My Mother's Shoes

 

     In 1925, when the author’s mother was two, she was struck down by polio. Marjorie survived, but not unscathed: her left leg was severely withered and partially paralyzed. 

     Marjorie’s life as a crippled woman began just as American entered one of the most disturbing and least discussed periods of its history.  By the end of the 19th century, cities across the country had enacted “ugly laws” designed to keep the lame, the blind, the diseased, and other “miserable objects” including women who offended the standards of beauty off the streets. These laws were fueled by the growing eugenics movement, aimed at purifying the national stock through genetic engineering and euthanizing “the unfit.” By 1927, when Marjorie was four, mandatory sterilization of the lame, the imbecilic, and the degenerate had become the law of the land and “merciful death” of “human trash” by gas chamber, an American idea embraced by Hitler, was openly advocated. 

     But Marjorie’s deformity did not just offend the legal and moral codes of society. Her disfigurement also dealt a severe blow to her status-conscious family. Her shamed socialite mother refused to be seen with her in public. At home, she kept her distance through criticism: “If there’s an awkward way of doing things, you’ll find it.” Her father, a well-established physician, adopted a different tack: he taught his daughter to walk on the toes of her withered left foot and flat on her right and he rewarded her with a dollar when she could walk across the living room without limping.

     In My Mother’s Shoes, the author also turns her discerning eye inward and in vivid and supple prose explores the ways Marjorie’s deformity disfigured their relationship, distorted the author’s own body image, and affected the author’s ability to love herself and others. Written toward the end of Marjorie's life, this profoundly moving account shows the power of compassion when allied with acute intelligence.