My mother, Cathryn Robertson Forrester, had polio. As a child in the 1930s, she was living in New York when she was struck with polio at the age of six. As a result, she suffered partial paralysis of her left side with no use of her left arm. She had difficulty walking and performing many ordinary physical tasks for the rest of her life.
My mother met Jack Forrester, her husband and my father, in the mid-1950s when he was stationed at the Brooklyn Naval Yard. My dad, Jack, was a proud graduate of the United States Naval Academy and a career naval officer.
Despite my mother’s disability caused by polio, she gave birth to me. My mother and father, like most of those members of the great generation, never complained about anything, including my mother’s disability. Rather, both my parents said that she was lucky since several of their friends had family members who died or were much more disabled from polio. My mother and father spoke of the miracle of the polio vaccine that became available to the public in the 1950s because of the work of Jonas Salk.
Because of my mother’s physical limitations due to polio, I was an only child. Unlike many of the mothers of my friends, when I was growing up my mother could not lift me up and carry me, bathe or change me without assistance, and she was otherwise limited in many of her activities. Other children would ask why my mother could not use one of her arms or walked with a limp. However, my mother was always cheerful and optimistic.
When my father was away for up to a year at a time serving in the United States Navy, my mother and I regularly made tape recordings that we sent to my father on his ship. My mother always insisted that the topics be positive and optimistic. I was prohibited by my mother from ever complaining or saying anything that could cause my father to worry — especially about my mother’s health.
As my mother aged, her health seriously declined as a result of her experiencing post-polio syndrome, a progressive disorder characterized by worsening muscle and nerve pain, fatigue and breathing problems. My father, who always treated my mother with the greatest love, respect and devotion, took care of her and was with her until the day she died.
In a Sept. 6 column, Orlando Sentinel columnist Scott Maxwell wrote about what he referred to as, “survivorship bias,” which is when a person doesn’t consider something a threat because it never threatened them personally. Growing up, I saw the absolute necessity and benefit of the miracle of vaccines and what my mother’s life would have been like if she was born at a time when she could have been vaccinated against polio. My three children, ages 39, 35 and 30, were always fully vaccinated, as have been my four grandchildren, and this will continue. It would be a terrible thing — and so avoidable — for others to contract and suffer from diseases such as polio, measles, whooping cough, hepatitis and other illnesses that are easily preventable by vaccines.
Eileen Forrester, who lives in Winter Park, is the Chief Assistant Public Defender in the Ninth Judicial Circuit.
