acting like I didn’t care about things like that. (That was part of why I embraced hippiedom a couple of years later: there was at least a semblance of looks not being so important.)
Much later, in middle age, I once had a dream about a Duck God.
I dreamed that he was flying around in the sky with a human head (though sometimes with a bill) and sometimes a human body, sometimes a duck’s body. He was silver, as if he had a skin of slightly matte Mylar, all over. Those of us on the ground, in some dream city, could see him flying around up there, looking down on us. He had a mercurial aura, very fast and very intriguing, and no ill will—important in a god.
Then the Duck God flew down toward me and looked at me from a few feet away. He invited me wordlessly to fly with him, and I did—and I realized that the sky was not air, it was water; it was like gel. It was wonderful, smooth, cool, silvery aqua, and soft. I was flying through an air space that felt like water.
Much like swimming.
Sixth grade, age twelve, bewildered and close to puberty.
13
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the (even more) awkward years
When I was somewhere in the range of eleven to thirteen, Mother was going to night school at the junior college, taking a variety of courses such as political science and typing and whatever she thought would improve her and get her out of the house. I was surprised that she did this but thought it was a smart and youthful endeavor, especially for her.
One evening at dinner, after our meal was on the kitchen table, she said, “There’s a young woman at the junior college who has a false leg, and you can hardly tell. She doesn’t even limp.”
“Mom, how did you know she had a false leg if you can’t tell?”
“I asked her. I thought it looked like it might be a false leg.”
(I’d never seen a false leg, and this “can’t tell/but I can tell” dichotomy was confusing to me.)
“So, I asked her if she had a false leg, and she said, ‘Yes, it’s a prosthesis.’ I asked what had happened to her and she said she had been in an accident and had to have her leg amputated.”
“My gosh!” I said. “How horrible.” I waited to see what else Mother had to say, a little embarrassed that she had approached this handicapped woman with intimate questions and a little afraid I was about to hear more details about her stump or whatever else my nosy mother had pried out of the poor woman.
But Mother said, “She is beautiful, and you couldn’t tell she was missing a leg unless you knew what to look for; she could walk normally.”
I silently mused over this: Yes, but what is it like when she is not wearing the false leg, the prosthesis? She’d have to hop on one leg or use a crutch, all the time. Pretty tiring and difficult, more so than what I had going on. And there must have been something that was a pretty big clue that the leg was not real. But I took it that Mother was trying to encourage me that you could be attractive and handicapped, which was definitely a worry for me, and probably more of a worry for her. I am also sure, based on the types of encouragement I was given and indirect comments she made, that she thought I might be dependent upon her all of my life and might never attract a husband, and this was why she showed such concern that I go to college and learn to support myself.
Not long after this, Mother had another story, again at our kitchen table.
“I talked with Lila Holdaway the other day.” I was not a huge fan of this garrulous woman from the church with a deep southern accent; I felt she was a little too inquisitive and, by our quiet, homey standards, too outgoing. But she had invited us to her home not long before, for her daughter’s baby shower. I had been the only child in attendance, all dressed up and on awkward good behavior, which felt weird and not much fun, but I’d liked the cake and the games. I had never had a babysitter, and I was old enough to stay home alone anyway, but I think Mother had wanted me to see what a baby shower was.
Mother continued without my encouragement, “Lila asked me, ‘Wah don’tchoo just get ’er polio leg cut aahf, and get ’er a PLA-stic leg? Then both ’er legs would be the same.’”
I looked at Mother incredulously for a moment and then burst into laughter. “She thinks I should get my leg cut off!?” More laughter at the naiveté of this sincere woman. “That’s crazy! Does she think I’d be better off with just one leg? At least I can stand up!”
Mother didn’t answer me but sat there quietly smoking, wrist bent, cigarette held to the side at shoulder level, eyes becoming slightly distant, as they did when she had a private thought, doing the ear-toward-shoulder, side-to-side, bobble-head movement she did when she’d come up with something she thought was noteworthy or right. (I would much later think this head gesture looked like the East Indian gesture for “yes.”)
I had thought we were sharing a bonding moment about the misunderstanding people have about handicaps. Over the years, however, I have realized that my mother was tentatively suggesting something she thought might be a solution for the embarrassment and stigma of having a limpy, off-balance, unattractive, unfeminine gait. My own mother was suggesting I have my leg amputated, and thought better of pushing the idea after hearing my reaction.
If I had realized this at the time, I would have gone to my room and sobbed for a week, and probably avoided speaking to her for at least a month. It would have been even worse had she added the idea that I might never marry.
