When I hear the word “siblings,” I picture kids riding bikes together, playing games, and watching each other’s backs. In that pleasant fantasy, these children grow up to be allies. In real life, though, adult siblings are not always best friends. In fact, disputes among siblings go all the way back to the Garden of Eden where Cain and Abel had a violent falling out. I recently read a memoir about a family with a sibling disagreement of Biblical proportions.
Freeing Teresa: A True Story about My Sister and Me by Franke and Billiam James is about the family’s fight about caring for their Down syndrome sister. While they all felt protective toward their less-abled sister, tragically they had different views on how to handle her care.
One group of siblings wanted to hand Teresa’s care over to the state. Under that arrangement, social services would take control. But from the author’s point of view, this pragmatic approach ignored their parents wish that Teresa would have a say in her own future. The couple were sure that the state would be unable to give Teresa the dignity and autonomy she deserved.
I kept waiting for the pragmatic group to yield to this more generous and humanistic approach toward Teresa’s care, but they maintained their determination to have Teresa institutionalized.
As the opposing sides became more entrenched, the story turned scary – Like in a superhero movie, when an unstoppable force barrels into an immovable object, the earth trembles. The dispute became increasingly heated, until the family fractured and split apart.
Before this earthquake rocked their world, they all appeared to be getting along well. So the blowup in Freeing Teresa might seem to have arisen completely out of context. But their divisive stances make more sense to me when I consider the backstory.
We are all raised by parents who change over the years
In the early years of this large family, the older children were raised by strong, successful individualists. But when Teresa was diagnosed with Down Syndrome, her parents knew their daughter would rely on a world ruled by mutual respect, charity, and compassion of others.
Their shift to a more loving approach apparently occurred too late for the older kids, who had already formed their assertive, self-reliant world views. These were the values they applied to their decisions about Teresa’s care.
Franke James, on the other hand, fully embraced her parents’ later-in life philosophy. Along with her husband, Billiam, author Franke James became a champion for additional social safe-guards to support the dignity and safety of those less able to care for themselves.
What are readers to take away from this high intensity ethical battle?
Reading memoirs for me is not about choosing sides. Instead, each story, especially one as morally and emotionally complex as Freeing Teresa, invites me into the lives of the people in my world. As I vicariously enter the situation depicted in the memoir, I experience a specific corner of the human condition.
To get the most value from my memoir reading experiences, I ask myself questions. Who are these people? What makes them tick? What would I have done? How deeply did I feel, not just the emotions of the situation, but perhaps even more importantly, how did the author’s presentation lead me through moral, ethical, and emotional dilemmas toward resolution? In this way, Freeing Teresa, like many memoirs I’ve read, has offered me many rewarding hours.
I think of my experience with Freeing Teresa the way I think of a Zen Koan. Through this practice of nonjudgmentally contemplating an unanswerable question, the Zen Buddhist practitioner is meant to stretch their consciousness. In my own contemplative practice, I peer endlessly into the depths of whatever carefully crafted memoir captures my attention. And I’m never disappointed. Since the human drama is too complex to ever offer complete answers, my goal all along was to open my heart so I could ask the right questions.
Freeing Teresa has been especially fruitful in this regard. Even though the headline dilemma sounds straightforward, (“how to care for Teresa”) the moral and ethical implications expand like the ripples of a rock falling into still waters.
Digging deeper, even more themes
In addition to protecting the autonomy and dignity of their Down Syndrome sister, the question raised throughout the book keeps coming back to power. Who is in charge here? Which sibling must make these decisions? And the book even raises the question: should it be any of them?
According to Franke, her parents had clearly stated their desire to have Teresa cared for at home. But according to the more pragmatic faction, their father’s stumbling memory meant his opinions were no longer relevant. From their point of view, it was time for the parents to step aside and let the younger generation take over. Shakespeare offered King Lear as an extreme example of the flagging power of the older generation. Freeing Teresa raises some of the same questions.
In addition to deeply exploring issues such as ableism and autonomy, the evolution of a family through time, and the diminished power of the elder, Freeing Teresa takes us all the way back to Western Civilization’s origin story. When Cain was ejected from the Garden of Eden, he asked a rhetorical question, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” The story makes it apparent that if he chooses the negative response to that question, he will be far less comfortable, and will face the ruthlessness of the world.
The same question turns up in a more scientific version of the human origin story.
A widely shared meme credits Margaret Mead with saying that the discovery of an early human leg bone with a healed fracture indicates the birth of a society motivated by compassion and cooperation. There is no evidence that Mead actually made this claim, but nevertheless, it resonates with the idea of self-sacrifice for the group. Of course, if these tribal members were only caring for themselves, the injured person would be left behind.
Caring for one another does not fit the individualistic model of the human animal, each vying to protect its own turf. And yet, there are also examples when self-sacrifice for the other are seen as crucial to our survival. So there is no easy answer to the simple question. Just like a Zen Koan!
Reading Freeing Teresa offered me a rich framework to help me ponder this question. In the compassionate view of the authors, taking care of a less-abled family member, friend or neighbor might in fact be the most important value to qualify as fully human.
Clearly each of us needs to draw the line in our own way. Some of Franke James siblings chose a different place to draw the line. But as a reader, you can watch this drama play out, and rather than trying to answer it, let it expand your understanding of the limits and importance of that age old question. If you have ever wondered about how much of your own comfort and convenience to sacrifice for your brother or sister, or wondered about the Zen Koan “Am I my brother’s keeper?” read this book.
To read my own memoir about the challenge of loving others, take a look at How I Learned to Love the World: My Epic Journey from Solving Equations to Healing Hearts Through Writing, Therapy, and Memoirs
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