The book that saved me: When my family was "Gone With The Wind," Scarlett O'Hara gave me the strength I needed

When I needed a book to read for a high school history assignment, I picked "Gone With the Wind." 

That was cool. 

Because following a woman as she crawled through the destruction of her way of life was exactly what I needed to pull me through the dissolution of my family. 

My teacher chose the book because its vivid portrait of how Southern plantations like Tara crumbled after the Civil War had enough history woven in to qualify as homework.

But I chose the book because it was free, since I found a copy on my mother's bookshelves. Also, I figured a novel would be less boring than my other options. 

And from the first page I was hooked on the unapologetic audacity of Miss Scarlett O'Hara, though at first we seemed to have nothing in common but a talent for repelling other women.

She was wealthy, I was not. She was boy crazy, I was not. She spent her days in fancy dresses and hairdos she didn't want to muss up while dreaming of marriage, and I spent mine dreaming of the days when I could climb trees because I wasn't suddenly expected to wear stupid skirts and sandals.

But soon I had more in common with Scarlett than anyone else.

"Did your dad give you a big hug this morning?" my Spanish teacher asked when I returned to school after my mother's death. Though all my teachers were told what happened, Mr. Riordan knew the most about my family since he also taught Driver's Ed, and heard all about my parents while taking me home after lessons.

So he was the only person at school to even mention the crash that cratered my life, but my face made him immediately regret the kindness. And as he turned to the blackboard and tried to pretend the question was never asked, I sat at my desk and tried to remember the last person who hugged me.

Not my father, who was still in bed when I left the house. 

Not my best friend, who just sat quietly next to me when I began sobbing into my lunch, realizing my mother would never make me another sandwich.

Not my sister, who had moved out after making it clear our mother's death would not suddenly make us close: "You just want to talk about it to make yourself feel better."

No, the last hug had been at her memorial, a day that wrapped me in supportive arms and words that felt like a life jacket keeping me afloat.

But soon the sympathy moved on, my sister moved out, and now it was just me and my father swimming with no land in sight. 

And when I began to wonder how much longer I could keep my head above water, and who would even care if I stopped trying, I thought of Scarlett, who'd handled far worse. 

Because she came home to a mother gone and a father gone useless, but also had a household to support. To eat she had to figure out how to go crops, I just had to figure out how to buy food and cook it. 

And while my father unable to take care of me, he could at least still take care of himself, mostly, so again I was a bit better off than her. So if Scarlett could keep going, I told myself, then so could I.

It made perfect sense to me that the friend I needed was in a book, since I had always  found more acceptance and companionship with girls like Pippi Longstocking and Harriet the Spy than girls I met in real life.

An odd kid from an odd family with a secret not even we talked about, I had never learned to confide in others about what was going on in my home. And I wasn't about to start when it was just my father and me left, because I feared being taken to live somewhere much worse.

I do recognize that many people find the depictions of slavery in "Gone With the Wind" to be very painful reminders of an unforgivable chapter in American history, and they might feel that Scarlett O'Hara, who fully embraced the ownership of fellow human beings, should not be celebrated in any way. 

But the grit Margaret Mitchell breathed into that deeply flawed character helped me survive a devastating chapter in my life that I truly believed was not survivable. And I feel that not giving both the author and her character credit for that help would be more unforgivable than her portrayal of a shameful chapter in American history.

Because on mornings when I just couldn't get out of bed, sure no one would care if I never went to school again, picturing Scarlett steeling her shoulders to the next task helped me push off the covers and stand up when nothing else could. 

Then she picked up her skirts, and we both walked out the door. 

***

Real-life role model: After my father remarried and moved away, my grandmother stepped in to protect and support my sister and I as we moved into adulthood, and she soon became an even more important inspiration than Scarlett O'Hara for the next 30 years.

But my grandmother was a very reserved, even prickly, person who kept everyone at arm's length, even her granddaughters. And it wasn't until after she died and I found her journals that I finally felt close to her. Maybe I've always need to read people on the page to understand them?

See her journals and hear about her long, full life in this video: