Monday, April 12, 2010

Mad Joan

Mad Joan
By David Atchison

I've heard what they say about Joan McLean. I've listened to the snickers and seen how people cut their eyes when she gets worked up. They look at her like she's crazy.

As I've known her all my life, I'd like to lay to rest any assumptions about Joan McLean:

Joan is NOT crazy... She's mad.

Seriously, "Mad Joan" is positively out of her mind and I have proof.

While still in high school, Mad Joan got pregnant with her first child. Being young and with little family, she and her boyfriend got married and moved into housing projects where they proceeded to have three more children. By 21, Mad Joan's husband was gone, leaving her with four children and no high school diploma.

In the 1950s, Mad Joan sat in the middle of the projects with four hungry children and no substantial means of providing for them. Any rational person could see that Joan had lost before the fight had started. Her decisions had relegated her to a life of government assistance, low income housing and low expectations for her children. But Mad Joan isn't rational. Mad Joan is mad.

Between mothering her four children and work, she threw herself into school, first earning her high school diploma and then nursing license. Mad Joan was a strict disciplinarian, stressing to her children the importance of education, morals and God. While she had little, she did her best to expose them to higher culture through music lessons, libraries and museums. She impressed upon them the value of education and how hard work was an equalizer. It didn't matter where they came from, what mattered was what they did when they got where they were going. While most say these things, Mad Joan lived them. She eventually moved her children out of the projects and into a home of their own. A two story home in Jamaica Plain, Boston, that SHE purchased.

Mad Joan, the pregnant teen. Mad Joan, the single mother of four. Mad Joan, the Nurse. Mad Joan, the home owner.

Any rational person would have thought that was enough. Mad Joan had pulled herself out of abject poverty, bought her own home and insured each of her children had graduated from high school and went on to pursue higher eduction. But Mad Joan isn't rational. Mad Joan is mad.

When her kids had moved out, she opened her own nursing home and pursued a degree in the clergy, eventually becoming an ordained minister. Mad Joan, the entrepreneur. Mad Joan, Deaconess.

Teen Pregnancy Statistic. Single Mother. Nurse. Business Owner. Deaconess.

Mad Joan raised a teacher, a veteran, a grant writer and a doctor.

What she accomplished was not rational. What she did, most sane persons would find impossible, but Mad Joan isn't sane or rational. Joan McLean was driven mad with love years ago and she's been "Mad Joan" ever since. Sometimes she's hard to reason with, often times she won't listen and stubborn doesn't even begin to describe her resolve.

Sitting there in the projects with her children, surrounded by poverty and adversity, Joan McLean snapped. She lost "it." "It" being everything that told her to accept her circumstance. "It" being everything rational people use to make excuses for why they don't have what they want. Sure she made mistakes along the way, but my life and the life of my brothers and cousins are testaments that she was right more times than she was wrong.

A mad woman in a sane world, mad with love for her children, herself and future generations who benefit from her sacrifices and example.

I know this to be true because I grew up in a middle class, two parent household due to Joan McLean's madness. My upbringing was vastly better than my mother's because of the influence Mad Joan had in her daughter's life.

When I decided I would create a comic book and sell the film rights, I was told by "rational" people I was crazy. When I decided to run a marathon, I was told by "rational" people I was out of my mind. I wasn't crazy, I was mad, just like Mad Joan. I'll keep striving and each time some "rational" person will be there to tell me I'm crazy, but I'll correct them. I'm not crazy. I'm mad, just like my Grand Mother Joan McLean

You see, "madness" runs in the family.

Long after she's gone and I'm gone, her memory will live on. Her sacrifice and achievements will be retold for generations to come, driving future members of our family to "madness." They'll tell stories of Mad Joan, who looked at a sane world with odds stacked against her and did the craziest thing of all: she succeeded.

“When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.”

Mark Twain