etc - brenda

I thought about Brenda today while working on a scene in Sarabande.

Years have passed by since I saw her, that frail, dark-haired child whose world was defined by the walls of the state department of mental health center where she lived, where I was--for a brief time--a manager of one of the group homes.

In those days, I had high hopes for the adults, young adults and children who came to that center after years of being warehoused in an older state facility where nobody got a lot of care and the mentally ill and retarded individuals were simply out of place and out of mind.

Brenda was profoundly mentally retarded, quite likely autistic. Her paperwork said little. Her parents were unknown. I knew one thing, though, that had not been entered into her file.

She had been sexually abused. I knew because she told me. Not with words, but inadvertently one night when I was--in a Shamanistic way--asking what had happened and what we could do for her. The abuse played a primary role in who she was and who she had become.

I think of her as I work on my novel because I'm looking at womens issues, issues which go to the warp and weft of our society's fabric: rape, assault, abuse, stimulus deprivation. Like Brenda, many of the people in our facility of group homes would never have come there had they been cared for even minimally from the day they were born.

One of Eric Berne's more cynical comments comes to mind: words to the effect of, when you look at how a person has turned out, consider what you would have to do to them as children to create what you are now seeing. That gives you an idea about their background, what happened to them, why they are developmentally disabled and/or suffering from mental illness.

Brenda will always remain in my memory as the resident I could have helped more, had I known more, had I been in that job longer, had there been some obvious way to intervene in her life. In those days when my dreams were more psychic, I saw her playing with others while I--knowing I was moving to another town--saw myself looking out a window at the far stars.

I have no skills for handling such matters other than, perhaps, hope. Suffice it to say, I was not then or now a miracle worker. Nonetheless, I wonder if more could have been said and done.

She was part of a pivotal moment when I was opting not to go into psychology. This moment begins many of my what if? speculations about life's pathways.


Malcolm R. Campbell is the author of The Sun Singer .