Stories & Essays  

 

A Death in the Family: 1948 - 2004

"It haunts me that at the end-when there was enough food you were unable to eat. I pray the Spirits have your plate heaped high, and there is a kind smile on their faces when they picture you walking back that dirt road with your little legs bowed because of rickets."

Judith shares her grief at losing her cherished sister to the lifelong ravages of poverty. Mother Warriors Voice, Spring 2005.

 

The Textile Factory

"During the two years I worked there more than one woman suffered a breakdown. Their screams would make the hair on the back of your neck stand up. Other women would carry the broken woman out, and hardly a moment of work would be lost. I guess we thought slowing down might allow the Spirits to catch us next, or the bosses would find a way to get rid of someone else who wasn’t producing to their satisfaction. It was a hellish place for a naive teenager."

Judith describes "sexual harassment" before the phrase came into being. Quiet Mountain Essays, August 2005.
   

Help, I've Fallen, and No One Has Even Noticed

"When I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1979, my neurologist said to avoid stress. I didn't take his advice seriously. Stress was one of those middle class words that lost something in its translation to real life. Throughout my story you will see an over abundance of stress. At this late date, it occurs to me that avoiding stress wasn't the problem. Understanding, managing and confronting it in ways that related to my lifestyle were the answers I needed."

Judith K. Witherow uses autobiography to explore illness and survival for those who think they can't take one more step. Surviving in the Hour of Darkness: The Health and Wellness of Women of Colour and Indigenous Women, edited by Sophie Harding, University of Calgary Press, 2005.

 

 

Ceiling of Blue, Floor of Green

"The environment needs the constant care you would give to the newborn of any specie. If this does not happen, everything that occurs because of neglect will happen to us. "Failure to thrive" is not just a phrase that applies to humans. Recognize what is happening to the earth on a daily basis. Learn to observe everything in your life. Hold what you see close like a much-desired lover."

Judith describes her life long connection with nature and all things natural. It is the unbroken link among countless generations of her family. Sinister Wisdom, "Lesbians and Nature," #63, Winter 2004 - 2005.
 

 

Women Warriors of the 507th Division

"Everything in my being knows why the military selects people of every color in my class as their prime choice to fight and defend this country's battles. Hope. Hope for a better way of life is the carrot at the end of the recruitment stick. Who would knowingly enlist with the idea that she will be placed in harm's way because she doesn't like the politics of another country?"

Judith K. Witherow examines the plight of three working class women, one killed and two severely injured while serving in Iraq. Rain and Thunder: A Radical Feminist Journal of Discussion and Activism, Issue #24, Autumn Equinox 2004

 

 

Should Women Go Armed?

"The major problem is that women are basically afraid of guns, or for that matter, knives or any other implement that might be used as a deadly form of self-defense. I view this as the major stumbling block in the road toward equalizing the physical powers between men and women."

Written in 1978 for the July/August issue of The Feminist Alliance Against Rape Newsletter (AEGIS Magazine) and still relevant today, this article defends the option of armed self defense for women.

 

Strained Class Windows

"Survival often means feeding the belly before the brain. The deprivation of either causes lifelong pain. There is only so much humiliation you can cram into a child before you effectively crowd her out of the system."

Witherow shares the "sights, tastes, smells and life-limiting experiences" of growing up working poor in affluent America. Originally printed in Sojourner: The Women's Forum in January 1994, "Strained Class Windows" was subsequently published in Women's Health: Readings on Social, Economic and Political Issues, a women's studies text from University of Wisconsin edited by Nancy Worcester and Marianne Whatley, 1994.
 

 

Yo' Done Bridge Is Fallin' Down

"The generations of female bodies who breathed life into me were silenced by my arrogance of assimilation...It's of no comfort to realize that what I was seeking was among my own people."

This article was written for an anthology that revisits the condition of women of color 25 years after publication of the feminist classic This Bridge Called My Back. In "Yo' Done Bridge," Witherow examines chronic ill health "when poverty, culture and racism collide on a personal level."  Published in This Bridge We Call Home:Radical Visions for Transformation, edited by Gloria E. Anzaldua and Analouise Keating, Routledge, 2002.

 

 
Mom & Judith 1978

 

Native American Mother

"Why must everything be based on white, middle-class standards?"

Judith K. Witherow compares her own mother to the qualifications outlined for a Mother of the Year contest. This is her first published essay, appearing in the Race, Class and Culture issue of Quest: a Feminist Quarterly in Spring, 1977. This piece has been used in women's studies and writing workshops as well as in texts at the University of New Hampshire and the University of Southern California.

