Facebook is a new tool for me. I was dissuaded from joining for a long time by Marissa, who was pretty adamant that it was a tool for college students or recent graduates, and I was too old for it. I got the definite impression that my joining a social networking site would embarrass my daughter to the core. On the other hand, however, was my friend Francine, who had her own page and had invited me to join, encouraging me not to be intimidated by Marissa. Finally, not too many weeks before I left for the fateful trip to West Virginia, I capitulated and set up my page. The irony is that Francine no longer has a page, while Marissa and I are Facebook buddies. However, I harbor no illusions that I am too old school to use all the bells and whistles; the first time someone engaged me with a live chat totally threw me for a loop. I managed to figure out how to respond eventually, but it was another couple of days before I learned how my friend knew I was logged in. The birthday thing totally got me. Marissa had to explain to me how everyone knew it was my birthday. There are some downsides to it, primary among them the problem with spyware I've had since joining. But, what it has done for me outweighs that issue so far. I am "friends" with a Steeler page that puts me in immediate touch with hundreds of my fellow fans, which is fun. But, mainly I love that I've managed to re-connect with some old, old friends who I'd let slip out of my life. Some of them are friends I've known since my first real career job with Martine Properties some two decades ago, but recently some of my old high school friends have found me, or vice-versa, many of whom I haven't seen since walking out of the Montana State University field house on graduation night. Others I lost track of gradually, but still, for whatever reason, allowed to drop out of my life, only to find myself wondering what became of them from time to time. We have been catching one another up on our lives during the interceding years in short one and two paragraph bursts. My friends are scattered all over the country doing all kinds of work. One woman actually lives in Texas. But, for all the myriad directions we managed to go, I was gratified to find that, if I liked them when I was 17, I like them now. We are, at our core, the same people. We vote the same party, we read the same kinds of books, watch the same kinds of movies that we did three decades ago. Some of these new-old connections have picked right back up as though no time has past at all, others have been a little more tentative, but I am grateful for them all.
As I gradually read their stories unfold in our little messages back and forth, I am struck by how many of us have experienced something deeply traumatic already in our lives. Cancer is a common thread, but others have lost spouses or siblings. Some are out of work and on the bitter edge of bankruptcy. I don't discount the stress that brings, having been there myself before. If I were 20 years older, this wouldn't surprise me so much. If I lived a century ago, it would be expected. But, come on, we all live in the dawning of the 21st century. It seems that the old statement, "In every life, a little rain must fall." is pretty true. But, why does the rain have to be so acidic? I was in no way expecting the level of loss and pain that has visited most of the people I know. I've been trying to process that; trying to find some meaning in it. Would anyone around my age find the same thing in a sampling of their friends and acquaintances? Or am I somehow sadly unique? What is it that we are supposed to learn from tragedy, and is that why Fate makes us endure it? Couldn't we learn the same lesson a less painful way? Why, in short, is life so damned hard?
I try not to compare my own situation with anyone else. Everyone is unique, as I've said before. All their trials are painful to them on their own individual level. I try not to allow my own pain to swallow me up and not allow me to be present for my friends, old or new, if they need a virtual shoulder. That's a work in progress, I have to confess. But, I like that most people have gradually felt comfortable enough to make me aware of their own situations and trust that I would not belittle it by stacking it up against my own and telling them it doesn't measure up, or at least I think they have. For, if there is anything all of this has taught me, is that I want to be a better friend because I would not have made it out of the first hard week without mine. I am sorry that is still a goal that is for my future. I am still a little too tender to be much use to those around me.
Still contemplating Senator Kennedy's life, I would like to have asked him if, after so much loss and hardship, did he find the sunset out over the ocean more beautiful or less so? Maybe we have to face real hardship to appreciate what we do have. I actually don't doubt that's true. But, why is it then none of us were told to expect this level of chaos in our lives? We all grew up, on some level, to believe the fairy tales our mothers read us at night. Wouldn't we have been better served to have been prepared not to live happily ever after? When I think about it, my friends and I grew up during a unique time. Too young really to be touched by Vietnam (we knew about it and some of us lost family to it, but none of us would have served), too old for the Gulf War, we were a generation raised in relative peace and prosperity. We were called the Me Generation. I always thought the recreational drug use that was rampant during our disco days was a way to enter some drama into otherwise uneventful lives (that wasn't my way, I have to confess, but I found other outlets, trust me). We watched Leave it to Beaver re-runs and Happy Days. We grew up believing we would go off to college, have great careers, healthy children and 1.5 pets. We would sip wine or drink beer and watch football on the weekends and never grow old. The reality is shockingly far from the vision, and I wonder if our parents did us a disservice allowing us to grow up believing the Kennedy's were somehow cursed and nothing like that would ever happen to us. Because it has and does. Now, can we teach our own children how to expect that rain to fall without dashing their hopes for a happy, fulfilling life? How does one reach that balance? I don't know, but I believe it is ultimately kinder than empty promises of a life untouched by sorrow.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Saturday, August 29, 2009
What Senator Kennedy Gave Me Today
Summer of Death. That's what the morning DJ I listen to on the way to work coined it the day after Eunice Kennedy Shriver died. Little did he probably think that a very short time later her more famous brother would join the long list of famous names who have passed on since Memorial Day. I won't try and list them all, but if you think about it, it has been a rather long list of famous names, some old, some not, who we wake up to read about everyday. Of course, in the shadows all across the nation are small and unnoticed additions to those departed titans. For me personally, I have been to two funerals just since Kelsey's. After the last service, for the mother of a friend, I said to myself that I'd have enough for a while and unless the person was very close to me, I was going to let the next few go on by. Well, I didn't exactly do what I said. I've been glued to MSNBC all day watching Senator Kennedy's funeral. I'm not sure if that counts as attending one, but it felt as though I were there at times.
Of course, for me and my "liberal nut" ways (a quote from the parents of my daughter's boyfriend), Senator Kennedy's passing was a reason for great sadness, but not surprise. We all knew that he was facing an imminent death. He handled it with a grace and acceptance that long suffering had taught him. He was no stranger to Old Man Death, having watched it take so many of his siblings and try to work on his children. And of course, there were the other controversies he had endured, the drinking, the divorced Catholic and the big one, Chappaquiddick. If you don't know what that refers to, then that just illustrates that he overcame what would have doomed almost anyone else. Even I remember his public statement as the first real memory I have of him. He led a full life, but it was full of troubles and sorrows as well as joys.
