| Notes |
- From C. Michael Bailey's Facebook page, 24 Jun 2017:
I was very grateful for all of the kind comments regarding my noting of the anniversary of Normie Bailey's death. Today would be his 62nd birthday. I have been thinking a lot about him and my parents
Because of a crazy set of proximities, I grew up believing that (1) everyone was Catholic (I did not know any exotic protestants with any appreciation until I went to college...as a Methodist School, go figure) and (2) that every family had what has come to be called a "special-needs" child. I knew few families that did not and a special needs child because my mother and father knew them all. Even some of my closest friends who were there would be surprised and the prevalence of these great teachers. As adults, these siblings of these special children remain lock in my soul, if I have one.
Normie was born Norman James Bailey in 1955. He was not a "Jr." having is first name come from my father and his middle name come from his maternal grandfather, Frank James Fox (Dad Fox loved that Norm-boy!). The 1950s was not the most enlightened period intellectually. I recall several well-meaning, but ignorantly-handicapped adults making a religious issue of my brother noting that some penance was taking place, sins of the father and and all of this truly progressive thought. This is one of the many reasons I reject organized religion today (with prejudice) (no comments on this please. Pray for me if you must).
After my brother's birth, my mother suffered from what is now known as post-postpartum depression and was hospitalized in New Orleans for a period after his birth. I credit part of her pathological reaction to her German Catholic upbringing in a small, Northwest Arkansas town and the fact that children like Normie rarely lived to adulthood, much less our of infancy. And, there was no YouTube to tell you what to do.
My father arranged that my brother be cared for by the Nuns at St. Joseph's Orphanage in North Little Rock while my mother was hospitalized. Those girls would not allow my father to pay them, so he purchased them a washer and dryer.
My father, meanwhile, funded my mother's treatment by, as he told me much later in my life, "by bootlegging unlicensed alcohol into Oklahoma." He spoke about having been questioned by the FBI for this and telling me that had they had evidence, they would have arrested him. I don't care if any of this is true or not, that is one great Southern Story, if not a Southern Gothic story, and it has stuck with me. I leaned from my father that one must take care of one's family by any means necessary, whether it is pretty of not.
My mother eventually came home from the hospital and proceeded to do what I can only think of as miraculous. With no well-meaning how-to guides of instructions, my mother toilet-trained this blind and deaf child and taught him to feed himself with a spoon she specially crafted to have the right angle to enable my brother to get it to his mouth.
Years later, when I was caring for my parents at the end, during many dinners, I would asked them how my multiply-handicapped brother could eat without getting a spec of food on his face and they could wear their entire meal on theirs? (Careful, this is coming for all of up, Pilgrims). My mother taught Normie him to use a glass to drink from and to make his wishes known even though he could not speak. She gave him a stable environment for him to live and even thrive. My mother taught me a quiet and fierce goodness exist as sure as F=ma.
My father once told me that the two most profound changes in my mom were Normie's death and when she manifested Alzheimer's Disease. These two events caused my mother to draw inward revealing all that was left...pure love. I believe that Alzheimer's Disease strips its victims to their bare essence. If this is true, my mother was pristinely beautiful. What I learned from her is that even the bad is beautiful and all can change over time (like Monet's visualization of his Giverny Garden as he was losing his eyesight late in life). This is how a picture my mother's surrender to Alzheimer's Disease. Go have a look at Monet's Giverny portfolio over time; it is a revelation..
I have attached two photographs of Normie. Any person who attended Our Lady of Holy Souls School with me between 1965 and 1973 will recognize that yellow brick and will be assured that the man behind that camera was Monsignor Francis A. Allen, who photographed all of he Holy Souls students and those who attended he Holy Souls School for Exceptional Children. He also baptized Normie, Michelle Bailey Haynes and me.
If this is a tribute, it is to those friends I had in grade school, my earliest mates and confidants. I have been blessed with many, many good friends; certainly any more than I deserve. But, it is those who knew and interacted with my brother that live in my heart today. They are the same friends that call me "Mike," a familiar diminutive used only by my mother, father, and Michelle Bailey Haynes. I thank you all for for your friendship and understanding.
That was a long slog. thank you for letting me get this off my chest. I never knew I was able to write about this.
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1955 - 1979 (23 years)
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