Even today there is risk of infection with amputations and they are generally only done when the limb is a threat to the person’s life. I have known people who have had amputations and they’d all prefer to have been able to keep the limb. Seems obvious, huh? But today, I realize how naïve my mother was and also how much she worried about how things looked to others. She just wanted a normal life for her handicapped girl. She didn’t understand that being an amputee would have made me even less a normie.
“Point your toe straight,” Mother always told me, because I threw my polio foot out to the side—typical of people with a weak, paralyzed leg. This unconscious gait, with my knee also slightly pointed outward, was a bad habit, training the muscles to operate in a way that would be detrimental and potentially influencing improper bone growth. Throwing my foot outward also dramatically emphasized my “crippled kid” aspect.
I hated being constantly corrected, and remember especially the times Mother would say this when we either walked the three blocks to church or walked in after driving because we were, as usual, running too late to walk the distance. But she impressed it upon me, and I did learn to be aw
are of pointing my foot forward much of the time, which made it less likely I’d hit my foot on something. So I’m grateful for her persistent gait corrections now. Even today, when I discover I’m unconsciously throwing my foot out, especially when I’m tired, I hear her voice saying, “Point your toe straight,” and make an effort to do just that.
Much later on, it would become clear that when I did correctly position my right foot, I then threw my left, strong foot out to the side, making a semi-circular motion to allow for its extra two inches in length. (Imagine if you had no shoe on one side and a two-inch heel on the other foot. Then imagine having to do that for decades.) I was not aware of this trajectory until I accidentally kicked a box of oil paints in college with my longer-legged strong foot and dislocated and broke my little toe. I immediately saw what the problem was: I didn’t know where my strong foot had been going. This was at age twenty-one, a bit of a long time coming, but something I immediately incorporated into my walking awareness. Probably when I’d been throwing the polio foot out to the side, this made it easier for the left foot to travel forward in a straight line. I tried to start walking with the strong knee a little bent, as I’d learned to do in San Francisco earlier in life to mask my limp a little. It’s hard to keep that up, though.
Every change we make in the functioning of our bodies will affect some other part. Evolution has favored balanced parts. For an unbalanced polio patient, there are more than the normal changes and adaptations throughout life; they are constant.
In middle and high school in the 50s and 60s, it was common for girls to wear the ring of a boy around their necks on a long chain, to signify you were “going steady.” I wore Stanley DeMille’s for a couple of weeks in sixth grade and that was the longest serious—and I use this word facetiously—romance I had until I was in high school.
Going steady could mean that you actually went out on dates with that person, and no one else, or it could mean, at the sixth-grade level, that the two kids in question had simply identified that they liked each other more than any other person of the opposite sex for a week or two. If you were going steady in middle school, you had someone to sit with at the ball games, or maybe walk you home holding hands, or pass you notes in class that made your heart beat more quickly, and maybe you’d kiss once in a while.
Girls that developed early physically and were also popular may have been doing more than that, but I didn’t hear about any hanky-panky till I was in high school. I was kind of an ugly duckling at this stage; my sixth grade Gray Avenue School picture shows a girl who looks as if she’s lost in a world she doesn’t understand. I’m wearing a white blouse, Peter Pan collar, blue scarf tied at the neck. My wan smile reveals a space between my front teeth, which were at angles other than right. “You’d better start pushing your front teeth out with your thumb,” Mother said, “because we can’t afford braces.” I had not noticed my teeth were crooked until then and now had another thing to feel self-conscious about.
My hair, in the picture, is a variation on a tight pageboy, with curled bangs high off my forehead, achieved with rubber curlers. This was the first hairstyle I created on my own, and it looks like something a young girl with scant fashion sense would come up with. I really cared that I was included and The Same, but I wanted to have some sort of unique look, and it wasn’t working.
One day in sixth grade, I entered the girls’ restroom just after the bell rang indicating five minutes to get to class. There would be barely enough time for me to use the facilities and get to my homeroom.
Two other sets of girlish feet came in as soon as I closed the stall door and occupied the stall next to me. Why were they both in there together, I wondered? Maybe one is helping the other with a bra strap or zipper, I guessed.
The voice of a friend from church, Michelle, piped up, “I think Francine just wants people to pity her.”
“Yeah,” answered my other friend, Clare, “she just wants pity. She just feels sorry for herself.”
“Let’s get to class,” Michelle said.
They left together; I don’t even think either of them used the toilet.
I was stunned. I didn’t know whether to cry or go to class. I could feel that my face was hot with embarrassment. Did they know I was in the next stall? It seemed obvious that they’d wanted me to hear this exchange. I would never know, but my intuition told me they’d seen me go into the bathroom and had been planning this.
