Mother, Grandmother, & Great-Grandmother
**Trigger Warning & Disclaimer: Suzanne shares her story, which contains accounts of childhood trauma and could be triggering for some people. Triggers may include child abuse and neglect, and emergency room trauma. The events discussed are based on personal memories and are not researched in historical records for accuracy regarding the referenced institutions. This is Suzanne’s story, drawn from her lived experiences, and it comes from deep places in her heart. Please respect her unique and very personal sharing of life events.
I’m honored to share Suzanne Wright’s story, a woman I look up to, my Aunt, and my namesake. She is the oldest living matriarch in my family.
In my late teens, I wasn’t exactly a stellar daughter. In fact, as a mother now, I absolutely cringe at what I put my parents through. Despite my mother’s best efforts, I ran right off the rails. At the height of my teenage arrogance, I disappeared on “an adventure” to Oregon from Idaho, actually. I didn’t tell my mom where I was going, and I never called. I simply disappeared. And no, it did not work out well for me. I paid the toll with deep, scarring, lifelong consequences for my disappearance…stories for another time.
When I did return, I learned my mom and aunt had lost their mother. My grandmother had passed away while I was gone. In my mom’s story, she talks about having to take her mother off life support as the hardest thing she had ever done. What she didn’t reveal in her story was that her youngest daughter, me, had gone missing at 16 years old in the same week. She was broken in ways I could never comprehend until I held my own daughter in my arms.
My behavior did not go unnoticed by my Aunt Suzy. I knew since I was a child that she wasn’t someone you crossed unless you wanted a hollowed-out ego. Living in different states, she wrote me a letter (long before text or email). Needless to say, she chopped me up into little tiny bits with pen and paper.
She said all the things my grandmother, great-grandmother, and all the mothers before them would have said to me. She chewed my ass sideways, and I was angry. So angry at her nerve, angry enough to tear through the walls. My teenage indignation convinced me that I was the one suffering. I nearly tore up her letter, burned it, and sent it back with terrible words written in red pen.
It struck a chord
But, I didn’t do any of those things. Because, in some way, it felt secure to know she cared about what I was doing. She had reached through the dark veil and screamed at me to wake up in a way no one else could. I finally did figure it out, but not before life took me to the edge, humbled me, and showed me exactly how vulnerable and human I was.
I still have my Aunt Suzy’s letter, thirty years later. Actually, I read it recently. And you know what? Every last word she wrote was true. It’s a treasure to me now. A reminder of where I came from, how to be grateful for the grace I’ve been given, and how I hold the same fire as her, finally much more effective, burning now in a mature, self-disciplined way.
Interviewing my only blood-born aunt, Suzy, my mom’s big sister, gave me a glimpse of the senior-most matriarch of my family I’d been missing my whole life. She is a firecracker, fearless, relentless, with no tolerance for B.S. But beneath that tough-as-nails shell is a woman who is fiercely loyal and protective, driven by love for her family. A woman who has had to make extremely tough choices, navigating a life full of impossible circumstances thrust upon her since childhood. She has survived and kept moving always onward, never looking back.
Suzy’s Story
You were in an orphanage as a child. Did you want to talk about that?
“That was a dark time in my life.“
How old were you then?
“Well, Sandra was little, four or five. That would have made me about 10.”
Suzy’s response makes it clear what had a profound impact on her this time. Instead of focusing on her own age, she reflected on how young her little sister was, using that as a benchmark to assess what stage of life she was in.
She recalled events during her time in the orphanage, going back and forth through the memories with my mother, who was present during the interview.
“What pissed me off was that nun, Sister Blondie. I’ll never forget her.”
What about her?
“She got me out of bed at 2 o’clock in the morning because Sandra had wet the bed, and she made me go clean it up. Which, I was ok with that. Sandra was just four years old. She was a baby! And you know what? Her life was f**ked up at her age. You know, we all wet the bed when we’re little.”
That’s pretty normal for that age.
