Wayne and Linda's Story

WAYNE’S INTRODUCTION----------------------

The story of how I became disabled began 38 years ago when I was drafted into the Army. The year was 1967 and I had just turned 20 years old. Also, this was the beginning of the most intense fighting in Vietnam as a result of the Tet Offensive. That year was also the peak for the number of combat soldiers in the country. Because of the intense fighting and high number of casualties there was an increased need for replacement soldiers. As a result, my training was compressed into five months.

Before departing for Vietnam, I was given a 15 day leave which had been cut from the 30 days that I was scheduled to receive. During this time Linda and I got married. We had little time together before I had to go to Vietnam. Leaving her at that airport was one of the most difficult things that I've had to do. I knew what could happen.

After my short leave, I arrived “in country” to begin my one year tour of duty. After three weeks with my unit, we were out on routine patrol that took us across rice patties and marsh land. We were on the edge of a rice patty where we encountered enemy snipers. Initially there was one man killed and one wounded. After they were evacuated, I was ordered to go in first, without a word of warning or caution to look for the snipers. As I trudged across a small clearing of approximately eight feet the snipers fired at me pinning me down behind a small cluster of palm trees. I didn’t know what to do. My squad leader told me to crawl back to the other men. I started to crawl back to the squad but the sniper fire was to low. By this time I had located the snipers’ position and told the squad leader. He then told me to crawl away from my position keeping the palm trees between me and the snipers. With trembling legs, I started crawling and as I did, I was either seen or heard and the snipers fired at me. I didn’t feel any pain therefore I didn’t know where I had been hit, but I knew that I could not move. My first thought was that I had been hit in my back, but I learned later that I had been hit in my right collarbone and the bullet had gone through and lodged in my spine paralyzing me instantly and totally. The only thing that prevented me from drowning or smothering in all the mud and water was that the impact of the bullet caused my helmet to fall off and my face landed in it. The last thing I remember before losing consciousness was the attack on the sniper bunker.

Linda Receives Telegram

Meanwhile back at the ranch----

I waited. I prepared to wait an entire year for Wayne’s safe return. I began the habit of writing a letter to Wayne every night as the national news came on. In hind sight that probably was not a wise habit, because every night I heard the “body” count and saw the body bags being unloaded from the plane. In other words I began to worry that I might be hearing a number that included Wayne and not even know it. But on June 29, 1968 3 weeks after seeing Wayne walk down the airport runway to get on a plane that took him to Viet Nam I received a telegram telling me that Wayne had suffered a gun shot wound that resulted in quadriplegia - which meant that he would be paralyzed for life.

Then I waited some more; I waited for any word about Wayne. And my mother waited with me – she said little, but she watched my every move and was there to hold me when the waiting just got too difficult. She knew I longed for news at the same time that I was afraid of what I might hear. When I remember those “waiting” days I am reminded of the Women’s Viet Nam Memorial. If you’ve not seen it three women are shown attending a fallen soldier. One holds him, another keeps watch over the two of them, and one looks off into the horizon – waiting for some sign of help coming to rescue them. When I’ve looked at that Memorial I’ve been reminded of myself and mine and Wayne’s mothers – we waited and watched over each other.

A few days after receiving the first telegram, I received another one telling me that Wayne was in an army hospital in Japan. I telephoned him there and his words both comforted and disturbed me. He asked, “What time is it there.” He said, “I’m having dinner.” Those were normal mundane things to say and ask, and I was comforted. Then he said “I’m on a circular bed,” and I was disturbed. For the first time I began to think long term about living with paralysis, and I wondered if there would be room for me in a circular bed.

