By Julia Wright
Today is the 116th Anniversary of my father’s birth.
To mark this celebration, I am pausing my private grief to share with you the news of the passing away of Rachel Wright, my younger sister, in Paris on July 19th 2024.
Rachel Wright, my younger sister by seven years, was born in Paris, France, on January 17th 1949, two years after Richard and Ellen chose self-expatriation from the United States and settled there.
Rachel was the child of Richard’s expatriation, the child of his hope, the child of his established literary fame but also the child of the darkness of his persecution by McCarthyism and the State Department even as he lived in post world war two “liberated” Paris.
Rachel was a child of chiaroscuro.
In “The Man Who Lived Underground” originally written in 1942, Richard chose the name Rachel for the wife of the hounded and persecuted protagonist, Fred Daniels . This fictional Rachel is expecting Fred Daniel’s child but Daniel’s escape into the underground of the sewer will prevent him from being at Rachel’s side as she gives birth. The sewer is the place where no babies survive.
In France, Richard’s real life wife, Ellen, gave birth to a hale and hearty baby, Rachel.
Richard dedicated “The Outsider” to “Rachel, my daughter who was born on foreign soil.”
Rachel, my sister, was beautiful, brilliant, feisty, non conformist and driven. She excelled in her studies and was fluent in both Russian and Chinese.
After my father’s death in 1960, my sister Rachel was diagnosed with what our Big Pharma driven society calls mental challenges although I am absolutely convinced we are entering here the twilight area of so-called “Black Health Syndromes” such as “excited delirium” fabricated to push underground those who are labeled “outsiders” by those who must maintain the illusion of the American Dream.
I thank all those in France who understood this and extended to the remarkable and creative human being who was Rachel the understanding and the love her talent and spirit deserved.
RIP Rachel
You are beloved.
CONTINUITY – a poem
to Rachel, my sister, who passed away on July 19th 2024
a leaf
slowly unfolds
the wings
of a green butterfly
a butterfly
wings by
so swiftly
it could be
a leaf
falling
my tears
falling
will be the rain
that will become the cloud
where
you are now
smiling
(c) Julia Wright. September 2, 2024. All Rights Reserved.
WHERE DO UNSHED TEARS GO ? – a poem
To my baby sister, Rachel, now my ancestor
where do the tears
we don’t shed
go ?
what do we do
with their inward
flow?
our inner chilld
was told to be brave
and for not one tear
to leave the eye
as fighters we know
not to show
the tear-makers
how full of pain
we are
as oppressed folk
we read
that only bankers’ daughters
have the luxury
to cry
but then
where does all
that water of life
go ?
they say
a baby dying of malnutrition
cannot afford to cry
because
it needs its tears
as a last desperate hydration
not to die
we who likewise
are dying of lack of freedom
how can we hold back
the torrents of our lament
but still get a warrior’s rest
in the underground
of our tears unspent ?
(c) Julia Wright August 18 2024. All Rights.
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