“Yeah, damn right it is. But anyway, she did not need to do that to Sandra and I. She also didn’t need to put us in front of the dormitory shrine (statue of Mary), with our hands out holding books, because my sister wet the bed. I cleaned up her bed and remade it. She didn’t need to send my sister, a little girl, in front of the shrine with books on top of her hands, spread out at her sides, holding them straight. She did not need to do that to that little girl’s arms.”
The anger is evident in my aunt’s voice. “And, she had to be there 30 minutes. That’s painful! I can’t even do it without books.” We sat in silence before she continued.
“So, that was a very dark time in my life. And you know what else? When my mother came to pick us up, I didn’t care if she lived in a bag or a box. I wanted out of there, and my sister with me. I wasn’t leaving her there. It might have been a better place for us to be; who knows. But, what I wanted was to be with my mother.
“They tried to talk me out of it too, Mother Raymond. She was the Superior Mother.” It was then that my mom remembered that she and her sister were about to be adopted. My aunt had not known that. My mom shared another memory of seeing their oldest brother suffer head trauma abuse in one of their foster homes before landing at the orphanage. Suzy didn’t share that event with their brother. However, she did remember that their oldest brother had run away.
“Our second brother was in an institution somewhere. We didn’t know where he was. He had a sickness (meningitis). Yeah, he was in an institution…” Suzy trailed off. Although we were speaking over the phone, I could sense the memories crossing her gaze, much like I was witnessing on my mother’s face. “But, our oldest brother ran away. I don’t know what happened to him after that.”
What was daily life like for you there? Was there a routine?
“Oh, yeah, very routine. Get up in the morning, get dressed, and go to rosary. Then, go have breakfast, and back to rosary. Go to class, get beat by Sister Jean, go to rosary. Go to lunch. And if you think I’m ever going to eat okra, you’re crazy!”
My mom talked about the okra. But, she said that you would eat it for her.
“Ah, that was some slimy s**t! I think that’s why I won’t touch it today. You ain’t gonna get okra in my mouth. No. I don’t care if you fry it or burn the s**t out of it. I don’t care if it tastes like sugar and spice. I’m not eating it.”
The silence glasses over again. “Yeah, so it was sad. It was a very dark time. Very dark.” Suzy doesn’t linger on the individual memories; she quickly jumps to the next story, picking up the tempo.
“I learned how to set a table! I learned how to say the rosary, and Sister Jean actually praised me because I did such a good job. And, I learned English by Sister Jean. She was a hardcore b***h…”
When you say you learned English from her, what do you mean?
“Good, better, best. Never let them rest. Until the good is better, and the better best. She pounded that, literally, into our heads. She would walk down the aisle, six aisles of desks, and every child’s head would get a bump. ‘Good, better, best. Never let them rest,’ every word she hit a head.”
With her hand?
“Yeah. I wonder…I wonder if God has reprimanded her for that?”
My mom also revealed in her story that the nuns had a braided strap that hung from their belts, which they would hit the children with. Do you remember that?
“Sister Blondie was the dormitory nun for the little girls’ side, Sandra’s side. That sucker, I think she stayed up all night to make that damn thing. She wrapped it. You know how they have beads hanging off the side; you’ve seen nuns before. They have these beads hanging off the side like they’re important, and then their rosary is hanging off the side too. Then, Sister Blondie had this strap, almost like the key chains we made when I was growing up.
“She made it into a damn weapon. That thing was about 8 feet long, wound about four times, wrapped, and hanging with her beads. That was sick. She used to hit the kids with it. It was her strap.”
What reasons did she give for doing that?
“Whatever the reasons we didn’t…I didn’t know. Just whatever, and whenever she didn’t like what the kids did.”
My mom broke the ensuing sick silence with, “I remember pulling the weeds.” My aunt remembered pulling weeds, too. Both women had some interesting insight, commenting directly to each other in the interview.
“Do you know, Sandra? I find it very relaxing today,” Suzy said. My mom acknowledged that she does too, that she still sits on the ground and pulls weeds. Suzy and my mom reflected on their mutual draw to pulling weeds, now as adults, wondering if it was the only solitary moments they had as children in the orphanage. Never bothered or spoken to while enduring their weed-pulling punishment, actually created small moments of peace, translating into the same escape for them now.