 
 

 

 

Are We There Yet?

"To impress her I took her to a turkey shoot. Yes, a turkey shoot. You shoot at bulls-eye targets with a .12 gauge shotgun. I shot against nineteen men and was the winner. The prize was a frozen turkey. It didn't occur to me that guns might not be part of her culture. I was too busy doing my own imitation of o a strutting turkey to notice what her reaction might be."

This story recalls a courtship where the only commonality between the lovers is gender. In Beginnings: Lesbians Talk About the First Time They Met Their Long-Term Partner, edited by Lindsay Elder, Alyson Publications, 1998.
 

COLUMBUS DAY REVISITED

 

In 1992 I wanted to write something about Columbus Day and five hundred years of non-stop destruction of my Native American ancestry. However, my elderly disabled mother came to live with us and I had to put the article aside to care for this precious old one.

The story would have been about how my large family is riddled with cancer, diabetes, Parkinson's, systemic lupus, osteoporosis, arthritis, sarcoidosis, asthma, emphysema, learning disabilities, high blood pressure, alcoholism, drug abuse, vitiligo, circulatory problems, glaucoma, heart disease, multiple sclerosis, etc., etc.

I especially wanted to write about what happens when you are impoverished and live off the polluted land. We did not have the benefit of electricity or running water in any of the houses we rented. Our drinking water came from mountains that had been strip-mined for coal. The streams that supplied our needs flowed down to the river and killed the fish and every other living thing. The poisons were so toxic that they will continue to cripple and kill us for generations yet unborn.

My mother died on November 24, 1992. She had emphysema, high blood pressure, osteoporosis, heart disease, arthritis, pancreatitis, etc. She was on oxygen twenty-four hours of every day.

I need to write about her. Keeping her alive aids me in wanting to exist without her presence.  Don't tell me that she’s better off. How could that be without me there to care for her? She lived for 74 years because I made the medical profession treat her with respect as well as their medicine. It always made me laugh when she told me not to "get huffy" with the doctors. Her fear was that they might hurt her if I made them angry. Just the opposite was true. To quote Audre Lorde, “Your silence will not protect you.” 

During one office visit her female, primary care doctor said, "You were poor, and yet you brought so many children into this world. Why?"  Mom looked like she had been physically hit. Because I didn't want to embarrass her further I spoke softly in her defense. I quietly replied "Whatever would make you think that because someone was poor that they would not make love? There is not always money for birth control when you are poor, and it may also run counter to other culture’s beliefs. If one parent had to quit school in the third grade, and the other in eighth grade to help raise their sisters and brothers, what do you think they learned about birth control"? (There were eighteen births in my father's family and eleven in my mother's) An apology was given and accepted.

There has always been a gnawing need to write about how my family of eleven came to live in Maryland in the year of 1964. Columbus Day would be the ironic time to turn our oral history into a written one.

As a World War II veteran, my father received a separation bonus. It took my parents until 1960 to collect it, because of all of the bureaucracy involved. With the $1,500 allotment they bought a house on the main street of a little town in the Appalachian Mountains. Having both electricity and running water in the house was pure magic. The idea of flipping a switch or turning on a faucet was something one only dared to dream about.

During the four years we lived in the house various hateful incidents occurred. Our dogs and cats were repeatedly shot or poisoned. One dog was fed ground up glass. It died a horrible death.

Another time a bulldozer came on our land and destroyed my mother's beautiful lilac bush among other things. Putting the ashes outside from the furnace provoked this incident. (We knew nothing about what this so called “civilized” town’s expectations were.)

A small house fire occurred in the summer of 1964. A faulty pump that drew water up into the house from the well caused it. The firemen destroyed everything they could with their axes. What couldn't be cut, like mattresses or living room furniture, was soaked with water. I remember Dad taking one of the firemen back into the house when the fire was out and saying, "Why? Why?" No answer was ever given.

Dad was a carpenter and a lumberjack. It was decided that all of the trashed furniture would be removed so he could repair the two fire damaged rooms. We worked for days carrying all the trash to the landfill.

Late one night, before the removal of debris was finished, someone poured gasoline throughout the house. The house was burned to the ground. A neighbor woman told my mother that she knew who set the fire but couldn't tell because she had to live in the town. She had to live there but our kind could live anywhere. 

