“The tough-looking blonde over there,” is how Darlene was described to us nearly fifteen years ago when we launched our ongoing project with formerly incarcerated women in Massachusetts. Our first conversation was brief; her words were clipped. She gave the impression that she was annoyed, that she was in a hurry to go somewhere important.

But appearances and reality don’t always match.  That was the case with Darlene.  We came to know her as a warm and loving person who would “give you the shirt off her back” often expecting nothing in return. 

Darlene survived a difficult childhood in which it was made abundantly clear that men and boys are always more important than women and girls. Things were not much better at school where she was punished for behavior related to her undiagnosed ADHD. By her late teens she left both home and school, trying to make it on her own. She frequently managed to find work, though the jobs were unsteady and poorly paid. She entered multiple relationships with problematic men, each a little worse than the one before.  Many bad years ensued, ending with a stint in prison in her early forties.

Shortly after we met, Darlene finally caught the break she’d hoped for her whole life. Through a friend she’d met while in prison, she got a job as a personal care assistant (PCA) for a disabled, elderly couple. She loved the work — loved feeling that she could help other people, and the couple she cared for appreciated and respected her, even taking her with them on family vacations. With a steady job, she was able to rent an apartment that she loved fixing up. She made it clear that she’d had enough of “useless” guys. “I like what I have a home, car, job and don’t want to lose it.  Sometimes I feel so grateful.  It is amazing when you think of where I came from.” 

After the elderly couple passed away, Darlene moved to another part of the country to help out her daughter and be near her grandchildren. Never liking to sit still, she took a job at a factory where she often worked the night shift. In photos from that period, Darlene looks like an average middle-American, working class, white woman: Slightly overweight, holding plates of food at family bar-b-ques, sporting nicely cut gray hair, and playing with smiling grandchildren.

To put these accomplishments in context, Darlene was the only one among the 47 women in our project who managed to rent an apartment in her own name on the open market and hold down a decent job for a substantial amount of time.

Still, Darlene never made quite enough to afford a reliable car or save money for a rainy day. And as much as she relished having a job, by the time she was in her mid-fifties her health deteriorated and she could no longer work. A year or so before she passed away, a friend told us, “Darlene can’t really walk [anymore]. She was a PCA [personal care assistant] and now she has a PCA.” 

Rest in peace, Darlene. You will be missed.

This obituary was written by Maureen Norton-Hawk and Susan Sered, co-authors of Can’t Catch a Break: Gender, Jail, Drugs, and the Limits of Personal Responsibility.