Suzy and my mother reminisced further about their time in the orphanage and foster care. Traumatic abuses were best left out of the conversation between them. It was hard for me to hear; even harder for them to endure.
My aunt’s final words on the subject of one of my mother’s beatings: “It’s a very dark time, very dark, very dark…If anybody should have gotten picked on, it was me. They always picked on her. Why? I don’t know.
“Sandra and I were lucky we turned out ok. Sandra turned out better than I did.
“I had issues for a long time. I fought with my demons.”
Much later, while seeing a psychiatrist, Suzy made amends with her mom. After she became a mother herself, she understood her own mother better. “You know, you reach a certain point in your life where you just want things to be normal.”
My aunt and my mom experienced so much in their childhood, while their parents tried desperately to iron out their own generational and war trauma. By the time I was a child, I could never have guessed such things had ever occurred. Holidays and family gatherings were full of joy, laughter, food, warmth, and love. My mother and her sister had paid the price for that security long before I was born.
TIME IN THE USO
Entertaining the Troops
during the USO tours in the 1907s.
Some may remember comedian Bob Hope famously supporting American troops by offering hope through entertainment throughout World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War, with his final performances for soldiers in the Gulf War. Hope and other entertainers such as Marilyn Monroe, Sammy Davis Jr., and even Robin Williams traveled to high-risk areas as part of the USO (United Service Organizations) tours. But, they were not alone. Countless small groups joined the USO tours to offer entertainment and support over the years. Among them was my Aunt Suzy.
Why did you go?
“I went to experience trying something different. At that time, I loved to dance, and I had somewhat of a voice to sing. It was more of a ‘daddy type’, you know…swivel hips in the kitchen.” Suzy laughs at trying to describe her dancing. “But, it sounded interesting. Mom and Dad were willing to take care of my daughter, and they were the ones who knew Brad Signyard. He was a nurse on one of the sets Dad went out on at the Studios (Columbia Pictures Studios). He was the one putting the USO tour together.
“I’ve won many dance contests. So, a friend who hung out at the same clubs I did picked me out and solicited me. We talked about going overseas, and one thing led to another. Bob Hope wasn’t the only one who did it. They needed more when Bob Hope couldn’t go all the time. The service paid for travel, and we stayed on the base. We went in an Air Force plane. We were called the All Star Review’“.
Where did you go?
“We went to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Spain, Virginia Beach, and Iceland. We stayed in Iceland for about two weeks. In Guantanamo Bay, they woke us up early on Christmas Eve to go to the guys watching Cuba around the perimeter of the bay. We were invited out with the Captain to visit the guys on watch. My friend didn’t want to wake up and go, so I was the only one who went. I felt good about that, that I took some time for these fellas.
“I had my a** pinched in Iceland.
“The MPs had to get really tough. Entertaining them over there was quite interesting. The Black Beach, they called it. We flew over on one of those C37S, a biplane. In the back seat, we were leaning completely sideways on takeoff. It took us to Black Beach, which was all black sand, lava. That’s where these guys hadn’t seen a woman in six months. The pinch on the a** wasn’t a good thing.”
But the MPs protected you?
“Yeah! Yeah, they did.”
Did you enjoy that part of your life?
“Oh yeah, but I wanted to go home. Every base I was on, I was sending pictures home. Julie (her daughter) was growing and getting older. She was already starting to talk and was about two years old. So, yeah, I wanted to go home. I probably went to a few clubs, did some dancing, and won prizes and stuff after, but that was about it. They were planning another trip overseas, but I opted out.”
On marriage
What was one of your happiest moments?
“My marriage to my husband. We parted on bad terms, but finally mended hurt feelings to complete the bond meant to be with our children”
Suzy and her children’s father, Art, were estranged for 10 years before they finally found their way to marriage and brought their family together.
Art struggled with alcohol use and denied their first child. It wasn’t until Suzy went to the courts to seek assistance with child support that she gave him an ultimatum.