I sat down to watch the funeral this morning a little battered and bruised by the events of the week. I had walked out of a staff meeting earlier in the week, my first staff meeting since going back to work, when they showed a rather sensational video from YouTube to try and illustrate how serious they were about employees not texting while driving. It shows a car full of young women get into a wreck because they were texting rather than watching the road. The wreck is over done and like a scene from Final Destination. I even joked about it. But, then the girls in the car begin screaming. I don't know why, but I immediately could not handle it. Sitting in the far corner, I got up and quickly left to go back to my desk. I had to pass by absolutely everyone. I have no apologies for doing it, but it put a light on my circumstance that I had not wanted. Since then, I have been treated a bit like something made of sharp glass, even by people who know me fairly well. The job I was grateful for because it took my mind off the weight of my circumstances for chunks of time is no longer that haven. A group was planning a happy hour yesterday that the man who sits closest to me was very excited about, encouraging everyone to go. Everyone but me. No one spoke to me about it. I wasn't interested in going, but the lack of mention was noticeable. Suddenly, I have made everyone uncomfortable when all I wanted was a place to work. And then there was the death certificate, which was finally ready. At first, that was actually a lift. I described it to our grief counselor as putting a period on the end of a very long run on sentence. But, it began a new sentence, which is how to process what it contained. And, that sentence was punctuated painfully by the reaction that my daughter had to it when I told her about it. She had already had a hard week, really missing her sister. No one, she explained to me, knew her like her older sister, and she could tell her absolutely anything and have her understand it. I can't replace that for her, I didn't even try to tell her that I could. She's right. They shared a common upbringing, had struggled together, overcome together and then struggled again. They fought like crazy, but there was never any doubt they had a deep and abiding love for one another and now that is lost. To make it more poignant, Marissa moved into her dorm and began college classes, something she knows her sister will never do. She was carrying some guilt around as a result, and I came along and crushed her with the news of the death certificate. The final nail in this week's coffin came for me, however, when the night of the infamous staff meeting, I got a call from Mother's nursing home. A flustered male nurse wanted me to come up there because Mother wouldn't take her medication. I tried calling her room, and the same nurse picked up the phone. She refused to speak to me, but I could hear the exchange. She was belligerent and uncooperative. He was clearly flustered and afraid of getting in trouble if she wouldn't take it. I refused to go, having had a drink. I probably could have made it the two miles without getting pulled over for one adult beverage in my system, but what I worried about was how I would react once there. I doubted I would calm the situation. All of these things together made me feel hopeless, tired and ready to throw in the towel, Terrible or otherwise.
So, with that attitude, I sat down to watch a the lead "liberal nut" be laid to rest. The service touched me, of course, but seemed to speak to me in a way I was not anticipating. Throughout, there were references to how much he had suffered and lost,and how he had carried on, at times because "he had to". There was no choice. And I ruminated on those words. Because that is very true. I get up every day and function because I have to. I have obligations. But, I had began to feel resentful and overwhelmed by them. Today, I was reminded that others have suffered as much or more than me and not only survived, but overcame. For some reason, all of that was more to me than just words. I believe in what I heard. Maybe because I admire Senator Kennedy, but I never saw him as more than he was, which was a flawed human being. For him to overcome all of that to achieve what he did is all the more amazing. If he can do it, then so can I. It doesn't mean I won't have more bad days. As a matter of fact, it doesn't mean I won't struggle to get through them. But, the gift he gave to me today is the strength to tell you that I will.
Of course, for me and my "liberal nut" ways (a quote from the parents of my daughter's boyfriend), Senator Kennedy's passing was a reason for great sadness, but not surprise. We all knew that he was facing an imminent death. He handled it with a grace and acceptance that long suffering had taught him. He was no stranger to Old Man Death, having watched it take so many of his siblings and try to work on his children. And of course, there were the other controversies he had endured, the drinking, the divorced Catholic and the big one, Chappaquiddick. If you don't know what that refers to, then that just illustrates that he overcame what would have doomed almost anyone else. Even I remember his public statement as the first real memory I have of him. He led a full life, but it was full of troubles and sorrows as well as joys.
I sat down to watch the funeral this morning a little battered and bruised by the events of the week. I had walked out of a staff meeting earlier in the week, my first staff meeting since going back to work, when they showed a rather sensational video from YouTube to try and illustrate how serious they were about employees not texting while driving. It shows a car full of young women get into a wreck because they were texting rather than watching the road. The wreck is over done and like a scene from Final Destination. I even joked about it. But, then the girls in the car begin screaming. I don't know why, but I immediately could not handle it. Sitting in the far corner, I got up and quickly left to go back to my desk. I had to pass by absolutely everyone. I have no apologies for doing it, but it put a light on my circumstance that I had not wanted. Since then, I have been treated a bit like something made of sharp glass, even by people who know me fairly well. The job I was grateful for because it took my mind off the weight of my circumstances for chunks of time is no longer that haven. A group was planning a happy hour yesterday that the man who sits closest to me was very excited about, encouraging everyone to go. Everyone but me. No one spoke to me about it. I wasn't interested in going, but the lack of mention was noticeable. Suddenly, I have made everyone uncomfortable when all I wanted was a place to work. And then there was the death certificate, which was finally ready. At first, that was actually a lift. I described it to our grief counselor as putting a period on the end of a very long run on sentence. But, it began a new sentence, which is how to process what it contained. And, that sentence was punctuated painfully by the reaction that my daughter had to it when I told her about it. She had already had a hard week, really missing her sister. No one, she explained to me, knew her like her older sister, and she could tell her absolutely anything and have her understand it. I can't replace that for her, I didn't even try to tell her that I could. She's right. They shared a common upbringing, had struggled together, overcome together and then struggled again. They fought like crazy, but there was never any doubt they had a deep and abiding love for one another and now that is lost. To make it more poignant, Marissa moved into her dorm and began college classes, something she knows her sister will never do. She was carrying some guilt around as a result, and I came along and crushed her with the news of the death certificate. The final nail in this week's coffin came for me, however, when the night of the infamous staff meeting, I got a call from Mother's nursing home. A flustered male nurse wanted me to come up there because Mother wouldn't take her medication. I tried calling her room, and the same nurse picked up the phone. She refused to speak to me, but I could hear the exchange. She was belligerent and uncooperative. He was clearly flustered and afraid of getting in trouble if she wouldn't take it. I refused to go, having had a drink. I probably could have made it the two miles without getting pulled over for one adult beverage in my system, but what I worried about was how I would react once there. I doubted I would calm the situation. All of these things together made me feel hopeless, tired and ready to throw in the towel, Terrible or otherwise.