Mom, I kept meaning to tell you about that stupid Mother/Daughter Banquet in high school. Even now, if you were still alive, I wouldn't have the heart to tell you why I didn’t invite you. My shame is still that great. When I told you that I invited a red-haired white woman to the banquet you just nodded your head. You didn't say a word, but the look on your face spoke volumes. To this day it haunts me. I loved you so much that I couldn't bear the thought of anyone making fun of you. To tell you this I would have had to explain what I found so unacceptable. I couldn't. I can't. It should have been as obvious to me, as it was to you, that discrimination resides in every region.

You will take no comfort in hearing that I was wounded when my sons asked me not to use my cane when I came to their school. There were different times they asked me not to wear my hair braided, but I always refused. They are not the same type of incidents-- are they? I can't be as good or as forgiving as you always were. The pain is piled so high that we're in danger of burying ourselves until time ceases to exist. It's okay to be angry. It has to occur before change can take place.

Jesus, Mom, remember when one of your sisters brought you home a parachute from the factory she worked at? You made all four of us girls more underwear than we could use. Unfortunately, girls in junior and senior high school have store bought clothing. It made us the target of choice for a long time. We didn't mention the harassment. Even if we had, it wouldn't have made you able to buy store bought clothing.

Another incident that still haunts me is the numerous weeks you worked scrubbing floors and cleaning other people's homes so you could buy me a prom gown. Why couldn't you believe it when I said I didn't want to attend this event? You assumed it was because I wouldn't have a fancy dress like the others? Wrong, I’ve always hated dresses. A prom gown allowed others to justify their knowledge that I really didn’t belong. It didn’t matter that I went to the prom with my cousin. Your tomboy daughter preferred it that way.    

My belief system allows me the luxury of knowing that Dad is there with you. The two-year separation you endured almost killed you with grief, didn't it? You loved us enough to deny yourself his company until you nursed us through the loss of him.

You were so angry with me for making his funeral arrangements before he died. You thought I had given up hope. I only did what he asked. He couldn't bear the thought of causing you such pain. Like you, he thought I could deal with all of the hard things in life.

Dad, you were wrong. Did you know that I would have to go into a room full of caskets, and pick out one for you? A cruel container for the one who thought I was just about perfect. The man who always said, "I glory in your spunk, kid", whenever I did things that caused others to frown.

Dad, that last night at the hospital when I said the cancer was improving, I lied. I couldn't tell you what the Oncologist had said. He wanted me to do his dirty work. He told you there was improvement. Out in the hallway he told me, "No matter what happens, you don't bring your father to my office or the hospital. I'm through with him." I couldn't tell you what he said. A seventy-two year old man who had survived all that life had delivered deserved so much more. At least you got your death with dignity at home like you wanted. 

Mom, I knew I couldn't replace Dad. I thought if I took good care of you that you would live longer. Or at least you might want to live. All of the signs were there, but I didn't want to see them. While I was busy with life you were already walking amongst the dead. The place in your wallet that used to hold our pictures was replaced with numerous obituaries of family and friends.

During the last day at the emergency room, I took care of you like any mother would a beloved child. For some time our roles had been reversing, and with the changing of your diaper, it was complete. I wanted no one to touch you who didn't understand your true worth. 

With my sisters and brothers looking on I declined each medical suggestion. "No, no chest compression." (With your osteoporosis it would have shattered the bones in your chest, and would not have helped your totally ruined heart). I said no to the request to do electric shock with paddles to your heart. Even seeing the pleading eyes of my family, I had to say no.  

They didn't know all of the battles you and I had fought and won for numerous years. They live in a world where you don't question authority. If there were more miracles to be had they assumed I would produce them. I would have done anything to keep you alive. Anything but let them prolong or add to your suffering for monetary gain. Causing senseless pain to you was something I couldn’t endure.

Mom, I saw to it that your Living Will was enforced. Your last requests were abided by and honored. Whatever did you and Dad see in me that made you both think I could do the hellish impossible?

When you died I was able to cry. Before that I could count on one hand the number of times in life I have cried. While you were alive to help absorb the pain, I didn't need to cry. Now, I know that it will be a long time before my eyes are dry. I sleep with your pillow, Mom, and bury my face in it as if it were your breasts. Don't laugh, but I also kept your "little old ladies" talcum powder. I open it when days are particularly long and inhale the comfort no one else can give. What happened? I don't understand. You always recovered. You always came home. Each morning when I awake I’m happy. Then I remember you died, and my breath won’t allow my lungs to expand.

There is just one more thing. I will never again let Columbus Day pass without pointing out the smug ignorance of others.