“I said to him, ‘You can look that little girl in the face, and you can say, ‘I’m not your daddy.’.’ He said, ‘I’ll do what I have to do.’ I got a nasty potty mouth and told him to ‘f’ off and never contact me, and he’ll never see our daughter again.
“It’s alcohol. It was all alcohol, and he knew that. He was on a 3-month cycle, well, typical for an alcoholic, where they get used to that cycle. A habit of going out and drinking with his buddies. It becomes a habit, something you can’t break. It’s like a drug. Me, I was kind of footloose and fancy-free, kicking my heels up. I was kind of go with the flow.”
Was your ultimatum the turning point for him?
“Our daughter Julie had said, ‘I want to see my dad. I want to know my dad.’ So, I got in touch with his parents. It was August, but he didn’t get in touch with me until the first of the next year. He said, ‘Oh, I thought you were calling because it was Christmas time, and you wanted gifts for Julie.’ And I went, ‘Oh, you ba****d! No, your daughter wants to see you. That’s it.’ He said okay.
“And he came out with a dozen roses to make amends with me, and he took Julie to the horse racetrack. It went well, and they had a blast. He knew that he had to make amends. And you know what, I needed to grow up too. It wasn’t just all him; it was me too.
“The following February, he said we were going to Las Vegas, and we were going to get married. I said, ‘Well, are you even going to ask?’ He just assumed. So, we went to Las Vegas, and he blew all of his money gambling. He had to borrow money from this one fella, a pest control guy…Hindi. He worked with Hindi selling cars for years. Hindi loaned him the money so we could get married. Hindi and all of his friends played an influence on him when we finally met. Because of me and our daughter, his child, he needed to make amends, andI think that had a lot to do with it.
“And I obliged. I wanted to. Like I said, I always loved him from the first time I met him. But, I think after he quit drinking, that was the turning point for him.”
So, you guys finally got there?
“Yes, we did. I was happy.”
Suzy and her husband had a second child and remained married for 39 years until Art passed away in 2021.
“I always loved him. There really is a true feeling of love at first sight. That’s what I had with him. And it was really strong with me.
“I just had to be with him all the time. But he didn’t want to be with me all the time.” Suzy laughed at the thought. “It never went away. Even away, I never stopped thinking about him. And, I think he knew. He told me that he loved me more than I’ll ever know, so I guess it was there. Neither of us knew how to get to common ground initially. But, we finally did, and everything worked out okay, and we stayed together.”
You consider your son a miracle. Why?
“My sister made me a little hoop wound with ribbons and a hand-embroidered verse. I still have it, and it said, ‘God grant me this… no, God, give the desires of thine heart…darn it, Suzy. What is that, Sandra? What’s the verse?”
My mom chimed in, “Trust in the Lord with all my heart, and he will give me the desires of my heart.”
“That’s it! Well, my desire was for Art and I to have another child together, but he was fixed. I told Art, ‘Wouldn’t it be nice, now that we’re settled in our life, to have another child?’ He said he was happy with what he had. Well, both of us got stumped. I thought I was having more female trouble. I had numerous cysts removed from my ovaries, and Art was fixed when our daughter was 2 years old. But, he never went back and got checked. And in the 70s, what they were doing was cutting it and letting it float. Now, they burn the ends.
“I wonder how many divorces that caused?” Suzy laughs. “Well, here we were just newlyweds; why would I want to be out cheating on somebody? When I found out myself that I was pregnant, I was shocked and kind of excited. I thought, how was I going to tell Art this?”
How did you tell him?
“We were in the cookie aisle at the grocery store, and he was looking up and down for a certain cookie, and he said, ‘I’m just looking for the cookie I want to get.’ And I said, ‘Well, that’s normal for expectant fathers to want something extra.’ He said, ‘What?’ I told him, ‘Art, you need to go get checked!’ The vasectomy obviously didn’t work.”
Adding to her confidence that her son was a miracle baby was the fact that they share a rare blood type. With her first child, she had to have a RhoGAM injection to prevent her body from rejecting her baby’s different blood type. Suzy feels strongly that, with her son having her rare blood type and so much stacked against them, he defied the odds.
