I really didn’t like Sara very much. She was self-righteous, simple-minded, and stubborn. She was annoying and blind like my parents, and she regarded my naive rebellion with suspicion. I could not help but love Sara, however. She was strong, sure-footed, and determined.

Sara was heading toward her 70’s when I met her, retired military and proud of it. She was not elegant or fine, but she was a strutting, bossy, barnyard rooster nonetheless. Squatty and plain, Sara was thick in that way runty mutts become later in life, sneaking bits of cheese even though the Dr. had warned her. She had fat, ruddy cheeks with steely blue eyes glinting behind a ridiculous pomp of soft white curls. She told me she packed with pebbles when she was five. I had no doubt this old bull had fought in dark bars only perverts knew existed, and chased and charmed her share of women. Sara still dressed like James Dean, but she wore her pants a little too high to be cool.

In her life, Sara was a survivor of many things. She came out as transgendered during the 1940s when she could have been committed or imprisoned. She was an obviously queer Butch woman in the military during a World War. She managed to make a decent living as a female for nearly 50 years. She wore a skirt when she had to. She buried a lover. She reinvented her life more than once. For all her plotting and plodding, Sara survived twists and turns with only her heart as a compass.

One time Sara lifted her shirt and showed me her mastectomy scar. The healed wound looked angry still. Tissue was completely removed down to the bone, skin stretched taut over the bump bump bump of her ribs. What remained of her chest was a brutal shock against her soft, fat belly. I guess that is how they did surgery for breast cancer back in the 50’s.

After Sara whipped cancer’s ass, she built a house on her own land with her own hands. She always said she loved living there, and I am sure the house was as sturdy as she was. A decade or so later, however, the annual checkup didn’t go so well. Sara was never a lucky one, and this time it looked like sneaky cancer had won after all. The doctor predicted she only had a few months to live, so Sara set out preparing for death in proficient military fashion. She gifted money to her nieces and nephews, and she presented her car to a deserving and needy friend. She bestowed her beloved home upon her kid sister’s growing family. Sara gave away every scrap that was proof of her existence except for the camping cot she laid upon to wait for her maker. Then the Dr.’s office called with good news! This was someone else’s misfortune. Sara’s checkup was fine. They made a mistake!

Sara won after all. She was relieved, but she also felt foolish. If you are a mighty Butch, only big love negates absurdity. Of course, her loved ones offered to give back her money, her car, her house. But Sara chose to start over. Fucking stubborn. That’s who she was. And man, did she love to tell that story!

One time I was standing in Sara’s backyard while she was talking with a neighbor who had just cut down an ancient cherry tree. She said, “Aren’t you going to take out the trunk?” He said he planned to pull that trunk out later with his truck and a chain. Without a word, Sara squatted down, dug her heels in the earth and locked the fat trunk of that old tree in a bear hug. She rocked back and forth and side to side until the roots snapped. She unearthed the whole trunk and tossed it aside with a redfaced grunt. It was amazing.

That’s who she was.

FOR FURTHER READING:
My breast cancer painting censored from local art show
View my paintings of real women.
ABC news coverage of censored breast cancer painting
Art Censorship: How often are ethics so obviously clear??
The victorious outcome: no more censorship!
A story I recently wrote about B, the woman in the banned painting.
Sarahs’ story: an old-school dyke and breast cancer survivor.

Posted by Daddy Rhon on Friday, May 4th, 2007 at 7:24 am.