In Praise of Mouthy Girls

I told her a little bit about the beatings that were happening in our home--which I'd revealed to no other "worldly" person, as we called non-believers--and she urged me, in no uncertain--and pretty salty--terms, to get out.  One day in the school cafeteria, when I'd explained that my real father (whom we were forbidden to see) had been expelled from the religion for his pack-a-day habit, she asked, "What kind of a god gives more of a shit about smoking than somebody who whales on little kids?"

What kind of a god, indeed?  With one flippant sentence, she upended my acquiescence to a code that I didn't, in my heart, believe. 

When I wrote my memoir The Truth Book, I included that scene, which was a huge motivation in my decision to run away from home. 

In the acknowledgments at the end of the book, I wrote, as the very last line, "And to Beth Loughney, mouthy girl, wherever you are."  I hadn't seen her since I was fourteen, a runaway in rural West Virginia, and I didn't expect to.  I just wanted to thank her from the bottom of my heart, however I could.

But soon after the book was published, I was contacted by a reader in Arkansas, a TV journalist who was himself an ex-Jehovah's Witness and who, because of his job, had access to vast databases. 

"Do you want me to find Mouthy Girl for you?" he offered. 

And he very rapidly did, and I will always be grateful to him for reconnecting us.  I still remember when we first spoke on the phone.  I sat on the stairs of my home, trembling and laughing with tears in my eyes.  Her voice was instantly recognizable:  confident, solid, sure.  She was living in Berkeley--which seemed hilariously right--and I was getting ready to tour with The Truth Book in Washington State, so she flew up to Seattle and got a room in the same hotel.  We talked non-stop between my events--ate, drank, talked, and talked some more. 

Still brilliant, still forceful, she'd had a busy, important life full of accomplishments (mostly in male-dominated work settings), including helping an Eastern European nation dismantle its nuclear arms arsenal after the Berlin Wall came down.  She is fearless.  Her current position involved a variety of business projects in which she problem-solved to turn troubled companies around--at great profit to herself and others.  Her trademark work phrase made me laugh out loud:  "Okay, let's unfuck it."  So direct, so matter-of-fact, so funny and proactive.

We spent two wonderful days together, and it was unbelievably moving to catch up.    After my reading at Seattle Pacific University, the student journalist interviewed Beth as well as me.

When I did readings a few months later in the Bay Area, I got to see Beth again.  I saw her beautiful house in Berkeley and met her cool husband Larry. Her life was a happy, fulfilled, engaged one, as mine had become.  I am so, so glad we reconnected.  Beth is warm, tough, and indomitable, and she has never let herself be silenced.

So here's to mouthy girls and guys!  You never know when something you say will change someone's life forever.  Don't hold back.  Speak out, speak up.  "The life you save may be your own," wrote Flannery O'Connor, but you might also save someone else along the way.