“That’s why I say Art and I were always meant to be. That’s why I feel that way. Not only did our daughter keep us together, but our son did too. It was like, ‘This is why you people need to be together. Art, you don’t need to go anywhere else. This is it. This is your second time; you got another chance.’ I think he saw a lot of signs himself. He claimed there was a higher power, but he wasn’t committed to it.
“I was more committed to the higher power than he was. He had to reconcile with the higher power in 2021 when he finally let go of his life.”
The epitome of good.
Suzy’s son Art Jr., my cousin closest in age, was born with cystic fibrosis. Cystic fibrosis is a genetically inherited, lifelong disorder that causes thick mucus to build up in the lungs, pancreas, and other organs. There is currently no cure for CF.
Although having CF has added complications to Art’s life, he continues to beat the odds.
“He’s the perfect example to kids and young adults growing up and just learning about their illness. There’s some troubled CF teenagers out there. They just think, ‘Oh, I’m going to die anyway, so why shouldn’t I smoke? Why shouldn’t I have this?’ So, they do stuff that’s not good for them.
“He is smart and can think on his own. He doesn’t need me to care for him; he takes care of himself. He does it all on his own. He goes to the gym and works out, takes vitamins, and has multiple drinks to build muscle.”
Suzy has always been an advocate for people living with the complications of CF. And for my cousin, Artie, as he is known in the family, Suzy has always been close to him throughout his journey. “I still go with him to appointments.”
Not only is my cousin smart, an IT professional, but he is also kind and truly good in the world. He’s a treasure to the family.
What happened to your son that was life-changing?
“That was the worst time in my life.”
Suzy recalls that her son had been dealing with headaches that were getting worse, and he didn’t feel well. “One night he called and said, ‘Mom, I can’t live like this.’” Having seen him go through a recent difficult personal time, Suzy thought the worst when he said those words. “I thought about what he might have wanted to do. But no, it was that he didn’t want to live sick, with the headaches. So, I took him some chicken soup and some aspirin and told him to call me in the morning.
“He didn’t call the next morning. I was getting ready to go to his apartment when he finally called and said, ‘Mom, I just woke up in the bathtub with the shower running.’ He had passed out. Oh, my god!” With her husband out of town, Suzy took Artie to the hospital where his CF doctors were, and they admitted him to the emergency room.
Despite being hungry, he couldn’t keep any food down. Things got worse as they waited for the hospital’s broken MRI machine to work again. They finally did an MRI but decided to transfer him to another hospital. The headaches got progressively worse.
“He would scream in pain. I wanted to help him, but I didn’t know what to do.
“Art (husband) was back home, and we got a call at 2 a.m. that Artie’s condition had changed. He was in a coma and now in the ICU. They took him to get another MRI. It was five days! Five days, and they hadn’t gotten results. They should have done that on the second day, when they still didn’t have results. I would have walked over there to get them. Tell me, I’ll go get them! Somebody had to have those X-rays; the MRI had been done five days earlier. “
It just pissed me off! It could have been taken care of, and he was having trauma this whole time. They were just giving him drugs. Morphine.” While they waited for results, Artie was given morphine until he eventually slipped into a coma.
“I felt so bad, like I caused this. I caused it! Maybe I should have been a little more forceful with these a**holes, these doctors. Should have forced them and said, ‘Look, I’ll pay for the darn MRI.’ I didn’t know at the time that the insurance company was holding them back. The insurance company only pays for one MRI.
“Art and I were sitting in the lobby area, and our son was rolled on a gurney in front of us, intubated, coughing. And when you cough while intubated, it doesn’t look very good. It’s horrible. So, I buried my head into Art’s chest, and I called every doctor, every name I could get out.”
The MRI showed lacerations on his brain. He had four abscesses at the lacerations. Artie underwent surgery to clear the abscesses, but he was left partially blind.
“I had to justify why God did this. I’m very angry with God for this. Very angry. Why did this happen to this kid? He never did anything to anyone.
“But I did give my thanks to God that he could still work. He remembered what he studied, his school (college), and what he had learned. He could feed himself and bathe himself. That was my gratitude to God. ‘Thank you, Lord, for doing that.’ He still has peripheral problems, but he has adapted to his environment and can get around and drive now.”