So, with that attitude, I sat down to watch a the lead "liberal nut" be laid to rest. The service touched me, of course, but seemed to speak to me in a way I was not anticipating. Throughout, there were references to how much he had suffered and lost,and how he had carried on, at times because "he had to". There was no choice. And I ruminated on those words. Because that is very true. I get up every day and function because I have to. I have obligations. But, I had began to feel resentful and overwhelmed by them. Today, I was reminded that others have suffered as much or more than me and not only survived, but overcame. For some reason, all of that was more to me than just words. I believe in what I heard. Maybe because I admire Senator Kennedy, but I never saw him as more than he was, which was a flawed human being. For him to overcome all of that to achieve what he did is all the more amazing. If he can do it, then so can I. It doesn't mean I won't have more bad days. As a matter of fact, it doesn't mean I won't struggle to get through them. But, the gift he gave to me today is the strength to tell you that I will.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Legacies
I don't think I can really tell the tale of Kelsey's life and my part in it without telling you something about my father, even though he died when she was five, and was always, except for a couple of visits back and forth, over a thousand miles away in more ways than one. But, I am who am because of him, both good and bad, and I made decisions based on how I was raised that impacted my family. My father brought me up based on attitudes and values he had learned from his father, and so it goes. Even though his blood doesn't flow through my veins, I realize that I am a part of him and his legacy lives on through me and how I live my life. The results are, like the man himself, complex.
My father, Graham Labin Bleiler, worked all my childhood to teach me three things: to work hard, love football and love the outdoors (specifically to love shooting and snagging things in the outdoors). Well, two out of three isn't bad. I do like being outdoors, but I don't hunt or fish. As a matter of fact, as many of you know, I support a herd of deer, some of whom come when I call their name. However, it's that first lesson that was the most tantamount. Mom and Dad came of age at the height of The Great Depression and spent the best years of their lives during World War II, separated by continents and the constant threat of death. A lot of what we all whine and complain about in our daily lives now would seem completely foreign to my dad. Too much work to do? Just be glad you have a job. Don't like your job? Ditto. He would not have understood or had any patience for any of the struggles my children went through. When my attitude very early on was, "Just snap out of it!" I thought it in his voice. And even later, when my outlook was a little more enlightened, I still would wonder whether my children wouldn't be better off growing up during the depression because they wouldn't have the luxury of worrying over their inner turmoils and would have to concentrate on the more rudimentary tasks of just staying alive. Some time back I decided it was useless to ponder such things. But, for my parents, that was the life they led. Whatever issues they had, such as my mother's feelings that her own mother did not love her, were small in comparison of what the world was throwing at them every day. Out of that global turmoil came my dad's belief that his number one task was to provide for my mother and me. As a matter of fact, only a few years ago, my mother's comment about my dad was, "He was a good provider." It was the only good thing she came up with to say about him, but I think it was the most important thing to her. Good lover? Probably not really. Good companion? Definitely not, they fought like cats and dogs. Supportive helpmate? I don't really remember him saying much to her that was meant to buoy up her ego. But, we had a nice house. We had all the food we wanted. She had her china and crystal and silver. I know she felt she married well; it was the core of the famous fight she had with her sister Merle that caused them to stop speaking to one another in the mid-90's.
There was no doubt for me what my primary role as a parent was: to provide for my children. To work hard to make something of myself. And, boy, I did do that. I worked really, really hard. Both of my daughters have said at various times, in no uncertain terms, that they would have rather had their mother than the things they had. And, in the most ironic twist of all, treating their illnesses and addictions drained us of most of what I worked so hard to gain. But, I still can't quite figure out what's wrong with a strong work ethic. Clearly, there needs to be a balance between home and work. But, how much is too much of one and not enough of the other? How can one fully live up to the responsibilities of one part of your life while not shirking the other? I don't know. I've never done it.
My father, Graham Labin Bleiler, worked all my childhood to teach me three things: to work hard, love football and love the outdoors (specifically to love shooting and snagging things in the outdoors). Well, two out of three isn't bad. I do like being outdoors, but I don't hunt or fish. As a matter of fact, as many of you know, I support a herd of deer, some of whom come when I call their name. However, it's that first lesson that was the most tantamount. Mom and Dad came of age at the height of The Great Depression and spent the best years of their lives during World War II, separated by continents and the constant threat of death. A lot of what we all whine and complain about in our daily lives now would seem completely foreign to my dad. Too much work to do? Just be glad you have a job. Don't like your job? Ditto. He would not have understood or had any patience for any of the struggles my children went through. When my attitude very early on was, "Just snap out of it!" I thought it in his voice. And even later, when my outlook was a little more enlightened, I still would wonder whether my children wouldn't be better off growing up during the depression because they wouldn't have the luxury of worrying over their inner turmoils and would have to concentrate on the more rudimentary tasks of just staying alive. Some time back I decided it was useless to ponder such things. But, for my parents, that was the life they led. Whatever issues they had, such as my mother's feelings that her own mother did not love her, were small in comparison of what the world was throwing at them every day. Out of that global turmoil came my dad's belief that his number one task was to provide for my mother and me. As a matter of fact, only a few years ago, my mother's comment about my dad was, "He was a good provider." It was the only good thing she came up with to say about him, but I think it was the most important thing to her. Good lover? Probably not really. Good companion? Definitely not, they fought like cats and dogs. Supportive helpmate? I don't really remember him saying much to her that was meant to buoy up her ego. But, we had a nice house. We had all the food we wanted. She had her china and crystal and silver. I know she felt she married well; it was the core of the famous fight she had with her sister Merle that caused them to stop speaking to one another in the mid-90's.
There was no doubt for me what my primary role as a parent was: to provide for my children. To work hard to make something of myself. And, boy, I did do that. I worked really, really hard. Both of my daughters have said at various times, in no uncertain terms, that they would have rather had their mother than the things they had. And, in the most ironic twist of all, treating their illnesses and addictions drained us of most of what I worked so hard to gain. But, I still can't quite figure out what's wrong with a strong work ethic. Clearly, there needs to be a balance between home and work. But, how much is too much of one and not enough of the other? How can one fully live up to the responsibilities of one part of your life while not shirking the other? I don't know. I've never done it.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Private Ryan's Mother
Greg bumped into someone today who works near him who lost his four year old son a few months before we lost our daughter. He shared with me how awkward the meeting was. He said he thought they would be able to talk to one another, sharing such an experience, but neither man apparently felt comfortable, and after a few awkward exchanges, it was clear that they only wanted to get away from one another. I explained to him that this didn't surprise me really. No one can know what it's like to be that man. Just as no one can understand what Greg and I feel, not completely. Our pain is unique because our experience with our child is unique. But, ever since that conversation a few hours ago now, I've been pondering which is the more painful loss generally. Losing a child so young or to watch them grow up and then lose them. Was that other man resentful of Greg because at least he got to see her high school graduation and take pictures of her in a prom dress (neither of which we did, incidentally - she was too sick to attend prom and graduated from an alternate program because she had been in and out of treatment so often that she could not attend regular high school classes the last two years). Or did Greg think his pain was more intense because of all the time, effort, hope and despair over all the years that the other man didn't have to experience, only to have those memories dashed. I don't know really. I do think the guilt, which is bad for us, must be crushing for someone who loses a child so young because your instinct is protect them from harm, even though sometimes you just can't.
