Dr. Jean Uelmen
Working Through Adversity to Help the Children of Guatemala
February 1947 – March 2005
At the age of 57, Dr. Jean Uelmen’s body finally set her free. If you were listening at the right moment, you might have heard her laughing, for indeed Jean’s entire life has been about attaining freedom.
Ironically, the body that entrapped her also gave her the freedom to live an extraordinary life. Jean was born with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) like two of her siblings, who died in infancy. It was assumed that she too would die at an early age.
Jean was confined to a wheelchair with limited mobility in her arms and none in her legs. She was dependent upon others for her personal care and her interactions with the outside world. And for the latter half of her life she suffered acute pain.
Jean experienced freedom from an early age. Her parents did not expect her to live; they did not fill her with the inhibitions, rules, and regulations that most children inherit. Expecting to die at any time however, had a flip side. No one anticipated her achieving anything in her short life, and she was placed in special education classes, where there were no expectations for the handicapped.
Jean reacted with a fierce drive to learn and achieve. She made the decision early on that she would overcome all obstacles in order to make the best possible life for herself. It was important for her not to be a cripple who had managed to do something with her life. Instead, she wanted to be someone who did something with her life and who also happened to be handicapped.
Until Jean made peace with her disability, she battled with trying to be a “normie”. She struggled to prove to herself and others that she could live a normal existence. It was important for her to demonstrate she could live alone and support herself, and that she was desirable – as a friend, a lover, and an employee.
In her late twenties, Jean experienced a major transformation when she gave up wanting to be a “normie” and was contented to be herself. It was then that she was able to integrate her “crippleness”. This new freedom led to a time of awakening.
Jean graduated from Long Beach California College with an MS in Speech Pathology. After five years of working with autistic children, she had saved enough money to buy a house in Los Angeles and was able to move out of her parents’ home. Jean began to do things she had never done before, like buying a refrigerator and obtaining a credit card. At last she felt as if she had become part of normal everyday life. During this period, Jean began to date and have boyfriends. She discovered that besides pain, her body could also give her pleasure.
This carefree life ended when Jean decided to return to university to study for a PhD in Educational Psychology at the University of Southern California (USC). Paradoxically, it was her disability that gave her the freedom to change careers. The State of California funded the two years it took her to complete her doctorate. Once again, the very thing that imprisoned her also set her free.
In her early thirties, Jean made the startling discovery during a medical evaluation at the UCLA hospital that it was highly probable she would live to be sixty. This new reality clashed with her devil-may-care attitude. Jean was bewildered and searched for something to add meaning to her life for the next twenty-five years. That was when she decided to have a child. She was not held back by expectations of a traditional family. Teresa, her companion, who had become like a sister, also wanted to have a child. Together they decided to have a non-traditional family: their daughters, Claire and Julia, were born when Jean was 37.
In the late 1980’s Jean’s health began to deteriorate due to frequent attacks of bronchitis. She needed a warm climate. In October of 1989, Jean moved from California to Guatemala with her family. Jean’s body responded well to the Guatemalan climate and her health immediately began to improve.
Living in Antigua was not without its challenges – the cobblestone streets for example – but Jean fit right into the family-centered Guatemalan culture. She found the community full of people who reached out to her and who were generous at heart. Jean never felt she was a burden, even when special arrangements had to be made for her. That was a very important gift to her.
Jean did not believe she would return to practicing psychotherapy because of the language barrier. However, one day Teresa met a distressed woman from the United States at church, and referred her to Jean. That is how her psychotherapy practice in Antigua started. She also ran personal development groups.
Jean enjoyed her work here far more than she had in the United States. She experienced more freedom to be creative, for example, by using hypnotherapy or weaving spirituality into psychotherapy. Also, the type of clients she had here was different from those she had worked with in the United States. She found the clients here could cope better with life and also had a broader experience of the world. This was an interesting passage from the universe of Jean’s restricted, faster-paced Californian life.
In 1997, before Jean turned 50, her health took a turn for the worse. She suddenly lost all strength in her arms, and the pain increased to an intolerable level. Something was needed quickly to reverse the decline. Jean once said she may never have won a lottery, but she always had the best of luck in her life. Within two days a friend telephoned to say there was a new medicine on trail and did she want to try it? In keeping with her philosophy to always say yes to challenges, Jean accepted the offer. The Colastrum had amazing results and gave Jean a good five years of health. But then she began losing strength again, contracting pneumonia and suffering heart attacks.
In May 2004 Jean closed her practice and ended a part of her life she had enjoyed so much. Her health was failing fast, and she wanted to devote what little energy she had left to her daughters who were visiting that summer.
Jean loved storytelling and writing. She wrote two novels: an autobiography and two self-help books (one on trauma, which was translated and published in Guatemala). When her two daughters left home in January 2001, Jean decided to set aside her writing and devote herself, along with others, to developing a children’s library in San Miguel Dueñas. This soon developed into more than just a library by offering educational programs and in 2003 expanded to include a computer center. It is now a US-registered, 501©(3) non-profit organization called Open Windows Foundation and is Jean’s legacy.
Despite the hard work in setting up the library, it gave Jean an enormous amount of pleasure. She found it so satisfying to see the children’s faces light up as they learned to read, however, it was much more than that for her.
For Jean, it was about giving the children from this small town the freedom of choice. For her it was a completion, the closing of a circle. She had been born into a situation in which she could have been deprived of her freedom of choice. However, through struggle, courage, and fortitude, she found her freedom. In the final years of her life she passed this opportunity onto others. Jean continued to work on Open Windows right up to her final day.
That final day seemed slow in coming, but the tools that Jean had developed over the years to help her overcome her physical challenges, also gave her peace in her final days. Once again her soul was ready to be free, but her body imprisoned her. During the end she lived on a thread of strength and whatever comforts the medical world could provide. Jean gave her body the respect it deserved, until it set her free.
(Written by Karmen Guevara)