A Summary of My Story: Sunlight on My Shadow
/You can go out the front door and close it behind you. Then, you can turn around and go back in. But there are other actions that only go one way. One little slip-up and your life can be changed forever. I was grabbing at straws looking for a way out. Laden with regret and remorse, I thought of every angle to reverse the inevitable. I offered bargains to God, myself, and the universe, hoping to negate the act of nature that was simply following its course. It would have been easier to divert a river, move mountains, or watch hell freeze over. Regardless of my wishful thinking, the seed was planted and it would grow.
But then again, miracles do happen. There still was a chance for a way out. That glimmer of hope prompted me to pray for the one miracle that would save my reputation, my worth and my family pride- a miscarriage. With this quirk of nature, I could have sailed right back into my high school days at Regina Dominican. It could have been as glorious as awakening from a ghastly nightmare. Oh the bargains I invented. I promised to keep my pants zipped until marriage. I promised to say a thousand rosaries. I promised to become a nun. I guess God couldn’t be bribed because none of my offerings were accepted. If I just knew the price for the miracle, I would have come up with the dough.
In the 60’s there was no “morning after” pill. As far as I knew, abortion was the word for coat hanger mutilations done by desperate teens. It took five months for me to realize that my fervent bargains would not produce a miscarriage. When my ripening belly was bursting at the seams, I knew my silence was coming to an end. After I made them swear to secrecy, I told my 3 best friends. We were the Big Four and stuck together. Then, I told my sister, Jackie. Then Jackie helped me tell mom and dad. By the time Dr. Keever examined me, there was no other choice but to go ahead and have the baby, much to my father’s dismay. I would carry the child to term, hiding in a home for unwed mothers, 100 miles away, until my confinement was terminated by the birth and adoption of my child.
After it happened, I was numb and joyless, frozen in fear. What would become of me? Each option came to a dead end. I soon gave up on thinking ahead . There was no good way out of my predicament. I was stuck, trapped, and doomed. In the end I placed my fate into the hands of my parents, my temporary guardians, Helen and Ed in Appleton, Wisconsin, and the staff at the Salvation Army Booth Memorial Home for Unwed Mothers. After all, I had screwed up, if you know what I mean, and the least I could do was comply with whatever the adults thought was best. I certainly didn’t know how to get myself out of this.
This risk of disgrace upon the Liautaud family hit a particularly raw spot for my father. He had spent most of his life guarding his own secret. By the time he was thinking that he had arrived clear and free on the other side of shame and social ruin, along comes me, his prized daughter, the youngest of 5- pregnant at the age of 16. None of us suspected our family’s hidden past until my sister uncovered a bit of shocking news. While searching the birth records in New Orleans, she stumbled upon my grandfather’s birth certificate. His race was listed as “colored”. We all thought we were forever white, but that did not happen until 1915 when dad’s family bought a one way ticket north. On Friday we were colored folk, unable to vote, ride the bus, or drink from a public fountain. On Saturday when we got off the train in Chicago, we were white and free with all the privileges of societies favored race. We were “passing” for white.
So it is understandable that my father would deal with the news of my teenage pregnancy with explosive anger. For all he had done to protect the family name, another risk of social disgrace had come to haunt him 40 years later. The way he knew to deal with such shame was to concoct a story, keep the real facts a secret, and never look back. Dad pulled it off. To his knowledge, he took the secrets to his grave. I didn’t get off scott free, but paid an internal price for my saved reputation. Thinking ahead to sustain the lie produced a cancerous anxiety. Fear of being caught in a lie numbed my emotions. The shame of hiding the truth caused a profound loss of self esteem. Both of our secrets were a product of the times. Today neither being black nor pregnant out of wedlock in America produces the social disgrace that it did in years past.
Now, 40 years later, I gently peel away at the memories. I search for meaning and a nugget of truth within the trauma of bearing a child before my own body was fully grown and then giving my baby away - forever. I can’t bear to think that all this was just the result of a slip-up, a simple “oops”.