Before the incident, he went to the Salt River with friends, went overboard, and ended up underwater in some rapids. His friends said they didn’t know if he was going to come back up because he was down for a while.
“He swallowed a lot of s**t. And I mean s**t. That river is loaded with Pseudomonas because everyone pisses and s**ts in it and every damn thing else. So, it was really bad stuff that sucked up into his lungs.”
Did you find out what bacteria caused the abscesses?
“Pseudomonas.”
During his time in the hospital, a small hole was discovered in Artie’s heart. This created an access point for bacteria to enter his bloodstream and reach his brain. The heart defect can allow blood to bypass the lungs’ normal filtering system. This shortcut lets bacteria enter the bloodstream and travel straight to the brain.
Not only had Suzy feared for his life, but what might have changed in his life due to brain injury. However, she reiterated again and again that she is grateful he made it through and recovered as well as he did.
Is there anything you regret?
“No regrets. Too much worry in ‘what’ and ‘why.’ You can’t change it, so you just learn to live with it. And what would I have changed? You could have done something different, gone off on a different course, and it could have been a nightmare- that course, too.
“So, no, I wouldn’t have changed anything. It happened the best way. Maybe it made me a better me.” Suzy laughs out loud. “Made me the b***h I am.”
What is something hard you’re doing right now?
“I’ve sold my home after 35 years. Cleaning and saying goodbye to a home my husband and I shared, where we raised children, grandchildren, and even some great-grandchildren. Most of all, the final closure of saying goodbye to my husband after his passing on May 19, 2021.”
How are you different than other people?
“Set in my ways.”
How are you different than who you wanted to be?
“I’m not different from what I wanted to be. I am me and always have been. Not disappointed in myself at all.”
What are your strengths?
“I don’t know what my strengths are. I’m weak. I’m weak.”
“I beg to differ,” my mom argued back, shaking her head. “You’re resilient, sis.”
“I don’t know. My strength is my values. I think the way I think, and nobody’s going to talk me out of it. I’m opinionated. I’ve got a lot of strength in that! Then again, I might weaken if you can talk me out of it.” She laughs again. “Tell me why I should think a different way. Talk me out of it!“
What’s something you don’t want to admit you’re afraid of?
“Aging to where my children have to take care of me, and it being hard on them. Julie will, and Artie will too. I mean, they will have to think about that themselves. But, I know Julie will. I think she will. I’m very open with Julie. We are right next door to each other.”
Something you are proud of?
“Sewing and using my machines. I like to know everything about my machines. I don’t like to stroke myself too much, but that’s why I’m really good at teaching: I take the time to teach myself.
“So, when I put a light into somebody else’s life about sewing, it pleases me. When I see people learn something about their machine and I taught them, it’s very rewarding for me.”
When asked what she still wants to accomplish, my Aunt Suzy says she wants to finish using her fabric stash. “Lots of nice things in my stash.”
What makes you happy?
“My dogs and their unconditional love.”
And, “My sister coming to visit. I love time with my sister. My sister is my sounding board. I think my sister knows me better than anybody.”
In Memory of Art Wright Sr.
1948 – 2021
Thank you, Aunt Suzy, for being such a strong woman in our family. You’ve never been afraid to tell us all like it is when we need to hear it, defend us, look out for us, and always keep a watchful eye on each and every one of your loved ones.
~ Sue-Bee-SUE
You have always walked with your head held high. Your parents would be proud of you; your sister and all of your family love you. Thank you for sharing your truth and sharing your story with all of us women on Onward Sister. Love you!
To read more about her sister’s story, check out Sandra’s Story on Onward Sister.
Find out more about my journey on my About Me page or at Dropping Rocks.
You can also find Onward Sister on our Medium publication Onward Sister or Sue at @sue-evergreen. Link to Suzanne’s story on Medium.
All images are either personal photographs taken and copyrighted by Sue Evergreen or have been permitted for use. Some images were restored using Adobe Firefly.
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