“Things Will Be Better in the Bye and Bye” or “How Will I Hurt My Child?”

Usually, there is a phrase in every story I edit that just promotes itself into the title. This time there were at least two, “Things will be fine in the bye and bye” and the far grimmer, “How will I hurt my child?” The stretch between the two isn’t from lack of focus, but a wealth of material. When two friends get together as Betsy Bunn and I did, to share stories and see where they lead, you cover a lot of ground through a lot of emotional weather. I love to tell single stories, but when one leads to another and another, as this hour in the studio with Betsy Bunn did, the trip is hard to resist.

Betsy Bunn:

I grew up playing with black children because they’re who lived on the campus. But I didn’t know an educated black until I was twelve years old.

[Saxophone music starts and continues under the commentary.]

That summer, my father took a job traveling to predominantly black universities, talking with the presidents, talking with the deans. I remember one case really, really well. We were visiting a family, and there was a girl my age. And I was walking with her down the street, and my father and her mother were walking ahead. And, she said to my father, “I don’t know how to hurt her.” Her daughter. “I don’t know how to hurt my child.” He said, “What do you mean?” And she said, “We’ve all grown up with ‘Whites Only’ water fountains and discrimination, but she doesn’t know it. We’ve lived on a black college campus. And I don’t want her to be hurt by somebody else out in the big world. How will I hurt my child so that I am the one that can comfort her?”

She finally ended up taking her to a movie, and they walked up together to get tickets and were told that they couldn’t go in. She wanted to be with her child when this first public rejection happened.

The blacks I knew spoke a different kind of English. And there was, mixed in usually a lot of biblical reference [Tony murmurs with understanding and encouragement] and a lot of—when things were bad—“It‘ll be better bye and bye.” I trusted them; I believed them. It was a comfortable world. Things will be better in the bye and bye. If that were not true … [under her breath, “Oh, my God!”] how much else wasn’t true?

Tony Kahn:

When we were living in Mexico, my parents were under a constant state of anxiety. Worries about money. Was this quiet little respite that they found for themselves going to be overturned at any second? You know, somebody would inform on them; somebody would point their finger at them and say you don’t belong. And it was very important for them to keep a stiff upper lip and walk behind their pride, [Betsy murmurs in understanding throughout the rest of the story] no asking for help, no expression of pain. I was taken to a doctor by my mother one day because I had an ear infection. Turned out that my ear needed to be lanced. And the doctor didn’t tell me that that was what he was going to do. He stuck this metal thing in my ear, and the next thing I knew, I was screaming, more pain than I had experienced before [Betsy injects, “Oh, ears are awful.”] in … my… life! He said, “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but it’s over.” And then he went in and he lanced it a second time. [Betsy: “Ooooo!”] Once I felt that I wasn’t going to be hurt again and didn’t have to trust anybody, [Betsy: “Exactly.”] I went shopping with my mother and I said, “You know, I think I deserve a comic book for what I’ve been through. [Betsy laughs] How about getting me a comic book?” And my mother was furious with me. She said, “I’m so angry with you for screaming!”

Betsy Bunn:

Oh, yeah. In the South that I grew up in, manners were key, couldn’t bear to be disapproved of—no, wasn’t going to risk it. I remember one, one of my sons, he’d broken his leg. And, he was having a terrible time with rehab and walking. We went for the check-up to the doctor, and the doctor had him walk. And he was grimacing with pain. And the doctor said, “Oh come on. You can do better than that. I’ll take you over across the hall and you can see a bunch of little girls do better than that.” I was furious at his belittling my child, and I wanted to comfort the child, and I couldn’t marshal those resources.

Tony Kahn:

You didn’t know what to say.

Betsy Bunn:

I wasn’t able to tell him. That’s right. Not asking for help—it’s, if there are sins, it might be one. I don’t do it very well.

[Wordless singing starts, two female voices.]

Betsy Bunn:

You might not help me. When our first baby didn’t live, it was hard. He would have definitely been a special needs child. How well I would have dealt with that, God knows. I see people bring up special needs children and my admiration is boundless, boundless for them. I also say, “If I’d had this child, I wouldn’t have had my beloved George, who was born a year later, and lived..” We didn’t name the child, and we didn’t bury the child. We didn’t treat it as a child. That, that child lived twenty-four hours. It wasn’t much of a life but it had what it could have. And it was a … it lived and breathed. I would name him and mark him if I had it to do over again. And at the time I was young, and I didn’t … I didn’t know what I wanted. I’ve come to have a profound respect for rituals and for marking. That happened. That was real. I think it’s important to say hello and goodbye, in some kind of way.

[Singing ends]

Tony Kahn:

I think one of the best ways is to tell the story of them. [Betsy murmurs in agreement.] We are our stories. At any given moment, our stories say something very important about where we’re at in that trip.

Betsy Bunn:

To be there.

Tony Kahn:

My mother … I always saw her managing everything. The day her father had a stroke, it was a terrible moment for all of us. There was nothing that she could do. All of a sudden, we heard this scream coming from down the hall, a blood-curdling scream. We all rushed into the hallway and there was this woman, banging into the walls, shrieking at the top of her lungs. And my mother walked right up to her, opened her arms to her, and embraced her. We found out a few minutes later that this woman’s husband had been in the hospital and, unexpectedly, he had died. She had just found out that the husband she was planning to bring home was dead. She went to pieces, and my mother …

Betsy Bunn:

Wow. She got it.

Tony Kahn:

In the most genuine way. I was given something there that I, I wasn’t able to absorb at the time.

Betsy Bunn:

But you did.

Tony Kahn:

But I did.

Betsy Bunn:

Yes. Yeah. That’s a wonderful story. She did the right thing and she did it from her whole being.

Tony Kahn:

She taught me everything probably that I really know about compassion in that one moment. [Betsy murmurs in agreement.] She wasn’t in charge. She was totally there and completely not in charge.

Betsy Bunn:

That’s the lesson, isn’t it?

Tony Kahn:

[Laughing] I think so. [guitar music starts] [Betsy: “Yeah.”] Thanks, Betsy.

Betsy Bunn:

Thank you. It’s good to talk with you—always. Yes. Yes.

Tony Kahn:

Always good to talk with you, Betsy. And to listen.

[Guitar music fades and ends.]

[End of recording]

Transcribed by: Susan MacLeod