Does It Really Matter?

So, I’m going to have to suspend my story for awhile. It seemed so important at the time, with David’s harsh death. I wanted to reach out and express the experiences I had that made this kind of thing possible. To maybe help prevent it ever happening again in the future. Instead I am only revisiting deeply painful times full of loneliness, loss, and self-loathing. I am finding it more difficult to write…. feeling like I am only trying to justify a life that is less than exemplary. Intellectually I know I have an illness that effects the brain and the way you think and reason….. distorts emotions. But emotionally, I apparently haven’t accepted at some deep level all of this is not my fault. That if I were a better person none of this would have ever happened. I supose there’s been too many years of trying to keep all my difficulties under wraps and hidden firmly away. I am feeling a little like a hermit crap might crawling out of the comfort of it’s shell to be exposed and vulnerable to the elements. And does it really matter?

I feel very fortunate to be free of it’s debilitating symptoms for the past two years. That is the longest span of time I have gone since the age of 14. It's bordering on the side just short of a miracle. No, it is a miracle. I am feeling hopeful about my future for the first time in years and that I can face my remaining life with a little more dignity. I attribute this to the combination of Zyprexa and Provigil and most importantly the love and encouragement of a man who has never faltered during any part of the rocky road we have traveled together. I owe him my life.

"Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding.
The winter is past; the rains are over and gone. Flowers appear on the earth;
The season of singing has come…Arise my darling, my beautiful one, come with me."
--The Bible, Proverbs 3:13, Song of Songs 2:11-13

Out Of Sync...

I have been out of sync the past few days. Nothing serious.... it's just not conducive to writing. Even though I have medication that helps with the big stuff... I still have small cycles where I can't think.... I stare aimlessly at nothing, urging my will to do something. Even the provigil isn't cutting through the dullness. I am feeling challenged at this part of the story.... since I am doing so well right now, it is difficult to go back and revisit the times I wasn't. It's hard for me to believe things were ever so terrible (they were), and when they're terrible, I can't grasp that life has ever been good or will be again. I guess that is part of the bipolar lament... and just the plain life flow as it ebbs and wanes... sigh

Happy Days

And so the carefree days of childhood passed without a hint of the stormy seas that lay ahead. I have so many cherished memories of the happiness of those days. I loved reading and my favorite day was library day. I read all the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boy books, and a lot of the classics, such as Les Miserables, and The Count of Monte Cristo. During school breaks, we had summer school I anticipated. Arts and crafts... making mosaic pictures from tiles or painting ceramic figures... story time, and swimming lessons were all a part of it. Mom always got a summer pass for the local swimming pool, only two blocks from our house by the library. I went swimming every day, whether I could find a friend to go or not. Going to either grandparent’s house was a special treat. I would get to stay for a whole week by myself.

It’s funny what you remember. As the oldest I got the privilege of babysitting one night, while mom and dad went bowling. I had a flair for the dramatics and it wasn’t long after the dark of night surrounded the house, I had all of us huddled together in the front room. “Did you hear that knock on the back door?” I whispered. Soon all of us were hearing creaking sounds all over the house… glimpses of faces in the windows. We all had a different plan; call the police, get the baseball bats. No one was going outside to get help from one of the neighbors. I could imagine our bodies mutilated, too late for intervention. Finally a call was placed to mom and dad. They rushed home and that was the end of my babysitting career for my brothers and sisters.

On occasion the solid ground beneath my feet wavered. One year we went on a real vacation to Bryce National Park. Other than what happened next, the beautiful rock formations are the only thing I remember. Paul was acting up, as he always did. He was squirmy and had lots of energy. Dad got angry and held him up by his feet and swung him over the miles deep canyon. My mother screamed to put him down. I quaked inside for a long time and tried to make myself as small as possible in the back corner of the car. I just now realized that is what I still do whenever life pushes down too hard on me… curl up in a tight ball as if all the harshness will not be able to find me.

And on occasion my feet soared above the ground. One night there was a daddy daughter night at the church. Dad said he would go. I was so happy, I wanted to twirl and leap high enough to touch the stars. I helped decorate the tables for the special dinner and then there would be dancing. My dad was the best dancer. That is why my mom wanted a date with him. He twirled me around and taught me ways to move my feet. I floated through the clouds in what had been my best night ever. Dad took Susan and I and all the grandgirls when they were old enough to the Elks Lodge for dance night. It was always a special occasion for all of us.