WAYNE IN JAPAN AND SAN ANTONIO

I don't remember much of what happened after my injury until I arrived at that hospital in Japan. While I lay in the hospital waiting to see Linda and my family, I had two spots to keep me company - one on the ceiling, the other on the floor, depending on whether I was on my stomach or my back; I also had the company of others who were in the hospital with spinal chord injuries and I had music to help me survive the wait for Linda and family. As I lay strapped to a Stryker frame bed looking at those spots on the ceiling and floor, I imagined the look on Linda's face when she would first see me. I imagined joy; I imagined fear, and I imagined horror and rejection.

During the moments and hours when that imagining became overwhelming I lost myself in the music of the 60s. Others must have done the same for in our ward, music, loud music, was a constant. Music allowed me to take brief vacations from fear.

After two long weeks in Japan I was transferred to an army hospital in San Antonio, Texas. The day after my arrival I saw my family and my bride. I refer to Linda as my bride because at that time we had only been married seven weeks. That was one of the happiest days of my life. Seeing her was the medicine I needed to boost my spirits and give me cause to smile again.

Linda Goes to San Antonio

I traveled to San Antonio with members of Wayne’s family. When we arrived at the hospital we took an elevator to the second floor and turned to begin walking down the longest hall I ever remember seeing. The ward to which Wayne was assigned was at the end of that hall.

The ward was huge, and filled with men injured during the war. It took about 30 seconds for me to locate Wayne, but during those 30 seconds, I saw things that a little sheltered girl from LA had never imagined. I received an instant education in the horror and suffering of war.

When I saw Wayne, he was smiling. He said, “Kiss me, and rub my forehead; that’s where I can feel. Sit by me. Look I am beginning to move my left are. Help me exercise it.” What a relief – Wayne still acted like the person I had married. As soon as he saw me he began telling me what to do.

WAYNE – SAN ANTONIO AND GOING HOME

During my stay in San Antonio, I began to regain some movement in my left arm and hand and I remember how happy I was with my improvement. That progress gave me hope for further recovery of movement. I remember getting very angry when the doctors told me that my disability would be permanent. I wanted to prove them wrong.

I spent about nine months in the hospital where I had to relearn to use my left arm and hand. I spent many hours each week exercising until I gained enough strength to feed myself, brush my teeth, shave, comb my hair, and learn to write my name. The fact that I was right handed before my injury made these task more difficult. My stay in the hospital was a time of training to live with a permanent disability. This training dealt with just my physical adjustments, but there was much more to living with a permanent disability that we weren’t being told. You see, during all the months in the hospitals, Linda and I did not receive any counseling from medical staff, chaplains or social workers about the physical, mental, and emotional hardships that we would encounter while living with this quadriplegia. It was a very scary time when my discharge date arrived. The hospital had become a place where I felt safe and I was being moved out. I didn't know what to expect.

Linda Transition into Grief stages

And we were so young -too young to even know we were unprepared. We had lost our dream which was to have Wayne come home from Viet Nam and finish college, for me to continue working after he came home, and then for us to begin a family, buy a house, get involved in a community and live happily ever after.

We had to dream a new dream, but first we had to move through the dreaded stages of grief over the loss of the life for which we’d planned.

We began the journey toward healing with Denial that anything had changed about our dream at all.

WAYNE - DENIAL

• Initially I told myself that this is not real, that this didn't really happen. When I wake up from this nightmare I will be able to walk. I soon realized that the nightmare was real. After I regained some movement, I told myself that I was going to walk again. After all I was strong and healthy. Even after the doctors told me that it would be permanent, I believed that I would beat this thing called quadriplegia. When I stopped regaining movement then I became afraid. I had to admit that the doctors were right. I could no longer deny reality if I was going to move forward.

Linda Denial and Transition into Fear

I denied the permanence of the situation. I thought surely someone will come up with something. And then the Southern Baptist Church we joined helped us deny by promising that if we had enough faith Wayne would be healed. Faith healers all wanted to touch Wayne to have a shot at being the instrument of his healing. People tried to lay hands on him so frequently that Wayne began to get pretty good at running them down with his electric wheelchair. I denied the physical difficulty of caring for a quadriplegic Why I just knew I could care for 2 adults, dress them, be their arms and legs and have just as much energy as I ever did, and certainly I would have as much time and energy as everyone else. I acted as if quadriplegia was no more demanding than a severe sprain.

