I Believe in Cautionary Tales

I believe in cautionary tales.

In my literature class a few weeks ago, we read and discussed Maxine Hong Kingston's short story "No-Name Woman," a story in which a Chinese mother tells her Chinese-American daughter of a nameless aunt who, because of an illegitimate pregnancy, is harassed by her village and disowned by the family. As a result, she ultimately takes her own life and the life of her newborn child.  The story, of course, serves as a warning of the importance of sexual purity.

We talked in depth about the double standard women face in this dual crime, even today. But we talked more about the power and use of story as a teaching tool, as a way to warn of impending danger and peril.  Each student could relate a cautionary story they had been told and so, of course, could I.

When I was a teenager, my grandmother told me a story--a story she told me over and over again until well after I was married and had my own child.  As I remember it, when she was a teenaged girl, she was assigned to live with her older sister to help take care of her many small children. She hated it.  To escape, she fell in love with the first single man who paid her some attention.  He was tall, dark, handsome, adventuresome, and a closet alcoholic. They were soon married and she was freed of the drudgery of raising children that were not her own.  

Not long after, though, she had a tiny little human responsibility that belonged to her.  And then another, and another, and another.  She was just minutes over the age of 20 with four small children and the responsibilities of domestic life. Kimball was a miner who, unfortunately, did not escape the danger of the profession:  as a young father, he suffered a fall that resulted in a broken back, a lifetime of pain, an addiction to painkillers and alcohol, and an inability to provide financially for his family.  

The small, shattered, unhappy family moved to Salt Lake City to be closer to medical expertise.  Grandma recalled those years with abiding sorrow in her voice:  Kimball was in inconsolable pain, he couldn't sleep, and demons inhabited his dreams. To protect his young sleeping family from what he feared he might do to them in the throes of his despair, he would lock them in a room at night and not allow himself to sleep.  Grandma always lowered her voice and her eyes when, at this point in the story, she relayed she could hear him outside the room, pacing, muttering, and moaning through the long hours of the night.

One evening before locking them in, he left and didn't return.  The next morning, grandma called the police and they, with first hand knowledge of Kimball and his addictions, assured her Kimball was on a drunk and would find his way home eventually.  He never did. They found him the next afternoon in a cheap hotel room, hanging lifeless from the rafters.

Grandma went home to Ephraim widowed, destitute, traumatized, and lonely with four grieving children in tow.  Feeling like a failure, she moved in with her mother, but for her children she resolutely faced the shame that came with what she thought were the judgments of others.

She told me this story each time I saw her throughout my teens and early 20s.  This story was just one piece of the puzzle that was her life story, but a piece that seemed to carry more significance because she told me so frequently and with such emotion.

I didn't really understand why she was telling me this story until she stopped.  It was my 26th birthday, I was pregnant with my first child, and I was happily married.  She told me one last time that when she was 26, she was widowed, destitute, and lonely—even with four small children.  I could see her pride and relief that I was not in the position she had been in.  At that moment, I knew:  she had told me the story again and again and again in love.  She had told me in warning.  She had told me because she did not want me to begin my adult years in a similar situation: no education, no job, no husband, and responsibilities beyond measure.

Grandma meets my baby!

Grandma eventually found happiness with a shy, backwards, kind, middle-aged farmer who adopted her children, raised them as his own, and fathered three more.  Her cautionary tale, though, has been canonized in our family lore and passed down through matriarchal channels.  While the story didn't prevent many of us from making impulsive decisions or even save us from problem marriages, I still told it to my own daughter since grandma was not around to tell it, and I recently breathed a silent sigh of relief when I realized she no longer needed to hear it.

Written May 3, 2015