When I was young my father told me a story I’d never forget. It was about a cousin I’d never met, the son of my father’s younger brother in Nebraska. Still an infant, the boy started to run a fever. The fever climbed to 104° and stayed there. Though my uncle and aunt didn’t yet know it was spinal meningitis, they knew their baby was in serious trouble, and they headed for the nearest hospital. By the time they got to the hospital the damage was done, and permanent: the child would never be able to care for himself, talk, understand his surroundings, or even recognize family members. In time, Uncle Fran and Aunt Shirley put him in an institution, where he would live the rest of his life.
Our mentally-disabled cousin was a whispered family story, the kind you didn’t share with outsiders. Not that we ever talked much about it ourselves. Matter of fact, I didn’t even know my cousin’s name, but his story had scarred me for life: years later, when I was a young father myself, I’d start filling the bathtub with ice whenever either of my children started running a fever.
Over the years I’d think of my cousin from time to time, though I didn’t know the first thing about him . . . where he was and what kind of institution he was in, how he was doing, whether his family visited . . . nothing. And because we Woodfords were all so reluctant to discuss sensitive family issues, I didn’t dare ask Uncle Fran or even my own father for details. I sensed it was a subject no one wanted raised. In recent years, I more or less assumed my cousin had passed on.
And then Cousin Sue found me on Facebook and got in touch. Sue, one of Uncle Fran’s daughters, is Clark’s younger sister. Yes, his name is Clark, and his nickname is Spike (how cool is that?). Clark’s in his mid-50s, still institutionalized. He never got better and is still unable to recognize or respond to anyone. He has a brain tumor now and may not live much longer. Sue sent photos. Clark looks just like my Uncle Fran.
Cousin Sue, it turns out, has been the family go-between with the institution where Clark is housed. She recently set up a family visit with Clark, his mother, and his sisters. Sue has managed his care and has seen him often, but no one else had. Uncle Fran, who died a few years ago, never wanted Aunt Shirley to visit Clark, thinking it would just upset her.
True, Clark wouldn’t have known his own mother in any case, but what a crying shame it is that my generation and my parents’ generation hid their disfigured, disabled, mentally ill, and mentally damaged children from the world and from themselves. I’m not saying Clark didn’t need to be institutionalized; he did and does. It’s the hiding that’s the shame: kids like Clark weren’t to be seen or talked about. Their very existence implied something lacking in their parents. Bless Cousin Sue for knowing better, and bless her for finally getting her mother back together with her son. Bless her too for sharing Clark’s story with me, and for sending me photos. And bless poor Clark.
Family secrets. Another thing my father told me when I was young was that I was the only male Woodford who could carry on the family name. But in addition to Clark there was another male Woodford in my generation, my Uncle Fay’s son, who lived in Maryland. That cousin is about my age and there was and is nothing wrong with him. Although we met a few times when we were teenagers, we never stayed in touch, and I don’t know anything about him today other than that he’s still around somewhere. I don’t know if he ever had children, but he certainly could have had. So why did my father tell me that story?
Uncle Fay is gone and so is my dad, so I can’t ask. But I sense another one of those generational family shame stories lurking in the background. Maybe my Maryland cousin dated a black girl once. Something like that would have gone down very poorly with my parents’ generation and with my father in particular, bless him. Of course I could be wrong about all this, too. Maybe that cousin had mumps as a kid. Who knows?
Well, I’d like to know, and I’m working on it. Stand by for progress reports.
Update (half an hour later): Well, how about that? I have a progress report already, thanks to my sister Mary. In addition to Cousin Clark, I have two male Woodford cousins, Bill and Mike, both sons of my Uncle Fay. Bill is unmarried, parental status unknown, but Mike is and has a grown son. My sister says our dad probably told me that story because he had won a family bet by being the first brother to have a son. So everything I speculated about just now is wrong, wrong, wrong. Gee, what else is new?
And why didn’t my dad share all this with me? Did he somehow sense that I’d start blogging someday and spill all the family secrets? Yep, that’s probably it.