from Mouth magazine

From the March, 1999 issue of Mouth magazine.

Photo of Jean Searle
photo by Tom Olin

The Reality
by Jean Searle

I had parents who drank and smoked all of the time. I have a brother who is blind in both eyes. I was the older sister in the family, the one who took care of my brothers and sisters.
The child welfare asked my parents where they should put us and they said that my brother Carl and I should go to an institution to get the help we need to learn to live in the community. We all went to different places even though we did not like it there. I was sent to an institution in Scranton, Pennsylvania, on January 3, 1980. I was up there for seven years and then they moved me to another institution, Stillmeadow, for another three years of my life.
I met a nice guy and fell madly in love with him. We wanted to get married but they said no.
I got pregnant with his baby. I was not allowed to tell him. What I did was give the baby up for adoption. My heart hurts every time I think about my son and what he could be doing now. This year he will be eighteen years old.
Everyone tells me that one day he will come and find me and wonder where I have been all of his life.
I do hope the next time someone asks you if you would like to go to an institution that you say to them,
"No, I will never go through what Jean Searle has gone through in her life."

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