A Life-Size Sita

My aunt successfully defended her dissertation last week before a panel. Her doctorate is pretty much in the bag. This event marks a cornerstone of not only her life, but of my father’s family. Allyson endured a struggle throughout her life, for which my father and his parents gave their unconditional support. In retrospect, her life most easily parallels that of an epic such as the Ramayana than any of the Bealls’ life stories.


My grandfather with Allyson, one of her pillars of support.

As a young girl, Allyson developed a strong love of horses. Her parents bought her first horse, Sunny, when she was twelve. She rode Sunny throughout high school, graduated, and went to college at the University of Washington. Sunny stayed at home. She nearly graduated from college with a bachelor’s degree, lacking only five credit hours, but she dropped out in order to pursue her equestrian interests. She packed up and moved across the country with her boyfriend to his estate in Florida. Together, they set up an equine training center, a business that did very well, considering the unlikelihood of success in the equine business. Taking care of horses is not the typical nine-to-five job. Rather, it involves hard, physical work seven days a week in any weather. This sort of work didn’t faze Allyson as a young woman, but as she aged, health problems exacerbated by the physical labor began to take their toll. She aged emotionally also as her relationship with her increasingly irate boyfriend decomposed, and eventually fell apart.
She left him. My father traveled to the estate in Florida where together they packed up Sunny (who had stayed with her all those years) and a few belongings, and trekked across the country back to Washington. She lived with her parents for a good year or so before she collected herself, found her new direction, and went back to the university.


Shortly after leaving Florida, the years of hard work and emotional stress are evident in her face.

By the end of this month, she will be the second of my grandparents’ two children to be called Dr. Beall.

The courage Allyson exhibited in her willingness leaving two decades of her life behind likens to that of Sita and her readiness to “walk through the fire” (1068). Though her life would never be the same again, Sita shows no hesitation in walking through the fire of fidelity for Rama. Allyson’s faith in herself helped her walk through fire, after which, she was reborn as an intellectual, a pioneer in the environmental sciences. Wiley mentioned this cycle, noting that he has already, “died and been reborn many times” at the university.

The two decades she spent as an equine professional parallel that time spent “on the other side of the hedge” (729). Though at first happy living her childhood dream, she later became disillusioned, realizing that she needed to get back to the “road”. So she did, literally and metaphorically.

Allyson’s journey from early adulthood to middle-age have been by no means treated her kindly. Adam, in Shakespeare’s As You Like It empathizes with those such as Allyson, having to start over late in life.

“From seventeen years till now almost fourscore / Here lived I, but now live here no more./ At seventeen years many their fortunes seek;/ But at fourscore it is too late a week” (1084).

Adam goes on to say that though he is aging and has not yet made his fortune, nothing would compensate for his pains better than to finally relieve himself of his debt to his master. In a like manner, Allyson finally relieved herself of an unhealthy life, though it took all the strength she had in her to do it.


In this picture, taken this summer, Allyson is clearly happier, though the marks of her journey on her body are unfortunately, permanent.

That old pony, Sunny, died last year after thirty five years with Allyson. Thirty five years. That's a remarkable age for a horse, but I'm almost glad that she died. It's as if Allyson's last tie to her past finally broke, allowing her to finally push off.