That got me thinking about the scene in Saving Private Ryan that I have always found to be the most poignant. Much like the most dramatic scene in Brokeback Mountain, there is no dialogue, or in this case, direct dialogue. Body language says it all. It's the scene where Mrs. Ryan receives the news of her sons and collapses on the porch. For me, that scene alone always drives me to tears. Long before Kelsey was even sick, I couldn't get past that scene without crying, and not just tearing up for a second, but real shoulder shaking tears. I have always put myself in her place and flashed to all the nights she sat up when her sons had chicken pox or the flu. All the stories she read to them, the pajamas she buttoned up, the scrapes and cuts she cleaned and bandaged, the tears dried afterwards, all to raise them to adulthood only to have their lives cut short half way around the world. For me, the first time I saw the film, I remember thinking bitterly, "That's not what she raised them for. To send them off to die." And this from a woman who believes sincerely that World War II was a necessary war for the Allies to wage. I remember when the movie first came out I read a review that was critical of that scene, calling it unnecessary and a distraction. I was angry at that reviewer, whom I do recall was male, and assumed he didn't have children. Spielberg has kids. He gets it. He knew that was a critical scene to illustrate why it was important for the mission to happen, and why the decision was made to send other men into peril to find the last Ryan brother. That loss, that horrible loss for that poor mother who loved her sons and always expected to have them bury her, not the other way around, was so poignantly illustrated by her sinking wordlessly to the ground. Even if your child dies for the most noble of causes, it's still a hole ripped totally and completely from your heart. With two wars being waged by the United States now, there are a lot of bleeding, wounded hearts out there. But, I don't think that makes the loss of a little boy any less tragic. That father has a large, gaping hole in his heart too.
Friday, August 21, 2009
A Few Updates
Wondered what became of Tum-Tum? Wonder if Mother is still around? Or if I abandoned her? And, what about the dog who was lost while I was pondering sewage pouring into the yard? Unfortunately, I realize with my rather scattered patterns of thought these days, I tend to leave some hanging threads. So, I thought I should pick some of those threads up and try to mend the holes I've left.
Working my way backward through the list: yes, the dog was found. Greg came to my rescue. After calling me to check in and listening to me tearfully tell him about Cheyenne, he headed home and was able to find her (they all mind him better than me, I'm the soft touch, he's the disciplinarian).
I did not abandon Mother, although at times it seems as though I have, even to me. Back to work full-time, I can no longer make it over to see her everyday, and was worried about that until I noticed recently I don't actually think she realizes it anymore. Her relationship with reality, sadly, is slipping even from what it was a few months ago. She recently announced to everyone that my daughter is attending college in Canada. This is after someone on staff printed her up a map to show her where Marissa's college actually is, which is 11 miles up the road. She calls her favorite dog, Cheyenne, Shane and calls me Cheyenne. When I was there the other day a male nurse came in to give her some medication. His name, in very large print on his name tag, is Neil. He's been there all along. She called him Carl at least half dozen times. The upside is, if I don't make it to see her on any given day, I no longer get the pouty guilt trip. She just seems glad to see me and completely unaware of the time lapses. The downside is, she called her stock broker and pulled out all the cash she had available and had it sent to her local account so she could pay for my youngest daughter's tuition. Very noble and generous thought. When it came time to fund the account so I could pay her nursing home, they had to call me and tell me they couldn't do it. When I confronted Mother, in a not-how-I-learned-to-talk-in-therapy voice, she told me she had taken a loan out against her portfolio. Not so, obviously. At that point, some weeks back now and still completely raw emotionally from the trauma of losing my oldest child, those black clouds I wrote of a couple of days ago were really swirling, and the thought of her doing something even more drastic with her money was the lightning bolts striking all around me(because, at least I still have it, now tucked safely in a savings account she can't access, but she could have just have easily spent all of that on something outrageous, like another El Diablo - God forbid). I finally decided I needed some help. I thought back to that educational consultant I didn't end up using to help with Marissa and wondered if maybe there was the equivalent for older folk. I found a service online that advertised that it connects people to senior care (http://www.workingcaregiver.com/). Sounds great. I filled out the form, not knowing what I would get and waited to see what the response would be. A few hours later a woman called for me, listened patiently to my story, told me she had a couple of firms she was thinking of that could probably help me and promised to contact them, which she very promptly did, and then she followed up with me to make sure they had contacted me. She was like an unseen angel coming to me from my cell phone. I have no idea who she is, I can't remember her name, and I have no idea how she makes her money, because I didn't pay her anything, but she deserves sainthood. Long story short, I now have a case manager who consults with me, keeps an eye on Mother and her care and advises me. She had me ask for a psych evaluation to see if we need to consider legally terminating Mom's ability to control her finances, which is in progress. She also introduced me to the concept of companion services. You can seriously pay people to socialize with your parents. They will read to them, play games with them, take them shopping or to visit friends, or just sit there and watch television if that's what the person wants to do. And, they are actually trained and certified to do this job. The owner of the company told me one client insisted the companion have a Master's degree. He wasn't able to fulfill that request, but does have college graduates on staff. Unbelievable. Mother's companion begins Wednesday. I am excited for both her and me. I will take the three days the companion visits "off", and Mother will have someone there who will do things willingly with her that I don't have the energy or patience to do. I am hoping that you really can have your dessert and eat it too.
As for Tum-Tum, I am happy to report she is doing fine. Her weight is back to where it was, although that was never all that much. She is a petite creature, but true to her diva attitude, she has a large voice, and she has been using it lately to tell us exactly what she wants and when she wants it. During this entire trying summer, I have been watching the animals and trying to decide what they know and how they are reacting to it. I know animals feel grief, and they definitely react to our vibes, but I don't know if they really understand who it is that is missing and that she is not coming back. Tum-Tum knows who is missing without any doubt, but what I honestly can't tell you is how long she will hang onto that memory, or if she is already lost it. She spends much of her day laying on a ledge above our stairs where I have Kelsey's urn. She spreads out and props her head against the urn. There is no way, I tell myself, she knows Kelsey's remains are in there, but the time she spends there and the proximity she stays to it is just a little too coincidental. But, she is also coming around to deciding that we all live downstairs, and if she wants to receive any attention at all, then she will have to do the same. She is taking it slow, spending increasing amounts of time in a room right off the master bedroom where we have our exercise equipment. It is closed off from the rest of the house and Charlie accesses it through a cat door. I have kept his food bowl there for years to keep the dogs away from it. So, now she hangs out there a good part of the day. I moved her litter box down there just last night. And she is venturing out to visit me in the bedroom or the kitchen more often. Problem is, as aloof as she has been all this time, the dogs are terribly curious about her. She met my Dalmatian last night in the kitchen, and the encounter did not go well, to Noelle's disadvantage. The ten pound cat kicked the 50 pound dog's butt. She has returned to playing, running back and forth the upstairs hall like she used to do. This is a new development. She always felt frisky in the mornings, keeping Greg awake and irritated. I've noticed he doesn't complain about that lately. I think he's just happy, as am I, that she is adjusting so well. We are not even pretending that we are looking for another home for her at this point. I would let her go with Marissa's boyfriend since he is a true cat person. He can hold her and rock her in his arms for long periods. I am the only other one who can pick her up, but not for long. But he has two cats who each could swallow her whole. So, she is with us probably for the duration. She is our last living piece of our daughter. In so many ways, she is like Kelsey.
