A SAD MEMORY, A TRUE STORY ABOUT A TIME WHEN EVERYTHING WAS HUSHED. AND NO HELP WAS AVAILABLE.
In the late 1950s, those women who went to college with me were locked into our dorm rooms at 7PM. We could only leave to use the bathroom. There were upper classman floor monitors. Freedom depended on your grade average.
After first semester we were allowed to stay out until 9PM on weeknights. Weekend curfew was 11PM. The fraternity houses had open bars. It was animal house all the time. Hazing was normal. Kids got drunk. The laundry man delivered drugs, but cigarette machines were not allowed in the dorm lobbies.
Most of the ‘girls’ claimed that they were virgins. Books by Henry Miller were hidden in drawers. No one wanted a bad reputation.
The girls on the second floor
Of Cottage House
Had a secret:
Mary found a fetus in the toilet.
Not quite a baby in the toilet
Almost a person in the toilet
No one knew what to do about it
No one knew what to do with it.
No one had ever seen one before.
They thought about flushing it
They thought about scooping it
And then burying it.
If they told the housemother
She would question all.
The police might come.
It would create a scandal.
No one wanted that.
They wondered if it belonged to Mary.
After all, she was the one who found it.
And then it just disappeared..
There was nothing in the toilet.
.
No one knew what happened to it.
No one asked.
No one really wanted to know.
Somewhere there is a mother. Perhaps, she was in Pre-med with me.
Maybe a music or Ed major. In any event. She knows what happened.
It is her miserable secret. Her regret. Her sorrow.
*Photo Att:blogs.babble.com/being-pregnant/tag/postpartum-ocd/
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Marianne Spellman
Angie Miller
Marty'sHusband
James M. Emmerling
wendyo
Ellen Hawley Roddick
Salon.com
Comments
Peace to you
R for revealing
Rated for the terrified misery that was then.
I was not Mary. Nor the mother of the fetus. However,
I do know the pain of miscarriage... We had no idea what happened to this girl and in hind sight it is good that the young woman had privacy and was not the subject of gossip and ridicule. Hopefully she finished and earned her degree. Had she been found out, she would have forfeited her tuition and been kicked out.
Life was very different for us back then. I had to swear on a employment application that I would not have children in order to get a particular job for a hotel chain. I remember standing in a phone booth and sobbing to my husband.
That could not happen today.
Women on campus were not taken very seriously. Being pretty and popular was the ultimate for many. I left school to marry in my junior year and finished at a college in Boston...close to my home.
I wrote it so that I might bring the subject to light. This was a rare event. The climate on campus was conducive to promiscuous behavior. Wild parties, alcohol, and sex. But most of the girls did not have any form of protection. It they did get pregnant there really wasn't any counseling available. And you didn't dare go to your family.
This is awful, one way or the other. I think people underestimate how serious abortions are, even for those who choose them.
We were naive 17 year old girls when we went away to college. Put that into perspective with the social environment on campus then.
r.
Remember these things when you go to vote in November Ladies.
r
As she spoke, it was as though she herself had died ...
There was nothing to do but be with her ...
allow her safe space to ... be with her pain ...
She herself knew she needed to speak the words aloud.
She needed someone who would not silence her ...
Such wisdom for one so young ...
So many years later I still see her eyes ...
All the pain of this ... there ...
I once heard a noteworthy physician speak about his time serving at a military base. He tells a tory of a lovely woman with 5 daughters like stairsteps in height and age. Their mother was brought to him in dangerous condition, and could not be saved. Once he saw her suffering, he became an advocate for legalized abortion, even tho' he himself did not practice in that field. True story.
the title was shockingly wonderful then:
"Mary found a fetus in the toilet.
Not quite a baby in the toilet
Almost a person in the toilet'
no one knew what to do. how could they!!?
no one ever taught them the basic facts of life.
and today, some say, let us go back to that.
i say, fuck them. chase their ignorant asses to the bottom of
the ocean, where they can have a lovely world 20 000 leagues
under,
and stop bothering our women.
I was in the transition of the sexual revolution period in college or so it felt ... when I was a freshman our dorms were referred to as "the virgins on the hill" or "the frigid 500" and by the time I was a senior our college was referred to as "_____ Mattress". The range of sexual experiences -- zero to extreme -- among my peers was vast.
I have had friends confide horror stories about secret eyes-covered rides to basement abortion rooms and pain and fear and horror. This particularl scenario above reminds me of the powerful play and movie, Agnes of God.
Profound secrecy re sexuality especially among women -- after all, that Scarlet Letter double standard for women, the consequences of risking pregnancy, the madonna/whore tightrope. The anti-establishmentarism that was happening during the anti-war years overlapped with women's lib, which sometimes meant men's lib for having women give up too easily their self-serving sexual boundaries at times.
I knew women who chose to have the babies though single, I knew women who had abortions. Grave choices for sure.
You awesomely unfold the reality. WELL DONE!!!! Ande. I am so glad I got to read this. Thank you!
best, libby