Two women, names that began with "J," had an eye-opening effect on me in my life.
In 1970 this fourteen-year-old, dangerously naïve pious girl
was sent to a private "Christian" academy against her will. The
violence witnessed there from the adults in charge left an impression on her for
life.
Pop teen magazines delivered by mail and a radio hidden in a
student's room gave news of the outside world. It was against the school rules
to have a radio. It was the sixties and seventies, and you would have to be
blind and deaf not to know of the movement taking place in America for 'Love and
Peace' against a government that pushed for war and drafted young men against
their will.
We had rock stars, but this new "ROCK" star on stage was a woman, holding her own
among the greats at Woodstock Music Festival 1969. We played her album secretly
at our dorm, her music was powerful, liberating, screeching lyrics, a woman
with her own style. She represented a form of wild freedom in a song women had
not witnessed, but she lacked the discipline to curtail the wildness in her personal
life. The lack of the second destroyed her at a young age because she, like her
music, had no limits. To die of lack of self-care is a useless loss of a good life.
One casualty was an addiction that killed her.
The radio reported she died, young, 27, by a drug overdose. Those
of us who admired this woman decided to wear a black armband for one week in
memory of this great woman, and so I did. It was a peaceful remembrance of a
great woman to this shy 14 year old girl. Why she had to die so young of an OD
would become a study of mine. Addictions.
Fifty years later, this 14-year-old teenager is older and
wiser, another woman whose name began with a "J" dies of cancer in
her more senior years.
This woman did not stand on a stage and screech a tune for a
rebellious generation. This woman went for a longer-lasting effect on many generations
to follow. SHE BECAME EDUCATED, formally,
and informally, to serve everyone with her professional talents. She practiced
self-care with limits. A woman of
dissent, with controlled emotions and a mighty pen, she preferred the opera to
a wild screeching voice. I like both
genres.
The changes this patient lawyer would fight for would give
all people, including women, especially women, an equal right to make personal choices.
Change takes generations and begins with one note at a time. Peaceful patience
turns the key to liberty.
The first woman I wore a black armband for fifty years ago was
Janis Joplin. Today I wear a black velvet silk scarf in memory of Joan Ruth
Bader. Thankful to have lived in the years to know both great women.
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