Speaking Truth to Power - Anita Hill [130]
I went home on Saturday, December 21—at the height of the holiday season. The reds and greens of the holiday meant little to me, the gray, damp December weather itself a better match for my disposition. On Christmas Day my mother, Ray, and I said grace over a quiet Christmas dinner. Though I admittedly had much to be thankful for, I felt little cheer and a small portion of the gratitude I had felt at Thanksgiving. For the first time in memory, my mother and father were apart at Christmas. JoAnn had picked my father up at the farm, and he had had Christmas dinner with her family in Tulsa. The week following Christmas passed and my mood changed only a little, though I attempted to be cheerful and gracious for my mother’s benefit and those who came to visit me.
Because my mother does not drive and the doctor had advised me not to, we were housebound, a condition which I do not tolerate gladly. The expenses for my family’s trip to Washington were mounting and with the recuperation came the time to consider the experience of the hearing. Back to me came the feeling that I had had as a child—the year of my father’s injury and my aunt’s death, the year we waited to learn whether my brother John would be sent to fight in Southeast Asia.
I was hurting, both emotionally and physically, and I was angry. “Why did they do this to me?” I asked myself. I was sure that nobody had an answer, least of all my friends and family. I prayed, mostly out of hope, but partly out of spite, that I would survive. Mostly, I wanted my life back for my sake, but, in addition, I was determined that my detractors would not have the satisfaction of stealing it.
On New Year’s Day Mama found a long-forgotten bag of black-eyed peas in the cupboard, and the two of us brought in the year in a traditional way. “Do you think they’re still good?” I questioned skeptically, recalling that Eric had sold them to me many years ago as part of a church fund-raising project. “We’ll soon find out,” was my mother’s response. In Owasso, JoAnn prepared the “good luck” peas for my father when he arrived on the farm with his delivery. Her husband, Jerry, made the corn bread to go with them. Again my parents were apart, but in spirit the family was together.
Gradually, my family, friends, and the hundreds of holiday cards and greetings I got from people around the country lifted me from the dark gray corner of my mind. Someone sent me a tape of Truman Capote reading “A Christmas Memory,” in which a young boy and his cousin make fruitcakes for everyone they know, as well as Eleanor Roosevelt. It amused and touched me. Then someone else sent me fruitcakes as a gift, and despite my apprehension in face of the death threats, I ate some. Soon the stiffness and soreness lifted and my mobility returned.
An ever-attentive nurse, my mother did not share my belief in the possibility of an expedited recovery. Dr. Gibbs had said that I could return to work six weeks after the surgery. Until then, she instructed me to be mobile but cautious. While Mama erred on the side of caution, I erred on the side of mobility. At my urging, a few days after New Year’s, my mother and I took a walk in the neighborhood. I overdid it, all the time hoping