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Saturday, November 12, 2022

Book Review: The Hidden Child by Louise Fein

Mabel is only five years old. A lovely, happy, chatty child with soft curls whose mother and father love her dearly. It’s the late 1920’s. World War I has passed and World War II is not yet upon England. Mabel’s father, Edward Hamilton, a decorated war hero has been decommissioned with an honourable discharge. When he meets Eleanor she is a secretary in the War Office when Edward was there to receive his discharge papers. He leaves her a note as he was leaving inviting her to tea ~ ‘strictly professional’. An idyllic life is to follow. Edward, already involved in England’s Eugenics Society, enlists Eleanor in his research. She comes to believe in it’s precepts ~ “The aim of the eugenics moment is to improve the human population by increasing reproduction of the most desirable characteristics in human beings and suppressing reproduction of the least desirable - for example, inheritable disease, mental retardation, and so forth. - Edward Hamilton.” 


One of those so-called inheritable diseases was epilepsy. Louise Fein has written epilepsy as one more character in this story, making an appearance only nine times. Suddenly and for few pages. In each appearance, it tells us that only his control matters. He describes seizures both inside and outside the brain. This character tells us: “……,whatever harm I do, you do far worse.”


The novel opens with Eleanor driving by a pony named Dilly and trap to meet her sister Rose at the train. As they come to a stop, Mabel has her first seizure. In an attempt to deny the seriousness of that day, and the reality of her condition, it goes undiagnosed for some time. However, it grows increasingly worse. This is where the story takes a frightening turn. To avoid exposure for Edward’s ‘good name’ and all the research he has done, they turn to a neurologist who recommends hospitalization and ultimately institutionalization. Not uncommon at that time, with no apparent other alternatives, at least in England, at the time. Rose, Eleanor’s sister, brings news of an alternative treatment developed at the Mayo Clinic in the U.S. Edward and the neurologist treating Mabel both refuse to even read the information Eleanor has located and researched.


For Mabel, this darling five year old child, she couldn’t know that she would trapped in the dreadful scheme of care she was hidden in. That both her parents had other secrets that bound them. Secrets that are revealed that change their beliefs about eugenics. That in the end she would get the care needed from a very unlikely quarter. What she did know was that her parents loved her very much.


Louise Fein has written this novel because of her own trials with her young daughter. She has carefully researched the eugenics movement and the important and historical figures who were pivotal in its formation. Other of her characters in the story both supported and sometimes excused certain behaviours. All were bound by society mores of the time. 


Epilepsy has been my own unwanted guest for many, many years. As I read this important story of Mabel and her parents Eleanor and Edward Hamilton, I was in turn infuriated and finally very grateful that I, and many others, have not suffered the same indignities.


“Oh yes, you humans think yourselves above the animals, 

with your clever brains and fancy morals; 

but really, it’s your inhumanity that sets you apart”

~ Louise Fein, The Hidden Child


Title: The Hidden Child 

Author: Louise Fein

Copyright: 2021

Publisher: P.S.™- a trademark of Harper Collins Publishers

Type: Novel

Format: Hardcover

ISBN: 978-0-06-311924-6 (hardcover library edition)

ISBN: 978-0-06-309093-4 (paperback)

ISBN: 978-0-06-320543-7 (international edition)

Friday, November 11, 2022

Brave Enough - 2

At Victoria, B.C. Cenotaph Nov 11, 2015

I’m not brave enough

to leave my family

never knowing if I’d return


I’m not brave enough

to march into the unknown

and keep marching forward


I’m not brave enough

to join with the fight ~

to give away my blood


        ~~~~~


I am brave enough 

to accept the freedom 

to write these words


I am brave enough 

to be grateful for

each and every day. 


I am brave enough

to maintain peace

in my heart and in my home


“He who is brave is free.”

~ Seneca

Thursday, November 10, 2022

Snow Clouds




Stray clouds caught
 

in a small shrub


cloud animals clinging to 

spindles bare and wanting


an elephant at it’s base

a sleeping dog on a branch


imagination sparkles 

in frigid sunlight.



“The world of reality has its limits; 

the world of imagination is boundless.”

~ Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Wednesday, November 9, 2022

Chapter Two, Episode 109 - Romancing A Getaway - Situationally Theirs

Romancing A Getaway


Jeremy and Emelina had caught the ferry to the mainland. He wouldn’t tell her where exactly they were going. Actually Jeremy hadn’t even known for sure. Should they fly south from Vancouver? That had only been a fleeting thought. He did have to elicit the help of some of the Estate staff. Emelina was ready to load up her things in Jeremy’s car when he arrived. “We won’t need either of our cars.” On the excuse that the car needed servicing, he had had Giles drive them to the bus depot where they put their luggage on the bus. From there they would have a pleasant ferry trip across the Strait of Georgia to the mainland. They would be staying for a day in Vancouver before going up to Whistler.


