On My Mind: Uncovering the Missing Parts

Every July in Woodstock, Vermont, an event called “Bookstock” takes place. It’s an entire weekend of authors and publishers giving talks about their writing, or workshops on writing, and it’s always a treat to attend. With three to four presentations an hour throughout the long weekend, there is always something one would be interested in attending. And, what makes it even better is that even though it is well attended, it’s still small enough to be able to talk with anyone presenting or attending. And chances are, during breaks on The Green in the middle of town where you can grab lunch from one of the many vendors and sit in a park-like setting, you’ll start to see some of the same people over and over, so that you feel like you’re making new friends, too.

That’s exactly what happened to me last summer. I was waiting to attend a session presented by Mimi Baird, the author of He Wanted the Moon, which was published in February 2015. I was interested in hearing her talk because Mimi lives in Woodstock and because her book told the story of her father’s mental illness – depression and what is now known as bipolar disorder.

Standing in the hall outside the presentation room, I started talking to this lovely woman with silver white hair who had on this colorful summer sweater with pinks and greens – think Lily Pulitzer colors. I complimented her on her outfit and we chatted for a few minutes before we could enter the room. I was a little surprised when she walked to the front of the room – she was Mimi!

Since that time, Mimi and I have gotten to be friends – enjoying meeting up with each other during our walks around town, having lunch, or taking an art class together. The conversations are always rich and deep, and I feel I have learned so much from her.

When I was living in Baltimore, I participated in Andrea Hylen’s first Heal My Voice book group. It gave a group of women the opportunity to explore and share via writing, the story of how they healed their voices. Our stories were a part of a book called Fearless Voices: True Stories By Courageous Women. The entire process took about nine months… nine months for us to give birth to the stories that could set us free to shine our light even brighter. It was healing for me, for sure.

Writing He Wanted the Moon was a similar process for Mimi – only the writing took about four years to complete.                                                                                         

The story of her father, Dr. Perry Baird, a Harvard-educated physician with a brilliant mind and a promising career is a tragedy. At the age of thirty, he began suffering from manic depression, which he basically self-diagnosed. This was way before the treatments and medication used today were available.

When he had manic episodes, he escaped to the Boston Ritz-Carlton to protect his young family, friends and colleagues from them. There he would drink gallons of Coke alone in his room and would only emerge when the episode had passed.

There were many episodes to follow and in 1944, the illness had significantly progressed. Dr. Baird made a wild appearance at his country club and his behavior was so outlandish that he was handcuffed by state troopers and taken away to the Westborough State Hospital outside of Boston.

Mimi was six years old at the time and from that day on, her father was gone. She knew he was “ill” and that he wouldn’t be coming back home, but growing up, no one talked about what happened to her father. The entire incident was just brushed under the rug and her mother went on to marry another man.

All of her life, Mimi felt as if something was missing. There was a hole in her heart and a tugging that saddened her. But, no one would talk about her missing father.

Years later in 1991, Mimi had a chance meeting with an elderly physician who said, “I knew your father. We were at Harvard Medical School together.” This was the first time anyone had mentioned her father to her and it was someone who actually knew him.

From that point on, Mimi was determined to find out about her father’s life. A door had been opened – one that had been closed for over fifty years. She talked with old neighbors and medical colleagues. She gained access to his medical records. A librarian at Harvard’s Medical School Library shared with her a file of correspondence from her father to Walter Cannon, a physiologist, professor and chairman of the Department of Physiology at Harvard Medical School.

Mimi finally worked up the courage to call her uncle – her father’s brother, Philip, who lived in Texas. Philip had taken care of her dad in his final years after a lobotomy had left him all but helpless. Philip ended up sending Mimi a box full of papers that had been stored in his son’s garage. In it, was a stack of onionskin papers about a foot tall. It was a handwritten manuscript by her father and it was titled, “Echoes from a Dungeon Cell.” It was the unbelievable and heartbreaking story of her father’s account of being at Westborough – the starvation, the beatings, the ice water treatments, the body restraints – this being how mental illness was treated.

Here was a man who had once been a promising physician, had a young family in the suburbs of Boston, belonged to the country club and he was now divorced from his wife, separated from his children, stripped of his medical license, being subjected to horrendous methods of treatment while waiting for someone to visit him. No visitors ever came. No words were ever heard.

Discovering her father’s story was not only devastating to Mimi, it was also liberating. As a seventy-six year old grandmother, she feels like a new person. She is a new person and she had to share this story.

And, now this story is going to be shared in a bigger way. Just last week it was announced that Brad Pitt has optioned Mimi’s book for the big screen saying, “It’s a gorgeous story, and especially about mental illness.”

I ran into Mimi outside the bank earlier this week. She was almost skipping down the street. We talked about celebrating and she mentioned that she was off to Boston later in the week… to meet with the screenwriter. Wahoo! It’s happening – so we’re trying to figure out where the premiere will be and what we should wear. Who knows? It could be at our little town hall theater in Woodstock. Brad and Angelina would certainly liven things up around here.

I am so happy for her. Having that hole in her heart for so long and now, it’s filling back up with awareness, love, and a determination to be a voice for mental illness.

In her seventies, did she ever think she would be writing a book, and not only a book, but a book that would be adapted to film by one of the mega actor/producer/directors in our country? No… she just wanted to tell her father’s story – and at the time, she felt the writing that healed her would be the biggest gift.

*****

Photography: Mimi Baird photographed by Lynn Bohannon, Woodstock, VT