I suffer under “caution fatigue” and the gloom and distress that surrounds us during this crazy pandemic. I’ve been reading a lot about the late 1900’s Spanish Flu, looking for some parallels to our prognosticators. I do find some. But I keep looking for other things—primarily a reckoning of realities that this stuff is just hard. And I look for hope. I feel false guilt for not being more fruitful artistically. But a big thank-you goes to my local writers’ group and the openness of many other authors who free me from the fetters of false guilt and help me to survive.
I am also grateful to the survivors of the Spanish Flu. They endured the ridiculous decisions their neighbors made—mask-less anarchists, herd immunity purveyors and reckless wanderers, too. And many survived. They survived the death of their loved ones and neighbors—not because they were luckier or more prudent or stronger or more resilient or had better politics or finer ideals, or any of the other numerous characteristics we like to plant on ourselves these days. They just survived like so many other generations of people who have faced, and even now face, plagues and famines, wars and sieges, bigotry and violence.
Why do people survive during these times and events? My guess is that no one really knows why one healthy 30-year old lives and another healthy 30-year old dies right next to him. My guess is that no one really knows why one 90-year old can resist disease and another one dies right next to her. Some might chalk it up to the horrific principles of “everything happens for a reason” and “it was God’s will”—both theological atrocities in my opinion. I’m a Christian and wrestle with all of this—and I wrestle God with all of this as honestly as I can. I’m just glad that God doesn’t remove himself from us completely, and that he gives us strength and ingenuity and perspective and hope. Most of all hope.
A number of years ago National Public Radio hosted a series called “This I Believe” and I heard remarkable stories of survival and belief. It prompted me to write my own belief about survival. Even though it was not accepted for publication, it was an important journey for me to take up this challenge to write it out. I just came across it today and decided to share it here because maybe it will help someone else survive.
This I Believe
I believe in survival. I believe in survival because my grandmother survived, my father survived, and because I survive. Because my deaf-mute grandmother, Martha Augusta Koch, left her well-to-do family and got on a train in Illinois, jostled across this vast country and deep into the Southwest to marry an exquisitely poor deaf-mute barber and cobbler, George Riley Hyde, whom she had never seen, my father was born in 1936. His name is Franklin Garth.
Several years after my father was born, Martha fell into a terrible psychotic state brought on by childhood spinal meningitis. Because resources were scarce and no one knew what to do with her, their only recourse was to admit her to a state hospital where she survived. After her husband, George Riley Hyde, was struck dead by a driver who had no idea that the man he was honking at could not hear the blaring horn, my father was taken in by another survivor—his crippled, elderly Auntie who raised him on little more than beans. Yet they survived.
Many years later he married Norma Lee. He and my mother survived graduate school poverty and raised two little ones, my brother and me, on barely anything more than pancakes and beans.
My grandmother continued to survive in that state hospital where no one knew sign language. Years later her psychosis would burn out, as would her eyes. By the time she lost her vision, the doctors and nurses had learned sign language and they continued to help her survive. Blind, deaf and mute she survived.
The first time I remember the terrifying and wonderful experience with this woman, my father signed letters to each word into her long, nimble fingers. When she understood that he was describing me and my brother, she erupted with incredible joy and let out guttural cries of bliss from her toothless mouth. She jubilantly embraced her grandchildren, calling out our names “Garph! Marpha!” Her butterfly fingers flew lightly over the skin of our faces and we were terrified.
As the years went by, and she became acquainted with my two younger sisters Rebecca and Mary, I learned more of the expansive story of her survival. She became one of the most beloved residents of the hospital. She would help wherever she could, and before blindness overcame her, she even happily cleaned beneath the beds of other patients. She lived until she was 78, surviving inside her quiet, small world.
Her survival and the survival of my father have fed my will to survive all my life. When people abused me to gain a sense of power and pleasure, I survived. When people told me that I could not succeed unless I looked like them, I survived. When people opposed me simply because I was a woman and a minister, I survived. With “Marpha!” ringing in my ears and the memory of her butterfly fingers, I knew that if she could survive, so could I.
April 12, 2008
Portrait of Martha Augusta Koch Hyde by M.R. Hyde
Why don’t you tell your story of survival?
M.R. Hyde
Copyright 2020
