A Ghost From an Abusive Past

Sometime when I was in my twenties, perhaps twenty-five years ago, my mother told me that Linda Henson committed suicide. Two or three years older than me, blondish, and friendly in a distant Upstate New York kind of way, Linda lived down the street from us and was the oldest girl among the Henson family's twelve children. No, they didn't have twelve kids because they were Catholics. They were Methodists. Having moved away, I hadn't seen Linda for many years before her death and I was struggling with my own abusive family history at the time. So, I didn't give Linda's death much thought other than to tell my mom that she had always been pretty nice to me.

Then, last week, my mother told me that Linda Henson's father had been implicated in a long-standing pattern of sexually abusing his daughters and grand-daughters.

"Oh," I thought. "So that's why Linda committed suicide." Evidently, I remembered Linda's death better than I knew.

Of course, I can't be absolutely sure that Linda was sexually abused or that the sexual abuse caused the suicide. Linda herself is no longer with us to bear witness. Still, over the last week, my mind has been drifting toward Linda occasionally and I find myself trying to imagine how she must have felt--especially the isolation in going through something that traumatic and not be able to talk about it with anyone. As isolated as I was in my own head while I was growing up in my own family, it must have been much worse for her.

Well then, is there anything that can be done about the long dead past of Linda's Henson's abuse and suffering?

In some ways of course, there's nothing to be done. Even if Linda were alive, nothing could compensate her fully or even adequately for the abusive past. That's even more the case now that she's been dead for so long.

Nevertheless, I do believe that it is incumbent on those like me who knew Linda to embrace her memory as an element in my actions towards others--for seeing the struggles of my students, colleagues and friends more effectively, for having a constant good will towards those people we know are in trouble. Linda's life and death can't be redeemed, but our memories can help us conduct ourselves more humanely and effectively toward those we encounter in the present and future.