On Wednesday, April 18, I won a pen at the Dale Carnegie
course that I am taking for work training requirement fulfillment. The pen says “Outstanding Performance,” and
was awarded to me after telling a story about a “defining moment” for me. The award was partly for how I told the story
(public speaking is one of the components of the course, and I am comfortable
doing that) and partly, I think, for the courage it took for me to tell the
story in front of about 25 people.
I have never told the full story to anyone but my
parents, who are now gone, so telling it in front of a group was, itself, I
suppose, a defining moment. I decided to
write the story and tell it here on my blog. The story does make some people feel uncomfortable, which is why I have never spilled it in its entirety--most people would be too shocked to continue asking questions about the full sequence of events.
Let me preface this story with some background. I have been an “outstanding performer” my
entire life. I began teaching myself to
play the piano when I was 4. I had my IQ
tested when I was in first grade, and it was at that time near 150. My Dad wanted the grade school to skip me at
least 2 grades, but they would not do it, citing my lack of emotional
maturity. That was probably a smart move
on the school’s part, since to this day I still consider the social graces one
of my weaker points.
I was at the head of the class intellectually from then
on through high school. I was
fast-tracked formally beginning in fifth grade, and was able to study higher
level Spanish, math and English on my own, with minimal help from the
teachers. I rarely needed to be told to
not raise my hand in class—the teachers knew that I always knew the answers,
but I didn’t want to always be stealing the show or making the other kids look
dumb.
As much as I made an effort to not stand out, you know
how kids are—I was known as the smart girl who got all the attention from the
teachers. There was really nothing I
could do to change anyone’s mind, but I began to feel increasingly separated from
everyone else. I had one or two close
friends that were cool with me, and I did normal play stuff for my age.
In seventh grade, I switched to the junior high school
and for the first time, encountered some teachers who were put off by my
intelligence, as about this time, I began to challenge some of what was being
taught, particularly in literature interpretation. This was entertaining to me that a kid could intimidate
a teacher, but I didn’t sweat it. About
this same time, I finally escaped my physical spazziness. I still remember being able to turn my first
cartwheel, and I joined the intramural girl’s basketball team and played
center! Can you believe that? We won, and puny little me was at the center
of it all!
I continued to be fast-tracked in English, Spanish and
math, but sat through other classes at my grade level, even though I was
typically bored. Still, I understood the
value of a broad education.
Next, I began attending high school. Apparently, the entire faculty hadn’t been
debriefed on this smart girl and how they would need to give me special
treatment unless they wanted an ugly situation on their hands. All along to this time, Dad made sure that no
teacher stood in the way of my ability to continue excelling and marching ahead
of the other kids my age. I remember
being placed into freshman Spanish, and the teacher, Senor Llerandi (his son is
Mike—a really good triathlete!), instantly recognizing that I was far ahead
(like 4 years) of the other students. He
instantly took me under his wing and was happy to give me advanced study and
allow me to tutor other students.
The same thing happened in freshman math—whatever that
curriculum was! There was a kid, Steve,
that could tell I was far ahead of the class, and he must have felt intimidated
because he told me he was taking Russian and German, which I guess he thought
were far more difficult than Spanish, and wanted to hold that over me. So I signed up for Russian and German, not to
challenge him, but to challenge me. Within maybe 2 weeks, the teachers for those
languages could see the innate talent I had for picking up languages, and I
promptly flew to the head of those classes and ended up tutoring other kids. I recall being able to think in all 3
languages at the same time, and sometimes would mix and match what came out of
my mouth! It was fun for me, but easy—languages
are structured concepts with rules and such, much like math, so it felt normal
to me to study 3 at once.
I loved the studies, I loved helping the other kids
along, but still this was high school, so if I had felt like I’d been singled
out before for being the smart girl, it was even more apparent now. Somewhere in the background, the faculty was
made aware of me—partly because I was pretty unique in the school, and partly
because I’d had 2 brothers and a sister attend the same high school ahead of
me, and they were pretty smart, too, but I was going far beyond them. I remember a few times during my first weeks
of high school being asked by a teacher, “are you ’s sister?” It was probably
annoying to my brother Mike, who was 2 years older than me and in the same
school while I was there. He never told
me what anyone else said to him—we weren’t very close at the time.
