Joyce

Joyce and Bill - 12/98

There were tracks between Grandma’s and home and there was a train stopped across my path, taking on water.  Had I been older, I’d have known how to go around the front of the train and be on my way, but I was six and that never occurred to me.  After waiting forever, I decided I could crawl under the train, out the other side and be on my way.  I didn’t want the spanking I knew I would get (and deserved) if I didn’t get home before Mother.  I proceeded with my plan but that was interrupted when the train started moving.  Had I pulled my hands back inside the rails, this would have had a far different outcome, but I didn’t.  Both arms were severed below the elbows.

After ten days in the hospital, my parents took me home.  Neither thought I would ever be able to do anything again but I was still their daughter and they still loved me.  They were prepared to take care of me for the rest of my life.

Daddy was in the Army Air Corps, predecessor of the Air Force, so the military fitted me with a double prostheses with the Dorrance split hooks.  Mother was told that I must were them full time.  She is good at following directions so they went on when I got up and came off when I was put to bed.  By the time school started again, I was able to do just about everything I had been able to do before.

I wore the prostheses about two years but they were hot, heavy and uncomfortable.  One glorious summer day a cable broke.  With bilateral prostheses, if one is out of commission, both are out of commission.  In the little West Texas town where we lived, there wasn’t a prosthetic shop (still isn’t), so getting it fixed wasn’t a simple matter.  Within a week, my parents decided I really didn’t need them.  I could already do everything without them that I had been doing with them, and I was so much happier!

I don’t know when my parents decided that I would be able to do a lot of things.  Probably it was a gradual realization.  I was just their oldest daughter, now one of three, and I was encouraged to try anything I wanted to — with some exceptions, of course!  I got my drivers license at 16 on the first try.  I graduated from high school, then college, then got a MS in library science.  Much of who and what I am today is a direct result of my family.

The rest of who and what I am today is a direct tribute to Bill Baughn.  We met May 1, 1968 and married May 25, 1971.  May 25 was also Bill’s birth date and the anniversary of my accident.  Where my family allowed me to become physically independent, Bill’s love allowed me to mature and blossom emotionally.  As well as being the love of my life, he was my best friend.  Life with him was always an adventure, one I’d like to be able to do all over again.  Life without him goes on and I can only try to carry on the dreams we dreamed together.

Here’s an article that appeared in The Florida Times Union