Home » Partners & Parents » Marriage » One Woman's Story

One Woman's Story

© Cristy Wright

Susan was ridiculously young, fourteen to be exact, but in the puritanical fifties, the motto "if you're old enough to have sex, you're old enough to get married" produced more than its share of child brides. By eighteen, she bore two daughters and a slew of physical and emotional scars from relentless abuse and neglect at the hands of the one man who is supposed to be reliable. There are stories of relatives walking railroad tracks in search of errant lumps of coal to supply the stove and furnace, torn dresses, lengthy absences and a phone call to a sheriff's deputy whose wife happened to be one of numerous extramarital girlfriends. What was a young woman with no high school diploma, two young children, and no job experience supposed to do?

She left.

Despite the pleas of her parents to return home, she struck out on her own, working odd jobs as a barmaid and waitress. She once sought social services to help with the winter heating bill and when she was offered total assistance or nothing, she walked away with nothing but her dignity. She had already paid the price of total dependence, it had practically killed her. She would not do so again.

Older and wiser at twenty-two, she met a man with a steady job and solid reputation. When she found herself pregnant, he wanted to get married.

"Do you love me?" she asked, unafraid to shoulder this increased burden.

"Of course I do," he replied.

Even more than that, he loved her girls, and wanted them to be a family. He wanted them to have his name.

On a cold November morning, twenty six years, a son and a daughter later, she ceased struggling with her unsurmountable physical limitations. Her youngest daughter was 17, a senior in high school, and no letter, card, phone call or expression of gratitude, sorrow or sympathy could begin to staunch the flow of her youthful invulnerability. Only time was able to manage such a feat.

Susan's unstoppable strength of character lives on in her four children, their spouses and six grandchildren. Although they have chosen their own paths, they know it is her determination that motivates them, her spirit that guides them, and her love that protects them. I can only hope to leave such a legacy for my own children.

Happy Mother's Day, Susan Wright. I love you.