So there you have it. Now go watch the game, everybody. The Steelers are on.
Working my way backward through the list: yes, the dog was found. Greg came to my rescue. After calling me to check in and listening to me tearfully tell him about Cheyenne, he headed home and was able to find her (they all mind him better than me, I'm the soft touch, he's the disciplinarian).
I did not abandon Mother, although at times it seems as though I have, even to me. Back to work full-time, I can no longer make it over to see her everyday, and was worried about that until I noticed recently I don't actually think she realizes it anymore. Her relationship with reality, sadly, is slipping even from what it was a few months ago. She recently announced to everyone that my daughter is attending college in Canada. This is after someone on staff printed her up a map to show her where Marissa's college actually is, which is 11 miles up the road. She calls her favorite dog, Cheyenne, Shane and calls me Cheyenne. When I was there the other day a male nurse came in to give her some medication. His name, in very large print on his name tag, is Neil. He's been there all along. She called him Carl at least half dozen times. The upside is, if I don't make it to see her on any given day, I no longer get the pouty guilt trip. She just seems glad to see me and completely unaware of the time lapses. The downside is, she called her stock broker and pulled out all the cash she had available and had it sent to her local account so she could pay for my youngest daughter's tuition. Very noble and generous thought. When it came time to fund the account so I could pay her nursing home, they had to call me and tell me they couldn't do it. When I confronted Mother, in a not-how-I-learned-to-talk-in-therapy voice, she told me she had taken a loan out against her portfolio. Not so, obviously. At that point, some weeks back now and still completely raw emotionally from the trauma of losing my oldest child, those black clouds I wrote of a couple of days ago were really swirling, and the thought of her doing something even more drastic with her money was the lightning bolts striking all around me(because, at least I still have it, now tucked safely in a savings account she can't access, but she could have just have easily spent all of that on something outrageous, like another El Diablo - God forbid). I finally decided I needed some help. I thought back to that educational consultant I didn't end up using to help with Marissa and wondered if maybe there was the equivalent for older folk. I found a service online that advertised that it connects people to senior care (http://www.workingcaregiver.com/). Sounds great. I filled out the form, not knowing what I would get and waited to see what the response would be. A few hours later a woman called for me, listened patiently to my story, told me she had a couple of firms she was thinking of that could probably help me and promised to contact them, which she very promptly did, and then she followed up with me to make sure they had contacted me. She was like an unseen angel coming to me from my cell phone. I have no idea who she is, I can't remember her name, and I have no idea how she makes her money, because I didn't pay her anything, but she deserves sainthood. Long story short, I now have a case manager who consults with me, keeps an eye on Mother and her care and advises me. She had me ask for a psych evaluation to see if we need to consider legally terminating Mom's ability to control her finances, which is in progress. She also introduced me to the concept of companion services. You can seriously pay people to socialize with your parents. They will read to them, play games with them, take them shopping or to visit friends, or just sit there and watch television if that's what the person wants to do. And, they are actually trained and certified to do this job. The owner of the company told me one client insisted the companion have a Master's degree. He wasn't able to fulfill that request, but does have college graduates on staff. Unbelievable. Mother's companion begins Wednesday. I am excited for both her and me. I will take the three days the companion visits "off", and Mother will have someone there who will do things willingly with her that I don't have the energy or patience to do. I am hoping that you really can have your dessert and eat it too.
As for Tum-Tum, I am happy to report she is doing fine. Her weight is back to where it was, although that was never all that much. She is a petite creature, but true to her diva attitude, she has a large voice, and she has been using it lately to tell us exactly what she wants and when she wants it. During this entire trying summer, I have been watching the animals and trying to decide what they know and how they are reacting to it. I know animals feel grief, and they definitely react to our vibes, but I don't know if they really understand who it is that is missing and that she is not coming back. Tum-Tum knows who is missing without any doubt, but what I honestly can't tell you is how long she will hang onto that memory, or if she is already lost it. She spends much of her day laying on a ledge above our stairs where I have Kelsey's urn. She spreads out and props her head against the urn. There is no way, I tell myself, she knows Kelsey's remains are in there, but the time she spends there and the proximity she stays to it is just a little too coincidental. But, she is also coming around to deciding that we all live downstairs, and if she wants to receive any attention at all, then she will have to do the same. She is taking it slow, spending increasing amounts of time in a room right off the master bedroom where we have our exercise equipment. It is closed off from the rest of the house and Charlie accesses it through a cat door. I have kept his food bowl there for years to keep the dogs away from it. So, now she hangs out there a good part of the day. I moved her litter box down there just last night. And she is venturing out to visit me in the bedroom or the kitchen more often. Problem is, as aloof as she has been all this time, the dogs are terribly curious about her. She met my Dalmatian last night in the kitchen, and the encounter did not go well, to Noelle's disadvantage. The ten pound cat kicked the 50 pound dog's butt. She has returned to playing, running back and forth the upstairs hall like she used to do. This is a new development. She always felt frisky in the mornings, keeping Greg awake and irritated. I've noticed he doesn't complain about that lately. I think he's just happy, as am I, that she is adjusting so well. We are not even pretending that we are looking for another home for her at this point. I would let her go with Marissa's boyfriend since he is a true cat person. He can hold her and rock her in his arms for long periods. I am the only other one who can pick her up, but not for long. But he has two cats who each could swallow her whole. So, she is with us probably for the duration. She is our last living piece of our daughter. In so many ways, she is like Kelsey.
So there you have it. Now go watch the game, everybody. The Steelers are on.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Black Cloud People
As I was standing in my backyard two nights ago looking over the clean out pipe leading from the house to our septic field, watching it overflow into our yard, having just come back from unsuccessfully spending an hour looking for my dog who slipped out the front door that my daughter had left open, I thought to myself, "Okay, it's official. I am a Black Cloud Person. Serves me right. It's karma coming back at me." What do I mean by that? Well, I'll tell 'ya. I coined the phrase some years ago to describe certain individuals who wouldn't have any luck at all if they didn't have bad luck, and they have it in spades. Hard breaks just seem to follow them around, like a little black cloud always hanging over their head.