And then, running through my mind: Do I really feel sorry for myself? Do I really want pity? My gosh, of course not, I want to be the same as everyone else. I did expect that people would have some sensitivity that I was limited physically. Anyone might think this was unfortunate—but “pity”? Wasn’t pity for people who needed a great deal of help, money, some sort of aid? Who were desperate? Was wanting people to cut me some slack regarding my physical speed and strength feeling sorry for myself? Was I really projecting that I wanted people’s pity? I was distraught and humiliated.
I’d thought these girls were my friends and liked me. Were they doing me a favor, trying to enlighten me about what other kids thought? Were they doing this to get back at me? Because of what? Because I was smart and got top grades?
It was a bit much for a twelve-year-old to process. I can’t remember if I discussed it with my mother, but I know what her response would have been: “Don’t pay attention to them.” Mother was not as dependent upon friendships as I was, and just didn’t know what kind of advice to give me much of the time, so she kept her advice brief or put it in platitudes. But I couldn’t ignore what other kids did or said at that time.
The issue nagged at me all through that school year and was often present for me through the ensuing years when I spoke with these two girls. And of course, I was not mature enough to ask them about it; I was mortified that I had even heard the conversation.
I have seen one of them a couple of times as an adult and have been genuinely happy to see her each time, and she has seemingly felt the same. She has always been a sweet, intelligent person, and my reconciliation with the long-ago event is that she was likely influenced by the other catty young girl. One wants to rationalize these experiences. I didn’t think about the sixth grade at all when I saw her—it didn’t occur to me until days later. I imagine she must have forgotten it long before I did.
But this overheard bathroom conversation led me to a turning point: My gosh, I cannot act in a way that would stimulate that impression of courting pity. I have to be strong. My already strong personality (according to my mother, defined by my expressing my thoughts freely) was pushed up a notch, and I committed myself to appearing much tougher than I really was. I was convinced that I needed to try even harder to prove that I was not different, that I was the same as everyone else— which, of course, was the recommended and accredited school-of-hard-knocks polio approach insisted upon by many polio kids’ parents. This was preposterous, and set me on a course of years of convincing myself that I did not care about things that in fact I cared about deeply.
On another fateful day at school in the sixth grade, I’d walked back to class from lunch recess, and my polio leg suddenly ached so much that I could not stand. It continued to hurt after I sat down at my big rose-pink metal desk by the windows, and it was terrifying for me. This was the first time I had had pain in that leg since the initial onset nearly ten years before. I began to cry, right in class—humiliating, but I couldn’t help it.
My teacher, Mrs. Hyatt, approached my desk and leaned in close. She pushed her black-framed glasses up on her nose with her middle finger, a habit she had when considering something. She was pretty, despite the space between her front teeth, which gave me hope—especially since she was married.
“Francine,” she whispered, “what’s the matter?”
“My leg hurts,” I whispered back. “Let’s go to the nurse’s office, then.”
“I can’t; it hurts too much to walk.” By now I was completely embarrassed that students in the room were watc
hing us.
She left the room quietly and returned in a couple of minutes with Mr. Long, a big, strong, seventh grade coach. He came straight to my desk and picked me up right out of the chair, as if I were a tiny damsel in distress. “Let’s get you to the nurse’s office,” he said. I grabbed my lunch pail, and he carried me out of the room.
As soon as we were in the hallway, I started to sob.
“What happened?” Mr. Long asked. “Did you fall?”
“No,” I said, “this has never happened before. It’s my polio leg. It just hurts really bad.” It was a deep ache, but I didn’t know how to describe it then.
We arrived at the nurse’s office and he laid me down on the one bed there. “Don’t worry, now,” he said. “Someone will call your mother.”
The nurse in her white uniform was a bit alarmed. “Now, what seems to be the trouble?” she asked me.
“I don’t know,” I again answered. “My leg just hurts, a lot. My polio leg. I can’t walk on it.”
“Oh, perhaps it’s just growing pains.”
Growing pains!? Well, it would be good news if this leg were about to start growing.
I didn’t know it, but I was about to grow two more inches and reach my thirteen-year-old height of five feet. My little leg, however, didn’t ever catch up.
The nurse got Mother on the phone.
“Mrs. Allen? We have Francine here in the nurse’s office, and she’s complaining of pain in her polio leg. No, she’s lying down here. No, she says she can’t walk on it.”
I suspect Mother had suggested that I walk home after school.
“Well, can you come and pick her up?”
Mother came to the school about twenty minutes later. She was annoyed and angry, thinking I could have walked the three blocks home, and insisted that I walk to the DeSoto, parked out on the street one hundred feet away.
Not a Poster Child Page 10