Strong Enough to Bend

“What in the ever loving hell kept me from blowing my brains out?”

This was the question that Judith Witherow asked when she was reviewing the personal essays that make up her memoir Strong Enough to Bend. And her answer was "love." She understood that no one could love her partner Sue or her sons with the kind of passion she carries in her body. After reading her book, I would conclude that she also carries that unique passion to her readers. She wants us to heal with her. She wants us to understand. To that end, she shares stories of great suffering and great fortitude.

Witherow defines herself as a “poor, mixed-blood Native American Indian raised in the Northern Appalachians.” She is also a lesbian living with multiple sclerosis and lupus.  She is careful to forge the links between the oppressions in her life: The illnesses that come from drinking the polluted water that flowed downstream from mountains strip-mined for coal, her prospects in life  limited by an educational system that tracked poorer children into lower level classes in spite of their high grades.

Over and over, Witherow adjusts the lens of the reader to bring the reality of poverty into focus. Patiently, she explains why her beloved mother could never meet the middle-class criteria for a “mother of the year” award. She details the multiple jobs that she and her siblings worked from as early as she can remember, giving the lie to the belief that poor people are lazy.  The reality of our health care system is brought home in the terrible story of her sister’s death, being denied care in the hospitals that could have saved her life because she lacked insurance.

"The last night of my marriage still seems like some other woman lived through it. Him sitting on the bed slapping a buck knife against his leg. Me pinned down by the blankets and the fear in my gut. 'I don’t want to kill you but I have to.'”

Her story of escape to the arms of the woman who would become her life-partner is riveting. And in this second section of the book, about her lesbianism, Witherow’s earlier themes return like a leitmotif: how class differences must be negotiated with her partner, and how her Native American background interfaced with an emerging butch identity. 

"Bottom line, whatever is affecting you needs a label."

The third section of the book is about the author’s health… and again, she makes sure the reader understands the ways in which misogyny, racism, and poverty inform the narrative. There are misdiagnoses, medical malpractice, and the mysterious experimental treatments she underwent as a child… because they were free. Witherow, warrior woman, does her own research and her own networking about her illnesses. She notes, in an essay about a group therapy session, “The knowledge I crave can only come from the other ‘chosen ones.’”  And she also notes, “Whenever ‘it strikes women more often’ is heard, the battle for funding automatically begins.” This is a tough section to read, but as Witherow notes the real shame she feels is toward a country that spends more on war than on research for saving lives.

Strong Enough to Bend ends with feminism. Witherow makes connections between her past activism and the issues confronting women today. One of the most poignant essays tells of an Equal Rights Amendment protest that coincided with a march of Native American activists walking from California to Washington. The Native American activists began to chant “Bitches with Riches Getting More Rights for Whites,” and Witherow was called upon to mediate with “her people.”

There is so much between the covers of this book, and I understand it’s still only a tiny percentage of the intersecting oppressions and overlapping experiences in Witherow’s life. One of the many take-aways from this powerful memoir is a stanza from one of her poems titled “Losin’ Our Origin:”

"'If you would just think
more positively your
life would be better.
Smile more. Expect less.
Life is crap because
your outlook created it.'

Reservations rack and reel with this gem."