What Katy Did - Why you Should Read it if you're Disabled

An image of the copy I have of What Katy Did

Last week, I felt a strong urge to re-read one of my favourite children's classics books. I first read What Katy Did (by Sarah Chauncey Woolsey, pen name Susan Coolidge) when I was 13 years old, after an English teacher recommended it to me, remembering how it had been one of her favourites as a child. I took on her suggestion, borrowed What Katy Did from the school library and got stuck into reading it. I enjoyed it at the time, but I didn't realise quite what this story would mean to me in the years to come.

(Warning: book spoilers ahead)

If you're unfamiliar with the story of What Katy Did, Katy did a lot of things, mostly, she endeavoured to be a good child but somehow always ended up causing some sort of trouble. The main thing that she did however, (the "did" that I believe the book's title to be referring to) is that Katy fell off a swing, resulting in a serious nerve injury to her spinal cord. A large portion of the book details Katy's life and struggles coming to terms with her acquired disability and the reality of her life spent lying prone in her bed.

If you're disabled, I am sure you are familiar with the many trials that can come with having a disability. If you're not disabled, then I'm still sure that you can think back to a time where you had a serious virus or illness and ended up stuck in bed for a few days. Spending prolonged time in bed whilst sick, injured, or otherwise disabled is hard. As I write this, I am propped up in bed and dealing with high levels of ongoing chronic fatigue. Time spent sick in bed comes with loneliness, missed opportunities, and perhaps hardest of all, a lot of time spent inside your own head.

In What Katy Did, we follow Katy as she spends about four years in bed. We are with Katy as she struggles to accept her new reality. We are with her as she builds a deep connection with her disabled cousin. We are with her as she endevours to enjoy her new life to the fullest. For me, this mindset journey feels familiar. I see myself in Katy. At 13 years old, I enjoyed Katy and her lively character, but at 23 years old, and as a disabled and chronically ill woman, I feel a deep sense of connection to Katy.

So I picked up What Katy Did last week to re-read. I re-read it because of the camaraderie I feel with Katy. I also read it to remind myself that my life may look different right now, but I can still have meaning in my life. I can still do good.

With that, I want to leave you with this poem straight out of What Katy Did. It reminds me that no matter what pain I feel or what I am experiencing, there is still learning to be done. There is lots of be learn in the School of Pain.

IN SCHOOL

I used to go to a bright school

Where Youth and Frolic taught in turn;

But idle scholar that I was

I liked to play, I would not learn;

So the Great Teacher did ordain

That I should try the School of Pain.

One of the infant class I am

With little easy lessons, set

In a great book; the higher class

Have harder ones than I, and yet

I find mine hard, and can't restrain

My tears while studying thus with Pain.

There are two teachers in the school,

One has a gentle voice and low,

And smiles upon her scholars, as

She softly passes to and fro.

Her name is Love; 'tis very plain

She shuns the sharper teacher, Pain.

Or so I sometimes think; and then,

At other times they meet and kiss,

And look so strangely like, that I

Am puzzled to tell how it is,

Or whence the change which makes it vain

To guess if it be - Love or Pain.

They tell me if I study well,

And learn my lesson, I shall be

Moved upward to that higher class

Where dear Love teaches constantly;

And I work hard, in hopes to gain

Reward, and get away from Pain.

Yet Pain is sometimes kind, and helps

Me on when I am very dull;

I thank him often in my heart,

But Love is far more beautiful;

Under her tender, gentle reign

I must learn faster than of Pain.

So I will do my very best,

Nor chide the clock, nor call it slow;

That when the teacher calls me up

To see if I am fit to go,

I may to Love's high class attain,

And bid a sweet good-bye to Pain.

Sarah Chauncey Woolsey