The one fun part of high school for me was that there was
a handful of other kids who excelled in math, and we were put into classes with
older kids, so at least I wasn’t alone in that area being singled out for
throwing the curve on all tests! We were
geeky nerds before it became fashionable!
Math was my favorite subject.
I took Advanced Placement tests in English and math, and
scored really high on them. I had my
pick of several colleges to attend, all offering me full academic scholarships,
and one that offered me a combined music/math program tailored to me. I forget to mention that I was a pretty good
piano player, but I didn’t give it as much attention as I gave to my studies,
and didn’t feel I was receiving adequate coaching in that area to major in it,
so I concentrated on my academics instead.
I ended up choosing Northwestern University, partly
because it was close to home, and my parents didn’t have money for me to be
flying around the country. I also wanted
to attend a college with a student body bigger than my high school (there were
about 3,000 students at the time I graduated high school) so that I could just
blend into the masses and not be known as the smart girl anymore.
I had a full academic scholarship to NU the entire time I
was there. I’d saved some money up for
extracurricular activities by working during high school. Let me backtrack a bit. I’d learned to type while in seventh grade,
and it came naturally to me as I’d been playing piano since I was very
young. Within about a week in the class,
I was over 80 words per minute, and I quickly got up to about 125. My Mom was super fast at typing, but I
exceeded her, and being my Mom, she couldn’t exactly be jealous of me, now
could she?
I attended summer school from seventh grade through
sophomore high school because, well, I loved school! But junior year of high school, I got my
first job working at a fabric store. I
loved it, because I’d taught myself to sew when I was in seventh grade (mostly
because my Mom no longer had time to make my clothes and I wanted to relieve
her of that obligation), and it was fun to be immersed in a store where I could
help others choose nice things and offer advice on material and patterns. The summer before college, Mom got me a job
at Allen Aircraft in Elk Grove Village as a typist. Once again, I showed up, was the fastest
typist they had ever seen, and this alienated a few other girls, as I received
all sorts of attention for my talents. And
my looks. By this time, I’d gone from
dark brown hair to very light blond, and I’d slimmed down after the puberty had
put some fat on me. I won’t go into what
the result of my then looks were, but let’s just say I didn’t suffer for men’s
attention!
So I’d saved money from working in high school—the first
thing I bought was contact lenses, and the next thing was a bicycle—a white,
Italian Casati. I liked biking here and
there, and the bike I’d had since fifth grade was defunct, so I was pretty happy
to have a new, really cool 10-speed! I
wanted a bike that I could easily carry up stairs. If I recall, that bike cost like $250 at the
time, and was considered fairly high end.
I gave it away about 5 years ago, as it was just collecting dust.
When I got to NU, I ended up pledging a sorority, Delta
Zeta, and because I wanted to live in the house and needed to pay dues, I found
a part-time job working for a genetics professor. Initially, I was pre-med (I ended up changing to math major during junior year, and if I had done that sooner, could have had a Masters degree in 4 years--oh well!), and while I studied
hard, I had decided that I wanted to have fun in college and a bit more of a
social life than I’d had through high school.
My sophomore year, I was elected Social Chairman of the sorority, and my
first order of business was to demand a bigger budget for parties!
Can you imagine me as a Social Chairman? While I wasn’t particularly good at making
friends, which I think was one of the drivers behind joining a sorority in the
first place, since it gives you instant friends, I thought I’d challenge myself
by becoming Social Chairman and seeing how I could contribute in that
area. I did a great job, but it was a
lot of work in addition to my studies and my job, so I gladly passed the baton
on that after a year.
I did OK in college, but was OK not getting straight A’s. I was one of the valedictorians in high
school (there were 5 if I recall correctly), but when I got to NU, I was
surrounded by people of that caliber, which was so much fun for me. So I had successfully achieved becoming a
small fish in a big pond.
The first week I arrived at NU for new student week, I
was registering for classes and was puzzled that they wouldn’t let me into
sophomore math and English. I went to
the registrar, and they told me they had no record of my AP tests! Also they said that I would need to take a
foreign language, as I hadn’t taken any in high school! WTF???
Rather than try and cut through red tape, I thought, fuck
it, I will sit for your stupid placement tests.
So I did. I sat for Spanish, math
and English. I proved handily that I
knew my Spanish, and I placed into sophomore level math and English. I ended up being bored in the math class
(some bullshit calculus) and skipping most of the classes. The professor did not like this, and called
me to his office (I did show up for tests).