The definitive Black Cloud Person worked for us several years ago. She was the one I made up the term to describe, although I've known others since. She worked as a clerk in our accounting department, which over the years employed a few people in her classification mainly because, I theorize, our Controller had a soft spot for people who had lived hard lives. She related to people who had struggled in life, because she had herself struggled early on. The difference, however, in a Black Cloud Person as I define them and someone who has seen tragedy is what they do with those experiences. As with my friend Linda, whom you may recall recently passed away, and her best friend Francine, you can overcome your struggles and rise above them or you can roll around in your sorrow, feel sorry for yourself, expect others to feel sorry for you too and, I had concluded, become a self-fulfilling prophecy. My theory of Black Clouders is that as long as they kept expecting bad things to happen, they would. With the ultimate Black Cloud personality, I suspected they secretly came to rely on a constant torrent of bad experiences because it kept people's attention and sympathy on them, more or less like a mild form of Munchhausen's. So it was with this poor woman, whom I have been pondering over the last couple of days. I cannot even recall all the calamitous events in her life, but they were never in short supply. Her reaction to whatever Crisis Du Jour she was experiencing was always just shy of over the top. Sometimes, actually, it was officially over the top. She was particularly dramatic once when she was diagnosed as having a potential melanoma on her face. I don't want to discount the seriousness of a situation like that, but she went up and down the halls of the office wailing about it, telling everyone in gasping tears what was happening, but refusing to go home. The entire office was in an uproar. Still new to the role of supervising people, I allowed it to go on, which I never would do at this point. Now I think I have the skill set to distract something like that from the workplace and still allow the person their dignity, but it took a while to learn. I also learned when to cut it off and just make someone go home for the day, which is very, very quickly. Turns out the spot was benign, she had it removed and her excuse for self pity went away. You could actually see the disappointment on her face. After that, I kept an eye on her. She didn't call in sick that often, although she often professed she was. If she called in sick she of course didn't get paid, but more to my theory, she lost her audience. She literally leapt from one bad situation to the next. Her car broke down, she couldn't pay her bills, some drama about her ex-, something would be wrong with her kids, her house, whatever. Never, ever did she run out of things to whine about, and whining, not to be unduly cruel, is really how she verbalized it. And she was very verbal. I began to suspect that her constant string of bad luck was more or less in her control. I thought that if only she would buck up, square her shoulders, announce that enough was enough, she could work her way out of her mess and turn her life around, but convincing her of that seemed a lost cause. A marginal employee at best, she would be so distracted by her life that she would often make mistakes. For me, the end of the tolerance I had for her was when she sent out incorrect statements to more than a handful of individuals, causing me to write each one a letter explaining they were not, in fact, delinquent. The damage both to the company's reputation and my workload was significant for a time, and I lost most of my sympathy for her after that. The thing about the best of the Black Clouders is that they have survival down to a science. I believe that class of individual knows, somewhere down inside, that they are always skating on thin ice, and know how to hang on for dear life. And, as clear as it eventually became to her that she wasn't Employee of the Month, she wasn't about to leave without a shove. Problem is, and generally has been with the others like her I've known since, is that she really is a sweet person. Disliking her, despite all my long list of her faults, was really not that easy. Which, of course, is part of the syndrome. No one is sympathetic to a horrible person. Everyone is sympathetic to an essentially nice guy going through hard times. She drew my name for Secret Santa one year and showered me with gift after gift, very carefully selecting them to fit my personality. It was embarrassing actually, she overdid it to such an extent. Worrying that being the boss caused her to in part over do it, I never participated again, which made me sad because that was the only part of the holidays I really looked forward to. But, her gift giving motivation notwithstanding, she was a sweet woman overall and she was kind to others in her way. Trying to force her hand and get her to move on was a miserable occupation for us. Eventually we prevailed, and she's taken her sideshow on to somewhere else, but I judge all subsequent sad sackers against her measure. She set the bar. I hope life is kinder to her these days. Sadly, I fear that it probably is not.
So, now I am like her? Has this long, hard year of constant blows been brought on somehow by myself and my actions? Did decisions I make, things I did, or more likely, not do cause the people I love to suffer and therefore, me to suffer along with them? Do I need the drama and just not realize it? Or, am I being visited with all these plagues like Egypt because I have always held people like the poor unfortunate accounting clerk in mild contempt? Maybe I was wrong about her, and she didn't actually have any control over her situation and her reaction to it? I pondered all these things, bent over the teeming, overflowing pipe full of raw sewage, but answered none of them. All I knew for sure was that this past year reminded me of my current plumbing situation, it was full of shit.
The definitive Black Cloud Person worked for us several years ago. She was the one I made up the term to describe, although I've known others since. She worked as a clerk in our accounting department, which over the years employed a few people in her classification mainly because, I theorize, our Controller had a soft spot for people who had lived hard lives. She related to people who had struggled in life, because she had herself struggled early on. The difference, however, in a Black Cloud Person as I define them and someone who has seen tragedy is what they do with those experiences. As with my friend Linda, whom you may recall recently passed away, and her best friend Francine, you can overcome your struggles and rise above them or you can roll around in your sorrow, feel sorry for yourself, expect others to feel sorry for you too and, I had concluded, become a self-fulfilling prophecy. My theory of Black Clouders is that as long as they kept expecting bad things to happen, they would. With the ultimate Black Cloud personality, I suspected they secretly came to rely on a constant torrent of bad experiences because it kept people's attention and sympathy on them, more or less like a mild form of Munchhausen's. So it was with this poor woman, whom I have been pondering over the last couple of days. I cannot even recall all the calamitous events in her life, but they were never in short supply. Her reaction to whatever Crisis Du Jour she was experiencing was always just shy of over the top. Sometimes, actually, it was officially over the top. She was particularly dramatic once when she was diagnosed as having a potential melanoma on her face. I don't want to discount the seriousness of a situation like that, but she went up and down the halls of the office wailing about it, telling everyone in gasping tears what was happening, but refusing to go home. The entire office was in an uproar. Still new to the role of supervising people, I allowed it to go on, which I never would do at this point. Now I think I have the skill set to distract something like that from the workplace and still allow the person their dignity, but it took a while to learn. I also learned when to cut it off and just make someone go home for the day, which is very, very quickly. Turns out the spot was benign, she had it removed and her excuse for self pity went away. You could actually see the disappointment on her face. After that, I kept an eye on her. She didn't call in sick that often, although she often professed she was. If she called in sick she of course didn't get paid, but more to my theory, she lost her audience. She literally leapt from one bad situation to the next. Her car broke down, she couldn't pay her bills, some drama about her ex-, something would be wrong with her kids, her house, whatever. Never, ever did she run out of things to whine about, and whining, not to be unduly cruel, is really how she verbalized it. And she was very verbal. I began to suspect that her constant string of bad luck was more or less in her control. I thought that if only she would buck up, square her shoulders, announce that enough was enough, she could work her way out of her mess and turn her life around, but convincing her of that seemed a lost cause. A marginal employee at best, she would be so distracted by her life that she would often make mistakes. For me, the end of the tolerance I had for her was when she sent out incorrect statements to more than a handful of individuals, causing me to write each one a letter explaining they were not, in fact, delinquent. The damage both to the company's reputation and my workload was significant for a time, and I lost most of my sympathy for her after that. The thing about the best of the Black Clouders is that they have survival down to a science. I believe that class of individual knows, somewhere down inside, that they are always skating on thin ice, and know how to hang on for dear life. And, as clear as it eventually became to her that she wasn't Employee of the Month, she wasn't about to leave without a shove. Problem is, and generally has been with the others like her I've known since, is that she really is a sweet person. Disliking her, despite all my long list of her faults, was really not that easy. Which, of course, is part of the syndrome. No one is sympathetic to a horrible person. Everyone is sympathetic to an essentially nice guy going through hard times. She drew my name for Secret Santa one year and showered me with gift after gift, very carefully selecting them to fit my personality. It was embarrassing actually, she overdid it to such an extent. Worrying that being the boss caused her to in part over do it, I never participated again, which made me sad because that was the only part of the holidays I really looked forward to. But, her gift giving motivation notwithstanding, she was a sweet woman overall and she was kind to others in her way. Trying to force her hand and get her to move on was a miserable occupation for us. Eventually we prevailed, and she's taken her sideshow on to somewhere else, but I judge all subsequent sad sackers against her measure. She set the bar. I hope life is kinder to her these days. Sadly, I fear that it probably is not.