Dad

As safe and secure as I felt with mom, dad had a frustrating and unsettling affect on my life. David had recently told me, "Dad taught me many things and was a good friend. I could talk to him about anything. I felt very loved and secure by him. I think Susan feels the same way. I loved him dearly and cry a lot realizing all the good things he instilled in my soul." It made me wonder which part of the house that dad lived in, which really goes to show you how different experiences can be even from the same household. I was well into my forties before I could make peace and understand the relationship we had, or more accurately the lack of it. By the end of his life, I had learned to understand how difficult it is to be a decent human being and I felt a deep compassion for him. I am including my difficult memories of him in my narrative because it contributed heavily to the confusion that took me a lifetime to unravel.

He was never intentionally mean or abusive. He was mostly like a phantom ghost in my life. I wanted him to love me and hold me on his lap.... talk to me when we walked and tell me I was his special girl. Instead we rarely talked or walked or shared any affection. I always knew when he was home. You opened the door and the air inside felt thick and heavy. Mom had that look on her face and by the tone in her voice if you talked to her, you knew it was a quiet day. We had to be quiet a lot. Reading books was the only activity quiet enough not to arouse his irritability. We all became avid readers and so I do have to thank him for that.

However, he did have quick temper. We grew up in the era where spanking was a more accepted disciplining tool. I know there were times the boys were spanked with belts.... I remember hiding under my bed and crying because I couldn’t help them. I was on the receiving end a few times as well. The worst part was when I had to pull down my pants and even my panties so my bare bottom showed. The embarrassment and shame burned hotter on my face than my spanked bottom. I would try to cover it with my hands and that made him madder so he spanked me harder. Needing to be disciplined isn’t what hurt so much, it was the anger he did it in. “He isn’t trying to teach me anything, he is just releasing his anger,” I thought. Perhaps these are isolated memories from an over sensitive child but they echo in my mind as a more common occurrence.

When he wasn't ignoring me he was constantly talking or lecturing. When he started his constant talking, I just floated away as if I wasn’t even in the room. He never listened to anything I said anyway. He never asked about my friends or what I was doing or the things I was interested in. Dad was very intelligent and had a genius IQ, which he never quit reminding us of. He graduated first in his class at Brigham Young University. He taught physics and chemistry and then set up and managed the chemistry lab at Geneva Steel. He wanted all of us to be good at the math and the sciences. I liked literature, history and art. Math was difficult for me and he always wanted to help me. He talked in college terms and confused me even more. “You aren’t listening,” he’d scream at me. “Do you know what your problem is?” I heard that question so often, I would think in my head, “I know every problem I have and a thousand more you don’t know of.” His voice droned on and on about the benefits of how he was trying to help me. I hardly dared make a decision fearing I was too stupid to create or inspire anything to fruitition.

Living with dad bordered on what it's like to live with anyone who is less than perfect..... like we all are.... and at the same time having tiny holes pricked around the edges of my soul. All of this came together and made perfect sense much later on.

Mom

Mom was the center of the universe and we also lived under an umbrella of her unconditional love. Then and throughout our lives it is one thing we never had to question. We all knew we were loved by mom. Sometimes I had nightmares and couldn’t sleep. If my two brothers didn't beat me to her bed first, she always let me crawl in by her. She’d put her arms around me and hold me close. It was like sleeping with a soft, puffy cloud.. She didn't go back to work until I was in high school, taking in different sewing jobs to supplement the family income. I used to sit on the stairs leading to her sewing room and watch her sew. I thought she looked so cool the way she put the pins in her mouth. More often than not she had hot homemade bread and scones cooking when we arrived home from school. The house filled with it’s wholesome aroma.

Over her lifetime she has collected friends from every walk of life. As kids, we used to linger at the edges of her conversations with all the many different friends that came by. She belonged to a bridge club and we used to all huddle close together on the stairs and listen to them laugh and talk. The next morning you tried to be the first one up so you could nibble on the bowls of nuts and candies that were left over. She taught us to have respect for the differences among all the people of the world and that is a quality all the siblings share. She also had the innate ability of instilling values in us and then setting us free in the world to have our own thoughts and chart our own course.

