Walk In My Shoes

Photos by Jerry Hsu

’m originally from West Virginia. My sisters all moved down to Ohio for work and they just stayed there. I didn’t go because I couldn’t leave my momma. See, she had her legs took off from diabetes. It’s called sugar diabetes. It’s like a blood disorder that gets in your bones, and if you hurt yourself a very little bit, like a little cut or something, it won’t heal. It’ll turn black and rot. My mom hurt her feet, and they had to take both of them off up to her knees. How she hurt them was, she burned one of them. She was burning some fire outside—some trash—and a hairspray can blew up and come back and hit her foot. And it never would heal. She took care of it, but the diabetes was so high in her bloodstream that it wouldn’t heal. It just turned black and they had to take it off. And her other one, she dropped a can of corn on top of it and cut it, and it wouldn’t heal, so she lost the other one. She lost the one in 1969 or ’70 and the other one was in the 80s. She was in a wheelchair for 20-some years.

My oldest brother now—he’s the pastor of my church—he’s diabetic and he has the awfulest legs you ever saw. He won’t let anyone take them off, either. He’s got big old sores. They’re all swelled up and black-looking. Have you ever seen a cut scab over? That’s what the big old sores on his legs look like. And they’re all black. He can walk, but eventually they’ll rot. Then he’ll have to have them took off—he won’t have no choice. Longer he waits, the more and more of them he’ll have to get taken off. See, what diabetes does, it eats right down to the bone. It’s like a virus. It eats right down to the bone and it’ll eat through the flesh and everything. It’s not a nice thing to have.

Mom and Dad’s both dead. Dad died 23 years ago and my mom’s been dead eight years. My sister-in-law and me took care of my mom. My sister-in-law lived with her, and I lived over here. I’d work every day, go over and sit with her every night, and then work the next day. I was over there with her every night. That gave my sister-in-law a breather, because she had three little small children. I’d sleep there, if you could call it sleep. I’d sleep at the foot of her bed on a cot. You’d go to sleep and then she’d holler out for you and wake you up. She’d wake up every night. My mom had—I don’t know if you’d call it Alzheimer’s or what—but something like it. When she woke up, she’d need to go to the bathroom. We had a potty in the room with her, a potty chair, and we’d take her to the bathroom and I’d sit and read to her a while. She couldn’t see due to the diabetes. I’d have to read to her. The Bible or the newspaper.



A week before my mother died, when she knew she was dying, she called all of the family together. Well, none of them showed up but me and my baby brother and my baby sister. The rest of them had their own lives. They didn’t want to be fooled with, if you know what I mean. She told me what she wanted for her funeral. She wanted a pink dress with just a little touch of lace around the collar and a little lace around the sleeves. And she didn’t want nothing big and fancy, she just wanted a white coffin with gold trim. She told me what music she wanted—“Amazing Grace” and “Momma’s Hands.” She told me everything right down to the preacher that she wanted. And she told the preacher, “I want you to chastise them,” meaning her kids who wasn’t there to see her before she died. You know what chastising means, right? It means, “Put them down. Run them through the coals, make them feel guilty for what they done.” And he did. The preacher did. He made them feel guilty for what they’d done to her. He ran them through the mill. He said, “She called you, she knew that she was dying, she wanted to see you, and you fellas wouldn’t show up.” He got right up in the church house and told it the day they was burying her.

They just stood there and looked at him. After the service was over, they didn’t even walk up to the coffin and look at her. They just went out the back door. The good Lord’ll deal with them for it. I don’t have to say a thing or do a thing. My dad used to say, “Don’t say nothing or do nothing that you have to say the word ‘sorry’ for, because the word ‘sorry’ is not in the Bible. It’s not in the Bible nowhere.”
 

Photos by Jerry Hsu

I’ve been married three times and all three times I married nothin’ but trash. I had to work to keep all of ’em up. The first one was Flem. An alcoholic and a wife beater. He used to beat on me. He used to use me for a punching bag. It’d all depend on if somebody ticked him off at work. You know, if he had a good day at work, then he was fine. If he had a bad day at work, I’d hide. I’d know to. If I’d smile at him the wrong way, I’d get slapped. If I’d stand up too fast, he’d beat on me. I was 19 and he was 27. It started about three months after we got married, and then I stayed with him two years.

My second husband, he was bad too. Robert Hankel. Gambled away everything we could get ahold of. I’d bought a house—he gambled it away. He come up to me and said, “Well, I guess we’ll have to find a place to live.” I said, “What d’you mean?” He said, “Well, I lost the house.” I said, “What do you mean, ‘lost the house’?” He said, “I bet it in a poker game and I lost.” I said, “To who?” “Man from up around Kermit somewhere.” Three days later, the man came and hooked it up and hauled it off. Robert Hankel went to live with his mother and I lived in my car until I had enough money to get a new trailer. I was 22 years old.

The third husband was named Carter Mills. I left him because he wouldn’t help me do nothin’. He was a carpenter, and what money he had he either drank it up or smoked it up in pot. I’d cover all the bills, buy all the groceries. I worked three jobs. Drove a bus in the morning, went to work in a restaurant all day, drove a bus that evening, went to another restaurant, and closed it out that night. Worked till midnight. On Saturdays, my only day off, I had three houses I’d clean—my boss’s sister, her aunt, and my boss at the other restaurant. I told Carter one day, “If I have to do it all by myself, I might as well live by myself.” In 11 years that we was married, he gave me $150 to pay the bills with, and he only give me that because I took it. I saw his billfold lying on the table and I picked it up and took it.

I still drive the bus—every morning. Then I go in to the restaurant, Moonie’s Fried Chicken. I cook, I clean, I wait on people, I do dishes—everything has to be done. I couldn’t find one complaint about Moonie’s. They’re excellent people to work for. If I had one complaint it’s that they don’t have enough people working for them. But people here make more money on welfare than working.

A lot of people will complain with their back. A doctor cannot prove or disprove that their back’s not bothering them. There’s no X-rays that can prove that a person’s back’s not bothering them. I’ve got back problems myself, but the doctors can prove that. I’ve got tore muscles, pinched nerves, and a bulged disk. I’m having to take shots now for it, since I’m working so much too. I take cortisone. I have to go to the hospital once every two or three months. They put 17 shots in me last Friday. Doctor said if I was to quit liftin’ and tuggin’ I’d be all right. But when you got things to pay for, you have to work

I keep all my bills paid. Never had anything cut off. I set me a budget, and if I’ve got extra money left over then I’ll go to a grocery store, buy food. If I don’t have it left over, I eat at Moonie’s and you know, she’ll usually send some stuff home with me and I use that for supper. There ain’t no use for me to cook. I live alone. I’ve managed to save $2,000 for Christmas. I don’t waste money. Carter always said I could pinch a dollar till George Washington would squeal. But I mean, I have to.

For a while after I divorced him, Carter’d come around, try to get me to take him back and this and that. He’s the only one’s ever bothered me. Still, I do have a gun, a .380 special. I’ve never had to use it. When I’m at home, I load it and leave it on my coffee table. If I’m in the living room or if I get up and go to bed, I take it in the bedroom with me and keep it on my nightstand. I’m too old to be hurt. I’m 54. I’ve seen enough.

GLADYS MILLS