Sometimes I think that my body was placed on this earth to be used as an instrument to bear this child. The idea is comforting as it eases my remorse and guilt. Maybe the prayers of karen’s adoptive mother cancelled mine and the baby she wished for was incarnated right inside my body. Perhaps this is why my self control failed me. Perhaps this is why the condom broke. Perhaps this was why the growing embryo was not harmed by my self inflicted stomach punches. Perhaps this was why the party with no parents home was held on the one day in the month that my ovaries were spitting a ripe egg. Perhaps, I was just a pawn being moved by the universe. Perhaps it all was just meant to be. Ahh how sweet that would be, if only I could believe it.
It could be that simple, but not likely. My belief system doesn’t jive with the fact that I was merely an pawn following the script of the greater universe. Somewhere deep inside of me, I know I created all this myself. After all, I was the one who thought I could just experiment with kissing and draw the line later. I was the one who brought the alcohol that I drank that made me numb to the gravity of my actions. And I was the one who knew how babies were made but decided to roll the dice and take a chance. I was the one who chose to keep the pregnancy a secret for 5 months, making alternative outcomes impossible. I was the one who chose to never hold my baby for the fear that I couldn’t give her away.
If there is a profound lesson to be learned from birthing and relinquishing my child at the age of 16, I hope that the process of writing and remembering will unveil that to me.
As I begin my story, I realize that my resolve to not look back caused many memories to wither on the vine. Like a spring rain, one by one they are coming back to life as I recall those months from 40 years ago. As we stood outside the Salvation Army home for unwed mothers, with the trunk open and the items being gathered for my extended stay, my father took each of my books, including my cherished white leather missile, and using his Parker fountain pen, scratched my last name from the inside covers of each of my books. I would be referred to as Judy L. during my stay. Then, my father gave his last bit of advice, “You will forget about this, Judy, and you will never have to speak of it to anyone again. Later, you may get married, and there is no reason to even mention this to your husband.”
For ten years, I obeyed the vow of secrecy, not necessarily because of my dad’s instructions, but because it saved my reputation and I was ashamed. My intention was to just slice these nine months out of my life- pretend it never happened. Simply put a patch over the time that was ripped from my life, ignoring the subtle tugs for attention. Years later, the patch wore thin, exposing the wound. It was then that I realized the only way to heal from the trauma was to take off the cover-up and attend to the wound. Take a good look. Let it air out.
About ten years after, I began to break the silence, offering a sentence or two when the subject of teen pregnancies came up in a friendly conversation. My throat would squeeze and my voice would shake. No one asked me much about it then. I am sure they could sense how uncomfortable I was exposing my festering wound. When I saw the birth of newborn babies on tv, I cried. When I saw a mom at the mall carrying her newborn in a pack close to her chest, I was brought to tears. When my first child was born that was truly my own, I loved her so, yet sobbed for the one I had lost.
One rainy morning when my two girls were at school, I picked up their cabbage patch baby doll and swaddled her in my arms. I caressed the doll and pretended she was my lost baby. I rocked her and cried and held her and told her I was sorry. I was sorry I gave her away and I was sorry I punched my stomach when she was inside. I was sorry I was missing her life and I was sorry I never held her. My journey of healing thus began.
I am writing my story to bring light and air to the wound.I am writing to unveil the lie that was told.I am writing to show myself forgiveness for my actions and to embrace all that is true.I am weary of keeping the secret
Read the Whole Story: Sunlight on My Shadow
“Loved the brutal honesty the author used when finally facing her demons. Well written, a good read. Enjoyed the authors style very much.”
“This book will be widely read in the coming years. Judy’s book is a rare combination; fine writing, a heart-wrenching story, and a salve for the soul of the sensitive. ...
What I took from Judy’s book was this: in matters of the heart, of guilt and of shame, of crushing regret, seek not forgiveness from others, turn first to yourself. It is not so much the story of an unwed mother, a teenage pregnancy, a culture of banishing the black sheep lest the neighbours talk (God help us all...how many tears have been shed for the sake of ‘what people might think’?); it is a lesson in how to value yourself, how to heal yourself....”
