Annie's Coming Out, by Rosemary Crossley and Anne McDonald

It's not often that a book makes me cry.  This book made me cry.

Several months ago I read William Horwood's unique and powerful novel Skallagrigg (read my review here), which follows a young girl's journey from an institution, where she had been placed by her family due to her cerebral palsy, to independence.  Mr. Horwood commented on my review, noting that one of the inspirations for Skallagrigg was Annie's Coming Out, the story of Anne McDonald's journey from isolation in an institution--and in her own body--to communication, interaction, and self-determination.

So what's so sad about that?  First of all, it's heartbreaking to read about the conditions under which Annie and her peers lived.  Institutionalized their entire lives, these children, who had cerebral palsy or other severe disabilities, were trapped in a sort of limbo.  The parents had placed the care of the children in the hands of the hospital.  The hospital had written the children off as little more than vegetables.  They suffered under the most horrible forms of abuse and neglect imaginable.  Annie was a teenager before Rosemary Crossley came to work at the hospital and began experimenting with different  means of communicating and began to build relationships with Annie and the other children.

In spite of the progress Crossley made with the children, using progressively more complex methods by which the children could spell out words and sentences, her superiors refused to acknowledge that the children could think and communicate on their own.  Eventually Annie began to assert herself and started a legal fight for her freedom from the hospital.  Eventually, to the chagrin of the hospital and government overseers, Annie won her freedom, setting a precedent for legal rights of the disabled.

Anne, pictured here with Crossley, died in 2010.

By improving her communication and bringing her case to the attention of the courts, Annie's case drew unwelcome attention to the hospital and its treatment of children.  Hospital officials began to retaliate by separating communicative children from one another and ramping up the neglect.  Annie lived in Australia, and the events of the book take place in the 1970s, but I am sure the attitudes and conditions described prevailed in the U.S. then, and, in spite of many improvements in care and therapy, are probably still around today.  Reading Annie's Coming Out will make you want to stand up for the civil rights of disabled, institutionalized people in your community.

The saddest portion of the book, the section that put me over the edge, was Annie's reaction to her friend Stephen's death.  As part of the hospital's retaliatory measures, Stephen was isolated from other patients and not allowed visitors.  He was given no means of communicating.  In his isolation and lack of hope, he died.  Annie writes: "Stephen's death was the end of my belief in God.  Previously I had wanted to believe in a caring God, who could love even people like us.  No one who loved Stephen could have let him die a prisoner of his own body and of the Health Commission."  I believe in a loving God, but I can scarcely blame Annie for her attitude, heartbreaking as it is.  My prayer is that others in her shoes will get a taste of the grace and hope God offers.