In 1964, at the age of 39, Flannery O'Connor died from complications of lupus. She had lived with this autoimmune disease for 14 years, primarily confined to her mother's farm, Andalusia, in Milledgeville, Ga.
I've seen my mom confined to a wheelchair in the last three years of her life. Both her knees had given way, and there was no way she could undergo surgery at her age. Even though I was concerned for her, I didn't know at that time what she had to go through.
My mother had a life-altering stroke when I was nineteen and she died when I was twenty-three. I'm now older than my mother when she died and my relationship with her has really changed over these many years. I continue to stay interested in her and I know her differently now. Losing my mother, losing dear friends, is now part of the fabric of my being alive. And the fabric keeps changing, which is interesting.
Madam C.J. Walker was born in 1867, two years after the civil war ended. She was a daughter of a slave. She had no formal education. Both her parents died by the time she was seven. Yet, by the time she died in 1919 at age 51, she was one of the most successful businesswomen America had ever seen.
There are many different causes of the scarring. Viruses are common. Hepatitis B, hepatitis C, what we call autoimmune diseases where the body attacks the liver itself such as primary biliary cirrhosis is an autoimmune disease; sclerosing cholangitis is an autoimmune disease; and so those diseases where the liver is being destroyed by either the virus or an autoimmune disease, it can only scar, and why it doesn't regenerate has to do with the fact that there is this ongoing scar tissue that blocks that regeneration.
After my mother died, I learned that she'd had a scholarship to the University of Nebraska, but - in kind of a tradition that females don't do things like that - her father prevented her from going. She always said that she wasn't allowed to go to college, but until she died, I never knew that she'd had this scholarship.
It's remarkable she [Venus Williams] plays at all, given her Sjögren's syndrome [an autoimmune disorder that can cause joint pain]. She's back, winning tournaments. She didn't allow society to tell her, "You have this disease; you can't do that anymore." I look at her, like, "She's not playing at 100 percent. You are. You don't have excuses." Knowing what she went through helped me try to be a more positive person.
The phrase the violent bear it away fascinated the 20th century Irish-American storyteller Flannery O'Connor, who used it as the title of one of her novels. O'Connor's surname connects her to an Irish royal family descended from Conchobor (pronounced Connor), the prehistoric king of Ulster who was foster father to Cuchulainn and husband of the unwilling Derdriu. In the western world, the antiquity of Irish lineages is exceeded only by that of the Jews.
I lived with my mother all my life until she died, and I don't really think I knew her, because I was always using her as my mother, if you know what I mean.
In my earliest of years, my mother was a huge force in my life. She was for all intents and purposes, a single parent. My father had abandoned us. He was an alcoholic and a physical abuser. My mother lived through that tyranny and made her living as a domestic worker. She was uneducated but she brought high principles and decent values into our existence, and she set lofty goals for herself and for her children. We were forever inspired by her strength and by her resistance to racism and to fascism.
Mother had to support herself at age 18 because it was during the depression and when my grandfather lost the farm and there was no place for her; she worked as an assistant to a maid.
Flannery O'Connor is my creative hero. I think she's the greatest American writer. Her book, 'Mystery and Manners,' is my creative bible.
In college, I had a big fixation with Southern Gothic literature. Flannery O'Connor, I read every word she's ever written.
My mother was a dramatic and egocentric person, and she died before my father, who died of Alzheimer's disease. But I'd often thought, God, we were so lucky that was the order in which they died because she would have felt put upon.
My mother had me when she was 15. My father died before I was born. So my mother was a teenage widow, and she used herself as her greatest example so I wouldn't end up in her position.
Flannery O'Connor was a revelation for me. When I read her, I was very young, and I didn't understand what she was doing. I didn't see the - any of the Catholicism or any of the social stuff.
Flannery O'Connor was a revelation for me. When I read her, I was very young, and I didn't understand what she was doing. I didn't see any of the Catholicism or any of the social stuff.