Through a strange set of circumstances, I find myself today thinking a lot about Christy Brown‘s mother.
The tenth of her 22 births, Christy was born with cerebral palsy, in the crushingly poor Dublin of 1932. Despite being told he was a vegetable, he was not human, Mrs. Brown persisted.
“It is his body that is shattered and not his mind, I’m sure of it”.
Famously, at the age of five, Christy snatched a piece of chalk from his sister’s hand with his left foot, the only piece of his body under his control, and wrote on the floor. The first word he wrote, two years later, after dilligent coaching? M-O-T-H-E-R.
In my younger years, as a passionate reader of Irish literature, I was enthralled by Christy’s writings. Like a younger, harder, more bitter James Joyce, he illustrated for me the land of my ancestry. Listening to the Pogues, reading Christy’ intensely descriptive words, I could simultaneously feel like I’d found home, and also the complete understanding for why my ancestors left there to come here.
“Where e’er we go, we celebrate
The land that makes us refugees
From fear of priests with empty plates
From guilt and weeping effigies
And we dance”
Obviously, I’m a very different girl now than I was back then. Still in love with James and Christy; I’ve made room aboard the boat for my copies of their works. I find odd comfort there sometimes. I reread “Portrait of the Artist As A Young Man” when I was pregnant with Rowan and couldn’t do anything but read, and it was a completely different book from what it was in high school.
So again, I find myself back with Christy. (And Shane McGowan, naturally. Somehow they go together, for me.)
Christy Brown, a clown around town
Now a man of renown from Dingle to Down
I type with me toes
Suck stout through me nose
And where it’s gonna end
God only knowsDown all the days
The tap-tap-tapping
Of the typewriter keys
The gentle rattling of the drays
Down all the daysI have often had to depend upon
The kindliness of strangers
But I’ve never been asked
And I never replied
If I supported Glasgow Rangers
What would Christy have become, without his mother? I think about the odds she was overcoming, and I am absolutely stopped in my tracks. Twenty two births? Thirteen children, one profoundly handicapped? How incredibly easy would it have been for her to throw up her hands, declare she couldn’t cope, and leave Christy to rot in a corner? She didn’t have laundromats, she didn’t have take-out dinners; she had grinding, grinding work.
And her love, mother’s love, was so big, it got straight past those who marginalized her 10th child, past the work and the poverty and I cannot even begin to imagine the physical exhaustion, to hold him up as someone worthy. Worth existing.
So here’s to you, Mrs. Brown. I do not even know what your name was. Christy refers to you as mother, everyone else calls you Mrs. Brown, or Christy’s Mum. I only hope to God I can be half the mother you were.
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Thank you for letting me know about this author, of whom I had never heard! And thank you for highlighting this amazing person in a time where it is so easy to use “handicapped” as a euphemism for “disposable person”. What a bright spirit he had! And his mother!
You should check out Georgina Louise Hambleton’s biography of Christy Brown (out Nov 1 2007). She interviewed Christy’s family and friends, uses lots of unpublished letters of Christy’s as well as never seen before artwork/sketches of Brown’s. Its well written and has a great section on his wonderful mother – including a poem he wrote for her when she died:’For My Mother’ – its truly beautiful. What a great man – check it out on amazon.com or just google her name – and Merry X mas!
Just wanted to send a short response. Just saw “My Left Foot” again last night. It’s been a LONG time since I’d seen it. I’m going to get Georgina Hambleton’s book. Sounds really good. I also love James Joyce and “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man”. Have never had anyone to talk about these books to. I have 6 children and have ususally worked full-time. No one that I ever come in contact with has any interest in Joyce or Christy Brown or The Pogues,whom I LOVE.Or, anything literary OR Irish. Would be nice to have someone to chat with that has similar interests. Anyway, I enjoyed the article. I cannot even imagine caring for 13 children, losing 9 others, and still having the physical or mental stamina to care for and encourage the development of a disabled child. I would HAVE to, but it would just be so incredibly difficult. Hats off to Mrs. Brown.