What She Left Behind

by Ellen Marie Wiseman

But how many were victims of circumstance, women left penniless by husbands who abandoned them or died, women who lost children and needed help coping with unbearable grief, women banished by parents who disapproved of their decisions?

Izzy couldn’t imagine a father sending his daughter to an insane asylum because she was in love with someone he didn’t approve of.

She wondered how a woman could give birth to a baby and then, once the baby was grown, not care if they ever spoke again? She wondered how a mother could be indifferent to the fact that her daughter had been locked away, abused and drugged and sterilized. How could a mother not want to find out if her child was cold or hungry or afraid? It was incomprehensible.

Izzy remembered reading somewhere that the word “lunatic” originated from the idea that the rays of the moon could adversely affect people’s minds.

“I don’t hear voices. I don’t see visions. I’m not crazy. I am nervous.”