I also denied my own fears. I refused to allow myself to entertain the questions “What if I can’t do this and what if I don’t want to?”

I denied my need to express the emotional pain I felt. Family, friends, church wanted to see me smile and be a trooper. I sometimes wanted to scream, but that would have been too difficult for those people to hear and see, and who knows maybe it was too difficult for me to hear myself do that in those days.

It was becoming harder and more stressful to deny rather than to face reality and that became frightening.

WAYNE FEAR

When I stopped denying the permanence of my injury, I experienced a great deal of fear. I was afraid I would be mostly confined to a bed for the rest of my life. After all, I had in bed for much of the time following my injury. Also, I was afraid of being institutionalized at an early age. I didn't know if I could get the help I needed and still live at home with Linda and have a family. Another fear was that I would die at an early age. I had read and heard that people with my level of disability often died much younger than usual. I was only 20 years old and I was worrying about dying. I was also afraid of losing Linda. While I was in the hospital I heard stories of other married soldiers returning from Vietnam with severe disabilities who would come back to a wife that wanted a divorce. I was terrified that our marriage wouldn’t survive my injury.

Linda Fear, Anger and Kids

Now, my natural response to fear is to get angry. I mean its just way easier for me to be mad than scared. So I didn’t spend much time with fear, but I spent quite a while with anger. In fact anger would finally lead me to some very important decisions.

First, I begin to get rather pissed at the church who only gave hope in three ways.

1. If you have enough faith Wayne will walk

2. If you have enough faith this won’t be difficult, lonely, scary, whatever

3. And this was the best – You are a very special person for God to have chosen you for the task of caring for a person with a severe disability for the rest of your life.

I began to see the shallowness, harshness and hurtfulness of the message I received from church. I began to entertain the notion that perhaps the church and even Christianity help no hope for me. So I did what any normal person would do I went to the So Baptist seminary.

Well, see I went there thinking that there must be some answers for me, but these church people just weren’t knowledgeable enough about Christianity to know them. So I began work on a Master’s Degree. And when I didn’t find any answers when I earned a Master’s Degree, I decided that I would surely find them if I earned a doctorate. The interesting thing is that it was at seminary during the writing of my dissertation that I finally received the help I’d sought. I came to admit – oh about 3 chapters into the dissertation that I wasn’t a Christian, in fact I was pretty sure I was (of horror of horrors) a secular humanist!!!!!! Luckily I was pragmatic and I completed the dissertation. And I sat out to work out my own theology. To do that I did what any normal person would do – I took a position as the first woman in the Religion department of an Ana Baptist, Mennonite College. I seem to have developed a rather strange style of faith development. That being one that sends me further into a belief system before I can come out of it.

Two things happened at that school – first, as I taught about the faith I’d rejected I required that students grapple with some difficult questions, and as the students grappled so did I. As I saw students face some difficult questions and then find an answer for themselves in Christianity I developed a compassion that affirmed them in their choice of that faith. So I began to let go of anger, and to move toward acceptance of many paths.

Second, from time to time I began to attend The Unitarian Church in Harrisburg, PA which was near the college where I taught. It was there that I was introduced to a rational, open minded spirituality.

So anger took me deeper into the faith of my Mother and Father all the way to a terminal degree from SBS, but also it moved me toward the development of a faith and a world view of my own.

During these years of coming to grips with world views, faith issues, living with a disability, and other such trivial matters Wayne and I adopted two children.

A son, Travis who we adopted when he was 3 months old is now 35. Our daughter Mandy came to us at 2 months of age and is now 30. So you see we have kids who are suddenly almost as old as we are.

