i am currently taking an introductory sociology class. in it, we've learned about the concept of a master status: some part of your identity that supersedes other parts, that is the primary way by which you navigate the world. before someone is seen as an employee, they are first a woman. before they are a parent, they are disabled. something like that. we've also learned about W.E.B. Dubois' idea of double consciousness, in which people of color must carry with them the way society thinks about them, in addition to the way they think about themselves. a young black boy is, in his own mind, simultaneously a bright student with a promising future and a threat as perceived by his white peers.
these ideas become more complicated when you consider the additional concept of intersectionality, the "and" when someone is more than one thing, marginalized in more than one way. one may be black and a woman, gay and an immigrant, poor and disabled. i see myself in this complexity. it is difficult to understand how the world sees me and how i see myself when there are several ands. before i am a person, i am fat. before i am fat, i am black. before i am black, i am trans. before i am trans, i am autistic. it is difficult to understand by which of these, which could each on their own be considered a master status, i am first and primarily perceived. it can be compounded further by considerations towards which statuses are apparent to which people; to whom do i appear as a black woman? a black autistic woman? to whom as a black man? a black autistic man? who can't tell at all? to whom does that matter most? which is most affirming, in which setting? which is safest, when? it is through these lenses that i am left to attempt to understand myself, in a society which is quite focused on people who do not hold all or any of these statuses: white, thin, cis, neurotypical.
my mother has four siblings. three sisters and one brother. her youngest sister, my aunt, recently had a stroke. it was something like two months ago now, just after her own birthday, just before the first birthday of her one year old daughter. it upended my family, particularly those of us living in our hometown. i can remember when my mother and grandmother entered the house, weeping, begging myself and my father for our prayers that she would simply survive. it is with a certain numbness that i remember these things. she survived, quite blessedly, although she now has right side (her dominant side) hemiplegia and notable aphasia. i suppose it is the typical case of her having been told that she would never walk or talk again, as it is with great pride from my family that she has slowly begun relearning to do both of these things. her case is of particular interest to me. i'm of course invested as she is my geographically closest aunt, but there is a certain aspect of the entire situation that has surprised me to some degree.
i think that i am shocked by the closeness of such a serious medical event. my family is no stranger to serious medical issues; i have had at least two familiar cousins suddenly die in the past two decades of my life. however, typically it seems that some lightning as severe as a stroke would always strike the house next door, never my own. i remember being young and hearing that a member of my mother's church had suffered a stroke. i remember learning about strokes in my classes and in my own interest in medicine. it seemed like a foreign thing which i was familiar with in concept only. my aunt has, to my knowledge, had health issues all my life. she was born (perhaps through spontaneous mutation, because as i understand it, it doesn't run in the family) with sickle cell trait, meaning she was already prone to bouts of illness and pain that could put her in the hospital. the particular instance by which she ended up in the hospital, where she had her stroke, was a bout of severe headaches which did not respond to treatment. it was found initially to have been a blood clot found by CT(?) scan. it seemed to have disappeared after that, but some time later was revealed to have been an aneurysm. this wasn't found until after the stroke. she was initially treated as though she had something like meningitis, but showed no real improvement after several days treatment. i wonder if the stroke was something that could have been at all prevented. to my limited knowledge, stroke is not a known complication of an unruptured aneurysm, nor is it necessarily associated strongly with sickle cell trait. i suppose we will never know what caused the stroke. this is something that cannot be changed, so it must be accepted with some grace and serenity. this will, i foresee, be quite difficult.
my aunt is currently in intensive rehab to help her regain some of the functions she has lost. she is able to walk and speak a few words. she is visited often by her friends and family and her husband has been an indispensable help since the very beginning. yet i find myself fixating on her situation endlessly. there is very little i can do, as i am in school some 50 miles away and cannot drive, which makes it difficult for me to go home more than once or twice a month. i suppose there is nothing inherently wrong about being worried about a close family member. it is probably just an unfamiliar feeling, having to think extensively about the health of another person. i have visited her in the hospital both before and after the stroke multiple times, always with my mother. once she was released home, we visited her there a few times. it struck me on one particular visit the level of stress her husband may be under. my aunt is not fully independent yet and requires some assistance and supervision in most things. their daughter has just turned one, and is now quite active and mobile. i find myself worrying deeply about how he is dealing with all of this, on top of working as the primary breadwinner. he receives a lot of assistance from my grandparents as well as other family and friends who live in the same city, but i worry what will happen once it is just him. once people are not coming by as often, not bringing food as often, not watching the baby as often. i don't know when that will be, if ever, actually. it is possible that by the time this day comes, she will have regained enough functionality to require less assistance.
i worry about the mental health of my aunt herself, too. to experience something as serious as a stroke, particularly one which affects your communication abilities, would be jarring to anyone. i find it difficult to know what she is thinking and feeling. i find myself watching her intently when we are together, looking for signs that she is bored or upset or frustrated. i don't know why i do this. she has enough people already worried about her, watching her, helping her. i am unsure what i can even do if she is feeling unhappy, because i am not sure how to interact with her. she has limited speech at the moment and seems to struggle with explaining her desires. i noticed this mostly in the hospital, where we would all engage in a guessing game of what she was trying to communicate with the few words she could say.
i feel that it is important that she remains an active part of our family. i don't want her to become forgotten and ignored. i don't want her to be infantilized. before all this happened, she was a successful school administrator and realtor, and was pursuing a PhD. she is extremely intelligent. she is now disabled in a way which i believe our family has never experienced before. it is difficult for her to communicate, so i think it would be easy to simply forget about her; stop inviting her to events, stop listening to her, stop paying attention to what she wants. i don't want this to happen. i want very badly for this to not happen, because i have seen stories of disabled people to whom this has happened. it is, to me, a horrible and difficult thing to be ignored and misunderstood. i don't know that i really show it, but i think that i do care for my family members. i feel a certain disconnect from them, but i do want the best for them. i hope that my aunt is able to navigate through the world with serenity with her new status as a disabled black woman. i wonder which will become her master status. i understand how this world treats people like her. i hope this world will be gentle with her.
i of course don't know what the future will hold. i hope my aunt gets better, as much as is possible. i hope she will gain more words so she can communicate her thoughts more easily. i hope she is able to walk with more ease, and if she finds difficulty with walking, i hope she can get a mobility aid that suits her needs. i hope her little family will do well. i hope her daughter will grow up loving and appreciating her parents. i hope she feels held by her family. i hope she will be loved.
i have some more thoughts about this, but i'll let you go. i'll talk to you later.