“Everything you can imagine is true.” Pablo Picasso Hello everyone. I’d like to share my experience with you about the power of mysterious family stories to travel across the land of unbelief and shake us awake into a state of wonder. I’m talking about the stories we carry but cannot seem to tell because we don’t know all the details. The ones that linger over our lives at the edge of awareness, filling our dreams with sparks of imagery and pieces of words that seem to be signaling to us like a distressed ship sending an SOS across a choppy sea. During the day we tend to brush these story parts aside, dismissing them as fragments of the imagination but, in fact they may contain messages that shape our lives more than we care to admit.
I have many people in my family tree who disappeared in this way and whose lives are unknown. Thank you for inspiring me to learn more about them and tell their stories.
I follow Jenny Lawson and had seen her posts about the art from the institution, and I have read your book - but never thought to put the two together until I saw this! Wow, what an amazing connection. The field I work in, supporting people with intellectual disabilities, was largely created and shaped by the movement to get people out of institutions and back in their communities. I have heard so many stories, and I know there are so many more that no one ever knew.
thank you for sharing this tragic story of your great grandmother. The 'if-we-don't-talk-about-it-it-will-go-away' paradigm, unfortunately is still holding on strong. Maybe it's us, and the next generations, who have to crack this nonsensical nutteryness of the system that perceives itself as perfectly 'sensible'.
I think that psychiatric hospitals are the prisons not only physically but intellectually also. I think about Chekhov's Room #6, where a doctor became a patient of his psychiatric room #6. But not everything is lost; we have Laura Perea's tortured artwork and Jenny Lawson and your stories about lost lives and they are not lost anymore. Thank you for the inspiring stories.
I am grateful to everyone who was involved in this round of my search: Jenny Lawson, Kathryn Vercillo (who posted Jenny’s blog about the artist, L. Perea) and those of you who responded to my post.
A powerful tale. How wonderful to feel that connection with Vina and her story.
Beautifully written.
This story is amazing Jane. Thank you for sharing it with us.
Imagine!
I have many people in my family tree who disappeared in this way and whose lives are unknown. Thank you for inspiring me to learn more about them and tell their stories.
I hope you will pursue their stories. It's not easy to do but so very healing.
I follow Jenny Lawson and had seen her posts about the art from the institution, and I have read your book - but never thought to put the two together until I saw this! Wow, what an amazing connection. The field I work in, supporting people with intellectual disabilities, was largely created and shaped by the movement to get people out of institutions and back in their communities. I have heard so many stories, and I know there are so many more that no one ever knew.
I can imagine the stories you have witnessed. It's humbling, yes?
thank you for sharing this tragic story of your great grandmother. The 'if-we-don't-talk-about-it-it-will-go-away' paradigm, unfortunately is still holding on strong. Maybe it's us, and the next generations, who have to crack this nonsensical nutteryness of the system that perceives itself as perfectly 'sensible'.
So nice to read your response, Veronkia. I agree with you that the story holds "strong." Thank you for seeing me here.
I think that psychiatric hospitals are the prisons not only physically but intellectually also. I think about Chekhov's Room #6, where a doctor became a patient of his psychiatric room #6. But not everything is lost; we have Laura Perea's tortured artwork and Jenny Lawson and your stories about lost lives and they are not lost anymore. Thank you for the inspiring stories.
I am grateful to everyone who was involved in this round of my search: Jenny Lawson, Kathryn Vercillo (who posted Jenny’s blog about the artist, L. Perea) and those of you who responded to my post.