He said I would need to sit for a special final exam that he would make
up for me. I was like BRING IT, and had
to take the exam sitting in his office.
We had 4 hours, and I was finished in an hour, and I aced it 100%. When that same professor called me to review
the test results with him, he admitted he understood that I had a special
talent for math, and he asked me what I planned to do with it. He put the seed of actuarial science into my
head, I mentioned it to my Mom, and she knew a woman whose husband was an
actuary, and long story short, I got a job working at Towers Perrin consultancy
(now part of Watson Wyatt) while I was still in college.
Sorry I am taking twists and turns here, but the math
professor that made me sit for the special calculus class was again my
professor during senior year of college for the Measure Theory class, and he
also taught the Probability and Statistics class for math majors, which I was
also taking. I took P&S to help with
the actuarial exams, and was taking the theoretical basis for it at the same
time! The professor loved me and would
often ask questions in the P&S class that he knew only I could answer. Interesting turn of events, don’t you think?
So I was lucky to get a great paying job while I was
still in college at Towers Perrin (well, it really wasn’t so much luck as
seizing an opportunity), and the intent was for me to go full time upon
graduation, which I did. I couldn’t
believe I had landed there at the salary they gave me just for doing stuff I
liked doing! Initially, I just went to
their office to see what actuaries did, but as soon as I walked in the door,
they handed me a job application, so I filled it out. At first, they didn’t hire me because they
didn’t think I’d had enough programming (I had one class in FORTRAN in college),
but one man who interviewed me thought I was something special, so he arranged
an interview with the owner (the company was privately held for many years). The owner was really impressed with me, and I
was hired. The job was all math, and I
learned programming there and got to work with some really super smart people,
so I was in hog heaven! I got my own
apartment in Chicago near Loyola University and took the El downtown every day
for work.
And now I get to the story I told last week at Dale
Carnegie, although this written version will be much longer—I only had 2
minutes to speak last week.
I was 25 years old.
It was January, and I was walking home from work. I was wearing a dress I had sewn—a one-piece
made of a copper and white print. It was
my favorite dress at the time. I was
wearing a coat that I had made. My Mom
had given me a really cool coat of hers that I wore out during college, but
loved the unique design, and so I took it apart and remade the coat with all
new fabric. It had an ermine collar, and
I loved wearing that on it, too.
I got to the door to my apartment building and put the
key in the lock. Immediately, I felt the
sharp blade of a knife on my neck, and something metal against the side of my
head. I figured it was a gun. There were two men. They made me walk with them, with the knife
and gun on me, up to my apartment. First
they wanted all my money. I did not
carry much cash on me, but I gave it to them—I think it was $30. They insisted I must have more in my
apartment, so they began ransacking it.
One of them emptied every drawer and closet and box while the other kept
the weapons on me.
Next they made me strip and they began raping me one at a
time. Over and over. While telling me that I was the cause of all
their problems, being white and rich (they were black). While holding the gun to my head and the
knife at my throat.
All I could think was 2 things: 1) I need to disassociate
my body from this and stay within my mind and 2) with my mind going full force,
I have to figure a way out of this. I
was raped over and over for 3 hours. I
did not cry. I did not let myself feel
what they were doing to me physically.
But I could not let my mind give up and give in to the tirades of these
people. I never once acknowledged that I
was responsible for any of their situation.
I can’t remember exactly what I said to them, other than I recall
steering them around to the thought that I would let them walk out of here and
they would never be found. They were
both wearing stockings over their faces, and I doubted that I could identify
them anyway. I had a bigger objective in
mind which was to stay alive.
It turned out that one of them was the “leader” and the
other was just along for the ride. The
assistant ended up telling me that this wasn’t his idea, and that he thought
that they should let me go. Somehow I
appealed to this man and convinced him that all would be OK, that they could
take whatever they wanted, but to please go.
At this point, I suppose it didn’t matter whether they killed me or
not. I just wanted it to be over. I’d already had my dignity stripped
away. I didn’t care about any of my
material possessions—all I cared about was my life. I didn’t have any of those “life flashing
before your eyes” sensations—it was just one of pure survival instinct. I also didn’t have a sense of time during
this—they’d taken the watch off my hand right away, and I was being held in the
living room where there were no clocks.
I was living moment to moment. I
knew that nothing could be worse than this current moment, but I had no time to
engage in hatred or self-pity. Those
things would not save me. I did not
pray. God would not save me—what would
save me would have to be ME and me alone.