Skiing was something Emelina had not done for many years. She and Michael had often gone on ski holidays with Jeremy and his wife Elaine. Michael and Jeremy had been best friends. Both spouses were deceased in the same year but months apart, leaving their spouses devastated. It was as though, when their lives split apart and Covid19 hit, holidays were the last things on either of their minds. Jeremy and Emelina hadn’t found each other until several years lonely years had passed. They both would sometimes recall those happy days with the four of them off on some trip, never knowing what was to come. For Jeremy memories would return on a nightshift at the hospital in a rare quiet moment. For Emelina, when she out walking in an early morning before anyone else had stirred. When their days filled up, those memories slipped away. Neither of them spoke of it to the other because it was another life and with other loves. But they both missed the travels and trips filled with fun and laughter.


Jeremy, a physician at Hartley General Hospital was still working. “Too hard” Emelina often reminded him. He had no plans to retire but since marrying Emelina. He also had no plans to be a driven physician ~ at least until after the Covid19 pandemic admissions slowed.  He was, at last, able to take more time off and not be terrified that he would be bringing the virus home with him. Still cautious though, he didn’t come to the Estate until he had showered and changed into fresh clothes at his apartment in town. Just coming off a set of night shifts, when his memories of those times plagued him, he knew it was time. Would surprising Em with a ski trip to one of their old haunts be wise? She had mentioned that the ski hills were reopened since the pandemic closures. And just the night before she talked about the snowpack at Whistler. So he decided to take a chance. Their day in Vancouver would give him a chance to tell her where they were going. 


When she knew they were going for a ‘winter holiday’ ~ that’s all Jeremy would tell her ~ Emelina went shopping. She desperately needed new winter clothes and secretly hoped they would at least go to one of the fast receding glaciers. Jeremy had enlisted Digby’s help with the ski equipment. Digby and Martha had found Emelina’s skis  and boots lounging in the storage space beneath the stairs. He had the skies waxed and the boots cleaned. With Jeremy’s skis, he had shipped them to the Mountain View Ski Lodge. Fortunately, the owner of the Ski Lodge, a friend and newly retired physician, accepted the equipment in his care. Room reservations made, Jeremey knew he was taking a huge risk in all this subterfuge. He also knew that, should Emelina really be against a ski trip, he could change it all. 


They took the earliest bus out of Hartley so they would have a full day in Vancouver as well as part of the next morning. Because it was so early, it was still dark on the water. The moon rode high, thin clouds covering its face. “It’s so cool and lovely this morning, Jeremy. Do you ever think of the ski trips the four of us used to take? I really miss them. I’ll always miss Michael, just as you must miss Elaine. It is so wonderful that you and I found each other again. Two old friends who became lovers ~ and then married!”


Leaning against the rail, he smiled up at the moon. “Sure I do, Em. In my quiet times ~ not that many at the hospital. But it’s like a part of me ~ of us ~ has been cut away and left by the side of a road somewhere.” Emelina brushed his hair out of his eyes. “Just where are we going, Jeremy?” When he told her it was a winter holiday, and her skis were missing from below the stairs, she had been curious. Asking Digby if he’d seen her skis, he had hesitated just a moment too long before saying he didn’t know a thing. Still leaning on the guard rail, Jeremy turned to his wife with a guilty grin on his face. “I wanted it to be a surprise for you. You’re not mad or upset at all?” 


“Of course not, Jeremy. I love it!” She pulled him off the rail into a soft embrace. Looking up at him, she said. “And I love you so very much, Dr. Crawford.” 


The moon was in its descent as daylight filtered through the clouds and seagulls called. Over the loudspeaker “All passengers please return to your vehicles. We will be docking shortly.” Jeremy and Emelina barely heard them.


“Love will wrap each moment warm around it

And wear a gentle smile upon its face.”

~ John McLeod,  Love is Ever

Tuesday, November 8, 2022

Calm ~ 2

Frayed ideas filter through my mind

classical music filters into and around me 

in the quiet of early evening


stirring ~ what? ~ my soul?

A peaceful nebulous part of me

ever present but invisible


tucked safely in my heart

while my life proceeds apace

as each day passes


frayed ideas settle and rest

classical music hovers softly

in the quiet of early evening.


“May you live every day of your life.”

~ Jonathan Swift

Monday, November 7, 2022

Disguised





M
aturity ~ questionable……..


especially with heavy snow

weighing down the branches ~


but we all know that 

hair dye covers some snow.






“Another belief of mine; that everyone else my age

 is an adult, whereas I am merely in disguise.”

~ Margaret Atwood

Sunday, November 6, 2022

A Cautionary Tale


Opening doors we didn’t know……

  could be opened ~


done with caution,

  expectations tempered ~


is a risk 

  and a challenge


at any age

  keeps us engaged


with the life

  we have been given.



“The doors we open and close each day decide the lives we live.”

~ Flora Whittemore