So, now I am like her? Has this long, hard year of constant blows been brought on somehow by myself and my actions? Did decisions I make, things I did, or more likely, not do cause the people I love to suffer and therefore, me to suffer along with them? Do I need the drama and just not realize it? Or, am I being visited with all these plagues like Egypt because I have always held people like the poor unfortunate accounting clerk in mild contempt? Maybe I was wrong about her, and she didn't actually have any control over her situation and her reaction to it? I pondered all these things, bent over the teeming, overflowing pipe full of raw sewage, but answered none of them. All I knew for sure was that this past year reminded me of my current plumbing situation, it was full of shit.
Saturday, August 15, 2009
The Long Journey Begins
You may have some questions after reading how I "met" Brandon Boyd, such as "Wait. I thought Kelsey had an eating disorder?" or "Well, what kind of mental illness?" That's the problem with blogs: you have to boil long complicated topics down into readable bites. But, it's also the problem with grieving mothers whose memories ebb and flow depending upon what pokes at her that moment. Suddenly every lyric I listen to reminds me of Kelsey or seems to have something to say directly related to her. Sometimes in a comforting way, sometimes not. So, coupled with the upcoming concert, it led me to ponder the events I described. The next day I was off thinking about football, because - well, I love thinking about football. My thought process these days is like a leaf floating on a river's surface. It gets tossed around in the rapids, bounced off jutting rocks and nipped at by fish, only to hit a calm part of the river where it floats steadily for a moment, only to repeat the cycle. I was always a little scattered like that, but grief I think must exacerbate it. However, I also am pulling memories off my mental shelf and having to dust them off and try to see them through more objective eyes than I often times lived them, so things will be lost, sometimes probably important things. That being said, I honestly do not recall anyone putting a label on what they believed Kelsey to be suffering from that day. And that makes sense actually. One thing I did learn fairly early on in is that the field of psychiatry is a difficult one. Some of the tools other doctors have at their disposal don't work when it comes to figuring out the complex workings of the brain. You can't run a blood test or take and x-ray and see exactly what is happening. So, a good psychiatrist has to be a detective and sometimes it's hit and miss. Scary thought? Yes, yes it is, particularly when you think of the side effects of the medication used to treat mental illness. And, over time, Kelsey was diagnosed with all flavors of depression. I lost track. Compound that with the fact that we were dealing with a teenage brain, which is still developing, and things are even more complicated. As a matter of fact, it took some doing to find a doctor who would even treat first one and then the other daughter. It was a delicate process that developed over time. So, I think truly all I got that day was a general diagnosis and not much more.
The other thing I learned was that I could get people to answer my questions, but sometimes I wasn't clued in enough to ask the right ones. I got wiser at that over time of course, which is why we were able to get a better and more comprehensive care team pulled together for Marissa when we had to. But, still, I didn't know there was such a thing as an educational consultant until Marissa's junior year. Almost seven years into trying to care for two children in crisis, someone finally asked me why I wasn't working with one. What an educational consultant does, I learned eventually, is to evaluate your child and then make recommendations of alternative placement, sometimes boarding school (hence the term "educational" I guess), but sometimes wilderness camp or hospitalization. I met with one once, but I didn't like the experience and Greg wasn't excited about the expense. But I was the only Alldredge parent in Marissa's group not working with one.
There just is no blueprint to any of this, and I found that other local parents were not particularly forthcoming, which would have been welcome to us early on to provide some guidance and support. There is shame attached to a child in trouble. I regret that even I fell into that rut at first. I would avoid social outings where I would see friends with similarly aged children. They would always pull out the snapshots and tell the stories of academic, sport or social successes and then, invariably, ask "So, how are your girls?" It was easier not to go than to have to try and field that question. Alldredge Academy, where Marissa went in the spring/summer of 2007, was a great boon in that they insisted on a series of mandatory parent workshops, so parents with similar socio-economic backgrounds are all in a room together for two long days of intense work. There's no denying we are all in there because we had kids in crisis, so that shame barrier is broken and suddenly you realize that parents who are normal, well intentioned, educated people have issues just like you. But, back in my little part of the world, outside the safe bubble of Alldredge, it was different. Once I began to get past my own reticence and began to accept the situation better, I wanted to be as helpful as I could to other parents starting down the same path. In speaking with the school's crisis counselor, I knew a lot of the parents of the kids he saw were having a hard time dealing with the reality of their child's situation, so I offered to have parents call me. Not once did I ever get a call. I think until society can break down that feeling of shame, pride, ego or whatever it is so parents can share experiences and resources, bad decisions will continue to be made and young people will continue to needlessly suffer.
And, yes, ultimately it was the eating disorder that became the mammoth issue that eventually cost Kelsey her life. Dual diagnoses are not uncommon, and many individuals with eating disorders share certain traits, depression being one. But, to say which is the chicken and which is the egg, I am not sure, even after all those years living with it. Either way, at first, it was not our larger concern. We had no idea what domino to put in the front of the stack, but it was buried somewhere in the middle initially. I honestly don't know if, by the time I took her to Shoal Creek Hospital that first time, she was bulimic or not. And if she was, I no longer remember if I realized it yet or not. I know that I became aware of it some time around then, but it was just another color in a larger palette of the picture I was trying to form of what was happening to my daughter. As might be expected, we dealt with the issues most visible to us, and the ones we felt were the most threatening to her and her little sister. The wild mood swings, the plummeting grades, the increasingly rebellious attitude, the drug use were all happening at the same time. We knew fairly early on that she was purposefully making herself throw up, and I knew enough about eating disorders to call it for what it was. But, still, I was very slow to see it for the danger that it was.