Near the end of the ordeal, these men took my TV and my
sewing machine out the door, of course, while one was keeping watch over
me. They did not take my bike. The only memory I have of the actual
rape was at this time—the assistant had his dick in me telling me it was going
to be OK. He even told me I was
pretty. I can remember lying there
looking up at this person--no doubt with a rather vacant stare--and despite my physical circumstance, knowing he was
telling me the truth. A few minutes later, he got up and out of me, and left. I waited maybe 1 minute before I got up off
the floor and ran to the back door and locked it, called the police and threw
some clothes on. My apartment was in
shambles. My favorite dress was tossed
on the floor, but I still had it, and the beautiful coat I had made was still
there. I was still the same person who
had walked home from work that day wearing those clothes and smiling. I called Mom and Dad. I could barely tell them what had happened. They met me at the hospital where I was taken
by the police to be examined and cleaned up.
I was a mess.
But I was alive. I
didn’t know it right then—it took a few years—but by surviving that, I knew I
was able to do anything I ever wanted to do. And nobody was ever going to beat
me down or take anything from me that they did not have the right to take. Despite having experienced true evil, I have
never harbored any bigotry towards black men or any particular person. What happened to me was two scarred people
and a random act of violence. They were
never caught, but judging from how drugged up they were, I am sure they did not
live very long.
But I did. I
suppose this is one of the reasons I became drawn towards endurance
sports. I try not to act jaded when
someone tells me of the “suffering” they experienced during a marathon or
Ironman, or even longer distance events.
I try not to roll my eyes when yet another person tells me I am crazy,
or calls me a mutant, or expounds on how they would never train the way I do
(even though I know they often wish they could). I am not sure anyone would really want to
have had the experience I had that would give them the mental fortitude to
think of a 5-hour ride on the trainer, that I will do today, as “no big deal.” It really isn’t. To me.
I no longer have that dress. I wore the shit out of it. Every single time I wore it, I knew I was
strong. And beautiful. And that no external event would ever define
me. Not violence, not some race, not the
pretty flowers that grow in my yard, not the beautiful bikes that I own and
love to ride, not anything on the outside.
But that is what most people see and want to believe about me. Inside me is this person who is strong and
loving and compassionate. That is how I
like being viewed.
I still have the coat.
I rarely wear it, but when I do, I remember what we have gone through
together. I bought the same sewing
machine to replace the one that was stolen.
I still have it! I still sew on
it, but up until this moment, it has never reminded me of what happened. It is just a thing. I bought the same TV to replace the one that
was stolen. It only died 5 years
ago. The same year that Dad died. It was just a TV. When Dad died, I felt worse than when I had
been raped. Grief is mental pain. Mental pain is far worse than the physical pain
I’d experienced.
When 9/11/2001 happened, it was shortly after I did my first Ironman in Lake Placid. That is the only time that the remembrance of my rape and robbery came back to me full force. I couldn't stop watching the news stories about the people on the airplanes that were crashed into the Twin Towers or onto the ground. I knew exactly what it felt like to be faced with the ultimate senseless act of violence, but to remain strong and keep one's integrity. There were days during that week when I just went outside and screamed at the top of my lungs, "I KNOW HOW YOU FELT" even though those people who died on those airplanes couldn't hear me. I knew they had died remaining true to themselves and their country and their fellow man. What those people did was heroic. What I did was self-preservation.
I hate it when people call someone a hero for just doing what it takes to save themselves--like lose weight, overcome an addiction, or pick themselves up after a life-changing event. That is not an act of heroism. That is mental fortitude. I am surely not a hero. I saved myself. That's all. But sometimes by saving yourself, you can help save others, and so I guess part of my mission on Earth is to help others save part of themselves in some small way. The way I try and do that is by showing others what can be done. If it comes off at times as arrogance, good genetics or luck, I don't really care. I know where it comes from. It comes from within, plain and simple.
I suppose it’s appropriate that during the year in which
I have lofty triathlon goals that I would step up and tell this story. It’s been 30 years since it happened, and I
truly don’t think of it very often, but I feel good that I was able to tell the
story in public, both in person, and now here. Maybe you see a
different side of me now. Please don’t
pity me. Hell, I am just happy to be
alive! And if I can kick some ass at the
races this year, well, that is just so much more icing on my cake!