WAYNE – ANGER AND WORK ACCOMPLISHMENTS

As she said, Linda is comfortable with anger. It took me several years to get angry about my disability. I had been taught not to express my emotions and especially anger. I had suppressed my anger so long that I didn't even know how to identify it. When I finally did I had quite a list of things that I was angry at.

1. Loss of use of my body--- I could no longer dance or hike with Linda, mow the grass and other chores that Linda had to do, play basketball with my son, and I missed teaching my daughter how to drive. I was and still am dependent on others for so many ordinary things that most people do without even thinking. And for a long time I was very angry about that.

2. Anger at Family, friends, and church--- They didn't seem to want to hear my struggles, doubts, fears, or pain. They seemed to want to hear me say that I was doing OK. The church contributed to my denial and anger by telling me to have faith and then everything would work out for the good.

For many years, I continued to go to church until I reached a point where I said I don't believe what the Church is saying and I am receiving no help from this place, so I stopped going and vowed to never be a member of a church again.

After a number of years Linda and I were able, however, to teach family members not to panic when we expressed anger and fear.

3. Anger at US government—After reflecting about my service in Vietnam and reading about how the military used new and inexperienced soldiers, I got very angry that such little value was placed on our lives. I also got very angry at the waste of human lives in a war that was wrong and useless.

As I've talked about these stages, I have done so as if they were separate and distinct stages, but in actuality I was experiencing these different feelings at the same time. However, the intensity of my anger did come last. And to be honest anger was the most productive of all my emotions in that it sent me to counseling.

Counseling helped me work through my anger and finally let it go. It also helped me stop denying the reality of my disability and to focus on what I could do rather than what I couldn't do. For example, I could take part in demonstrations to oppose war and be a powerful presence at those demonstrations. I could work to empower people with disabilities to live independently and to make contributions to their communities.

So anger has led to acceptance of my disability and to an integration of my disability into my life's work.

As you might have noticed I broke my vow to never return to church. I have been a member of 1^st Unitarian for well over a year. This is a church where I can feel comfortable and accepted being my shy, liberal self. It is a place where I can be involved in social causes that I find important. This is a church whose members and friends don’t focus so much on my disability. First U is a place where I can come and be more than my disability.

Linda How We’ve Made It

People often ask us how we’ve done it. How have we kept our marriage together, how have we coped with life with a permanent disability; how id we raise two children, and how did we both have careers at one time or another.

When I was in my 30s and 40s I would have given you a nice concise list of answers to those questions:

1.We made sure we were honest with each other

2.We communicated openly

3.We were very intentional and consistent about parenting and about our marriage.

Now that I’m way older I’m more honest with myself and in answer to those questions about how we’ve made it I’d say honestly, “I’m not quite sure.”

But perhaps I can say with some certainty three things that have been important for us.

1. We both really wanted this marriage to work; we really wanted to be parents, and we really wanted the other to be successful in career, vocation, life path.

2. We have been able to use our imagination and to be spontaneous as we put together a new dream, a different lifestyle than we’d ever seen before.

Because for many years we were the only young couple we knew who faced living with a severe disability we had to imagine and make things up as we went along. We’re still doing that, but we’ve found other couples who are in similar situations.

3. We’re flexible – I mean the only thing I’m rigid about in my whole life is the process of keeping the First Unitarian church calendar! And Wayne is only rigid about the way we spend Sat. nights during LSU football season.

WAYNE HOW WE’VE MADE IT

I would say from the very beginning we wanted our marriage and our family to be as close to normal as we could possibly make it. I did what many husbands and fathers did. In the early years, I went to school and worked. I coached my son's Little League baseball team and I sold Girl Scout cookies with my daughter. We took family camping trips, trips to the beach, and went on other family outings. What I'm trying to say is that we have tried to live a life that was not controlled by the disability.

LINDA CLOSES:

And we’ve made it by consistently seeking a community of support whether that be family, church or friends. We have known from the beginning that we need others.