August 1958

The photograph is of a woman sitting on the front steps of a house with a one-year-old in her lap. Three other children are surrounding her. Two of them are smiling at the baby and are welcoming her; the third, who looks to be the oldest, appears to be hamming it up for the camera. Just outside of the frame is another child playing with a truck on the sidewalk.

The woman is elegantly dressed with her hair in a chignon and wearing pearls. You can’t tell from the picture, but I would guess that she is 3 months pregnant. She is looking up to the camera with a slight smile on her face. The stoop that she is sitting on is at her parents’ house in Lawrence, KS. Her father is probably the photographer, and they are documenting the day that I’ve come home from a hospital stay. I am the baby in the woman’s lap. I don’t appear to be sick or unhappy but during that stay I was diagnosed with polio.

Every summer my mother would pile all the kids in the station wagon and set off from her home in New Jersey to visit with her family in Kansas. She was usually the sole adult and driver and I’m sure that she relied heavily on a different kind of “mother’s little helper” to keep her going for the 1,500-mile trip. She would always drive straight through with periodic stops at rest areas to feed us sandwiches, nurse an infant and change diapers. Those diapers, once washed out in the bathrooms, would be rolled up in the windows of the car to dry. There was a bassinette wedged between the seats in the back but no seat belts. This was in the late ‘50’s and early 60’s. If there were cries of boredom or discomfort, my mother was skilled at ignoring them. The older children dealt with the basic needs of the younger ones between stops. Eventually, there would be 7 children in 9 years.

The year this photograph was taken must have been an incredibly difficult drive because that was when I started getting sick. I don’t know how hard it was for her or how long I was hospitalized that first time because no one involved could remember the details.  This loss of memory was a choice made because one didn’t dwell on the hard times. This picture seems to be the only documentation of the onset of my polio journey. Nowhere in this tableau can I find a hint that my mother understood the years ahead dealing with the complications of having a physically disabled child. The woman thrived on a hard time, enjoying life’s obstacles and sometimes setting them up deliberately.

My mother was complex. A brilliant, avant-garde woman who was admitted to university at the age of 14. She was beautiful. Tall, with a dancer’s body and grace. A renaissance women accomplished in music, art and literature, she could win any of the frequent debates at our dining room table or in the political arena.  Her wit was quick and frequently sharp. She was sexy and powerful. I grew up under the influence of this beatnik, war protestor, peace activist and crusader for civil rights. My father was also many of these things, but my mother was a force. Together, they set the social scene with impromptu after-hours parties. Gatherings of 50 or more people dancing to the sounds of Sam and Dave’s Soul Man or the Rolling Stones. The younger children would watch from the sidelines while the older ones would be recruited to tend bar.  The air was heavy with the smell of cigarettes and pot.  In the center of it all was my mom, dancing with her long blond hair swaying from side to side.

We children were largely left alone to navigate our own way in the world. We were encouraged to be strong and brave, sexy and smart. I was pushed to be more. She wanted me to conquer the world. I never quite met that standard, but I gave it my best. Perhaps I can find my own strand of pearls, put my hair up in a bun and look as confident as she did in that picture. If I can’t do that, I can still dance to Sam and Dave in my wheelchair.