Big Sally's Red Independence

I returned home to my birth place, Lexington, Kentucky to visit my Father, Stepmother and the rest of the Lynam clan. One in particular I'm looking forward to seeing is my Aunt Sally.

She has always been a beacon of spirit, pride and determination. I've always looked up to her and admired her. Most of all her love is immense and unyielding.

When Sally was a young girl it was found that she had Cerebral Palsy and it crippled her to were she could barely walk and slurred her speech. In the time she grew up she was looked on with pity and hid from the world.

By the time I came along she had already come into her own yet had so much more to prove to the world and herself. She loved all her kin's children with great joy. Sally was not one to accept any one's pity any longer. As a matter of fact just a look her way with anything but proud eyes incurred her wrath and sometimes life long silence.

In the summer of 1975 my brothers and I were visiting and I noticed she had a car. Not just a brand new fire red car but a car nonetheless. The family gave her such a hard time about this because she surely wouldn't be able to drive with her legs as bad as they were. With a thumb of her nose she had the car configured for a handicapped person so she could drive with her hands. She drove us boys all over town with her head held up and a glorious smile. Ever since that summer she has been a source of great inspiration. She went on to get a job and eventually by her own house. She proved beyond a doubt she was Big Sally not only to me but anyone that looked to her with anything but proud eyes.


Big Sally's Red Independence

Big Sally rides in on her red independence
Filling the air with a sense of pride today
Some said she wouldn't live another
Crippled in her physical dependence
Yet try to take her pain away
and she'll pull it in all her own
She built her righteous house
from the hearts of pitiful sighs
You can set her religion on fire
Yet she'll be the one to burn it down
Don't be mistaken in your wit
Big Sally will show you a hard back
She lives as free as her soul inspires
Her mother hold searches for a child
I'm Big Sally's baby boy for her
She loves to hear my beam delight
Sing to me a Sally ride to rapture
A solitude of flights to a white room
where her momma speaks in a white dress
She brings Big Sally a peaceful joy
Comforts her with a hush to kiss
Big Sally drives on in her red independence
Picks up her baby boy, her peaceful boy
Don't' bring to her a dead heart
Nor a blind passion with a false enchantment
Big Sally shoulder me a daydream delightful
A big red inspiration of independence

D.Lynam 11/98