Mom was always there for us, and was always a cushion for me during the times in my life when I fell apart and could never explain why. She was always there to help pick up the pieces and try to make everything right. If being too nice and giving is a fault, then it was one of hers.

Now Only Four Leaves A Great Gaping Hole

It has been a month since David took his life. The word dead, seems to roll around in the back of my throat and swallowed before I can say it. I can barely type it. It is said the first stage of grief is denial. I used to always think, how can you be in denial when someone has died? Dead is dead. And there it is in a nutshell. I startled awake in the middle of the night this week, my heart lurching in my chest…. David is dead. It’s like I acknowledged for the first time what that really meant. All of our experiences with him will now only be memories. How we’ll miss him cooking up a feast on Christmas… teasing all the cousins… making silly jokes. We were just beginning to renew our friendship this year, after years of my living away. In the past we didn’t talk often or long, but that was beginning to change. I cherished the times we had conversations where he revealed what he was really thinking. He always had an interesting perspective on things. That will be no more. So much lost just as it was beginning to be refound.

Having tried twice myself to put an end to living, I can’t help but reflect on all the joy I would have missed out on had I been successful. Watching my kids grow up to be such awesome adults. Happy days with the grandkids…. listening to all the endearing things they have to say….. marveling at their little personalities taking shape and changing. I’m so sorry he will miss all that. His life free from the chains of alcohol had taken flight. Now a new love ended just as it was beginning to blossom. It’s like a second life starting again, once your kids are grown and on their own…. adult friendships grow in the place of parental strife. He had that. So many new firsts out there waiting for him to discover are forever out of his grasp. I am saddened more for his losses than the ones I am left with.

It seems I still think about him every hour of every day. Thinking of his precious kids, knowing how they hurt. Hearing the melody in my head, Blackbird Singing In The Dead of Night…. And I can only whisper again, Godspeed, David, Godspeed. I miss you and all that you were becoming.

Together We Were Five

My brother Paul was my favorite. He was funny and even as children we talked and shared our secrets with one another. But I was still the big sister and teased them all. I called him polliwog spagetti-o or brillo pad because his short blond hair was even curlier than mine. One day he had had enough and started throwing cans of spagettio’s out of the pantry at me. I laughed and taunted him because he couldn’t throw far enough to hit me. So he grabbed a kitchen knife and ran after me... I ran as fast as I could, out the front door and down the block. He was vindicated. He had put fear in me.

Paul had a big heart and was always bringing home every stray dog and cat. They were all sent away except one. She was a little black and white, obviously pregnant, soon to be mommy. I know mom’s heartstrings were pulled as she couldn’t turn away a mother ready to have her young. We made a bed with old blankets in a box for her in the basement. The day the puppies were born was a five time miracle. We watched each one with wet membranes descent from their mother’s body. Every day was a happy day watching them grow, learning to play and chase each other around. We found homes for all of them, keeping our favorite and the mother.

I loved my little sister, Susan, and we always shared a bedroom. When she was little she had crossed eyes and had to have surgery. She wore the cutest little glasses that endeared me to her even more. She liked to pull out the pots and pans and sit in them and there wasn’t anyone more delightful and adorable than she. My hair was brown and curly and fell in ringlets around my head. Hers was straight and blond. When she was older we played beauty parlor. I’d put her hair up in curlers and when it was ready to comb out I would trim the edges to make the curls look just right. I’m sure my mother never witnessed this part of our fun.

At night in our double bed, I would tickle and tease her. She had to say the secret password before I would stop. Of course there wasn’t a password, but when I saw she had had enough, I let the next guess be the one. We always snuggled together each taking turns putting one leg across the other in sleeping. We both remember it differently. She felt left out because I wouldn’t let her play with my friends when they came over. I only remember adoring her. One day when I was leaving without her, she tried to hurry after me on her tricycle and fell over a ridge on the sidewalk. She broke her arm and for a little while she was included in my inner circle.

Evan, the baby, was the heartbreaker. He was a chubby baby with blond wispy curls, and grew into a chubbier child. David and Paul teased him constantly, and I lectured them persistently. I tried to be extra kind to him to make up for the way they hurt his feelings. I just wanted everyone in the world to be nice and treat each other well.

We flourished in our early years together. Mom, dad and the five of us.