Haunted by the Tragedy of Wendy

Yes, Dave, you're at the root of the Tragedy -- knowingly giving up your life to give birth to another.

Would you take that deal if it were offered?

Do you achieve immortality through your children or your deeds?

My feeling in knowing her a bit was that Wendy always had an inner sense of doom and wounding to her that was fostered by unfulfilled feelings of reciprocal intimate love with a man that she yearned for all her life. Her happy cover covered her emotional welts.

I'm sure Lucy set her insides free a bit but the price she paid can be no costlier and greater.

Lucy Jane may be the final effort but Lucy Jane now has no mother.

I agree, Dave. I think Lucy would want her mother over the security of money and an extended network of family and friends.

It was a gamble for Wendy. She won big and lost bigger.

I hope that Lucy Jane does find loving adults who can step into a parental role. I lost one of my best friends to complications from juvenile diabetes six years ago this month. She was 32, and she died on her son's (her only successful pregnancy out of four) 13th birthday.

My college roommate, who had met her when I got married and who knew her husband's family, made the comment that she shouldn't have had children knowing that she was so sick. I suppressed the flash of anger at her comment and told her that her son was born when she was 19, hardly an age where anyone is thinking she's going to die in 13 years.

Also, what if she had never had this wonderful boy? The world would be minus an incredible young adult with her sparkling brown eyes, crazy sense of humor and fun-loving personality. My friends would have died knowing that she was letting her illness dictate whether she would bring life into this world. That, to me, would have been the true tragedy.

Hi Carla!

Thank you for sharing such a great story to help round out the discussion here.

I guess the power to be a mother is stronger than the fear of death.

One of Janna's best friends from childhood just lost his mother to cancer. She was told in October she had a month to live, but she refused to die near any holiday or anyone in her family's birthday. She didn't want a day of celebration to be tainted with the memory of her death. She wasted away but still willed herself to live far beyond any sense of reason or medical certainty -- and last week she decided the time was right and let go forever.

Successfully managing the desire for life against the want to die is a great human feat.

"Uncommon Women" is a good play Wendy wrote. It dramatizes how women alone and hoping for company try to find a life in a conflicted feminist world.

Hey Anne --

You put your finger on the pulse of that play. Successful women have a thin line to abide. If they're too aggressive, they're Bitches. If they're too meek, they're Apron-Strung.

I am reminded of a similar discussion we all previously shared here:

http://urbansemiotic.com/2006/01/27/all-the-good-women-are-taken/

I think Wendy did a lot of volunteer work in the community. She loved the theatre and wanted other children to love it, too.

Yes, Anne, Wendy was generous with her time. She rarely said "no" to an invitation to speak at a school. She believed in Education and the Arts and in living a life filled with Cultural Cultivation. We will miss her spirit and influence.

I saw a little blurb in our local paper and a picture of Wendy that was taken in the 1990s. I didn't read the story, but I'll have to go back and take a look at it now that I've read your post.

It's a tragedy that she accomplished having a child and might have died as a result of her efforts. I would like to think of it as being the luck of the draw -- sometimes things happen that we couldn't control. Her sister died from cancer, so Wendy's developing cancer might have happened no matter what she did -- even if she didn't have the fertility treatments. Maybe her illness was caused by genetics or environmental triggers. I hope

I can't imagine what it would be like to lose a parent at such a young age. I hope for the best for Lucy.

Hi Chris --

Wendy cared about her career, but she cared more about being a good person.

Yes, genetics are wild and unpredictable. I think you needlessly tempt a dangerous cocktail, though, when you mix Pergonal and a family history of cancer.

Gilda Radner was a bright example of how devastating the early fertility drugs could be on a woman’s body.

Wendy tried for something like five years to get pregnant with Pergonal and other drugs but did not find success.

She gave up.

A year later her fertility doctor saw her in a restaurant and told her she should try again because a whole new round of fertility drugs were available.

Shortly thereafter she was pregnant.

Are we tempting predestiny by using drug therapies to defeat the purposeful want of the body?

Is it appropriate to tame the wild landscape of the body by forcing it into something unnatural with wishes and dreams?

I always have mixed emotions about fertility drugs. It's always a rough ride because the treatments don't always work. Sometimes they work too well and parents end up having multiple children.

I can understand wanting to have your "own" child -- one that has your DNA.

On the other hand, there are lots of children in America who are growing up in foster homes who would love to be adopted. It seems that all of the money and effort that goes into fertility treatments could be invested in a child who would love to be a part of a family.

I'm glad you mentioned adoption as an important option to consider, Chris.

I'm sure for some religions a natural birth from a coveted mother is important to a clean continuation of a culture and a line of ethnicity, but for others who do not have that kind of ancient pressure, adoption is a fine choice.