I remember very specifically a spring day when I finally had a quiet period one weekend and thought I would try the pool for the first time that season. I remember having on this swimsuit that a friend had given me that was vintage early 70's. The suit was awesome (I like vintage clothing), but I looked ridiculous in it. It didn't fit right and was way too revealing for my age and shape, but I hadn't had a chance to get a suit for the season yet, and figured, what the hell, no one was around anyway. I was trying to acclimate myself to the still chilly water when I looked up to the roof line and saw something bright orange splashed across about a three foot square outside the study window. I immediately figured we had been vandalized, but could not for the life of me figure out why, by whom or with what, so I tore out of the pool and up to the study. I leaned out the window and could see it was chunks of something. I climbed out the window onto the roof and got right up next to it. That's when I saw that it was vomit, and lots of it. And I knew how it had gotten there. Kelsey had been climbing out onto the roof to sneak cigarettes for a while, so now she was using to roof to purge. I sat down on my roof where I was probably visible to just about anyone in the neighborhood, in that skimpy old bathing suit and cried. Greg came home and found me there. He washed it off and yelled at Kelsey when she got home from wherever she was for upsetting me. That's how bad we were early on. Upsetting me?! Who the heck really cares about stuff like that? We both honestly were ignorant enough to think that this an activity that she could turn on and off at will at that point. And, after that, we thought she did turn it off. We saw no further evidence of it for a long time. Those events were pivotal. We achieved two things that day, in my opinion: we caused her to commit to it more deeply than ever before and forced her to take it underground. And whether it truly was the biggest issue before, it was for evermore. As long as she purged, no medication was going to be in her system consistently enough to work, no physical or psychological normacly could be achieved when her body was in constant trauma and flux like that, and the drag it put on her body would impact every other aspect of her life from that point forward. I think that day, maybe more than any other, set some things in motion that we could never quite undo. But we didn't see that or know that for a long time.
The other thing I learned was that I could get people to answer my questions, but sometimes I wasn't clued in enough to ask the right ones. I got wiser at that over time of course, which is why we were able to get a better and more comprehensive care team pulled together for Marissa when we had to. But, still, I didn't know there was such a thing as an educational consultant until Marissa's junior year. Almost seven years into trying to care for two children in crisis, someone finally asked me why I wasn't working with one. What an educational consultant does, I learned eventually, is to evaluate your child and then make recommendations of alternative placement, sometimes boarding school (hence the term "educational" I guess), but sometimes wilderness camp or hospitalization. I met with one once, but I didn't like the experience and Greg wasn't excited about the expense. But I was the only Alldredge parent in Marissa's group not working with one.
There just is no blueprint to any of this, and I found that other local parents were not particularly forthcoming, which would have been welcome to us early on to provide some guidance and support. There is shame attached to a child in trouble. I regret that even I fell into that rut at first. I would avoid social outings where I would see friends with similarly aged children. They would always pull out the snapshots and tell the stories of academic, sport or social successes and then, invariably, ask "So, how are your girls?" It was easier not to go than to have to try and field that question. Alldredge Academy, where Marissa went in the spring/summer of 2007, was a great boon in that they insisted on a series of mandatory parent workshops, so parents with similar socio-economic backgrounds are all in a room together for two long days of intense work. There's no denying we are all in there because we had kids in crisis, so that shame barrier is broken and suddenly you realize that parents who are normal, well intentioned, educated people have issues just like you. But, back in my little part of the world, outside the safe bubble of Alldredge, it was different. Once I began to get past my own reticence and began to accept the situation better, I wanted to be as helpful as I could to other parents starting down the same path. In speaking with the school's crisis counselor, I knew a lot of the parents of the kids he saw were having a hard time dealing with the reality of their child's situation, so I offered to have parents call me. Not once did I ever get a call. I think until society can break down that feeling of shame, pride, ego or whatever it is so parents can share experiences and resources, bad decisions will continue to be made and young people will continue to needlessly suffer.
And, yes, ultimately it was the eating disorder that became the mammoth issue that eventually cost Kelsey her life. Dual diagnoses are not uncommon, and many individuals with eating disorders share certain traits, depression being one. But, to say which is the chicken and which is the egg, I am not sure, even after all those years living with it. Either way, at first, it was not our larger concern. We had no idea what domino to put in the front of the stack, but it was buried somewhere in the middle initially. I honestly don't know if, by the time I took her to Shoal Creek Hospital that first time, she was bulimic or not. And if she was, I no longer remember if I realized it yet or not. I know that I became aware of it some time around then, but it was just another color in a larger palette of the picture I was trying to form of what was happening to my daughter. As might be expected, we dealt with the issues most visible to us, and the ones we felt were the most threatening to her and her little sister. The wild mood swings, the plummeting grades, the increasingly rebellious attitude, the drug use were all happening at the same time. We knew fairly early on that she was purposefully making herself throw up, and I knew enough about eating disorders to call it for what it was. But, still, I was very slow to see it for the danger that it was.
I remember very specifically a spring day when I finally had a quiet period one weekend and thought I would try the pool for the first time that season. I remember having on this swimsuit that a friend had given me that was vintage early 70's. The suit was awesome (I like vintage clothing), but I looked ridiculous in it. It didn't fit right and was way too revealing for my age and shape, but I hadn't had a chance to get a suit for the season yet, and figured, what the hell, no one was around anyway. I was trying to acclimate myself to the still chilly water when I looked up to the roof line and saw something bright orange splashed across about a three foot square outside the study window. I immediately figured we had been vandalized, but could not for the life of me figure out why, by whom or with what, so I tore out of the pool and up to the study. I leaned out the window and could see it was chunks of something. I climbed out the window onto the roof and got right up next to it. That's when I saw that it was vomit, and lots of it. And I knew how it had gotten there. Kelsey had been climbing out onto the roof to sneak cigarettes for a while, so now she was using to roof to purge. I sat down on my roof where I was probably visible to just about anyone in the neighborhood, in that skimpy old bathing suit and cried. Greg came home and found me there. He washed it off and yelled at Kelsey when she got home from wherever she was for upsetting me. That's how bad we were early on. Upsetting me?! Who the heck really cares about stuff like that? We both honestly were ignorant enough to think that this an activity that she could turn on and off at will at that point. And, after that, we thought she did turn it off. We saw no further evidence of it for a long time. Those events were pivotal. We achieved two things that day, in my opinion: we caused her to commit to it more deeply than ever before and forced her to take it underground. And whether it truly was the biggest issue before, it was for evermore. As long as she purged, no medication was going to be in her system consistently enough to work, no physical or psychological normacly could be achieved when her body was in constant trauma and flux like that, and the drag it put on her body would impact every other aspect of her life from that point forward. I think that day, maybe more than any other, set some things in motion that we could never quite undo. But we didn't see that or know that for a long time.
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