For Dee
From
the clear-eyed perspective of hindsight, we can usually look back on important
events in our lives and discern a cause, or a series of causes, that logically
and inexorably led to that event---a tipping point.
I
don't know what the tipping point was that precipitated my mother's mental
breakdown. I've thought about it. I hope it wasn't something I said or did. I
don't think so.
I was
in my early teens on that sunny spring day when I came into the back door of our
house and found her sitting at our kitchen table, shaking and sobbing
uncontrollably.
I
know now that the demons that tormented her had been quietly and relentlessly
doing their damage since her childhood. As a young girl she was sent to live
with and help take care of her blind grandmother. Granny's house was far off
the beaten path with few close neighbors. As is the norm in homes of the sight
impaired, furniture and other household trappings had to be situated just so
relative to each other and it was mother's job to keep that order. In my young
life and that of my brother, we saw that regimented precision extended to our
home. We didn't then know why, but we knew she had "a place for everything
and everything in its place." I wonder how much of her conscious thought
was concentrated on what she considered her duty to make sure our house could
pass muster. I think maybe that was one of the demons.
The
remote location of her grandparents' house was another factor to reckon with.
With her impressionable years spent in partial isolation, especially from her
peer age group, she didn't acquire the necessary social skills to make her
comfortable in social gatherings. To complicate the distress, at age seventeen
she went directly from the backwoods to St. Louis---culture shock to the
extreme.
By
today's definition, she was agoraphobic. She never drank, but on the occasion
of my eighth-grade graduation, she bought a half-pint of whiskey and drank most
of it in order to summon the courage to attend. I know she must have been
terrified to sit there and mingle with those hundred or so people---but she did
it for me. The demon of agoraphobia was a constant companion.
At
some time during her sojourn with her blind grandmother my mother was molested
by a member of her extended family. She carried that ugly and painful secret
for the rest of her life. I cannot imagine how this trauma affected her ability
to share intimacy with the loved ones in her life. It was a gnawing and
voracious demon, for a certainty.
In
the 1950's the medical community had been claiming to have great success in
treating mental disorders with a new procedure called prefrontal lobotomy. The
surgery would excise part of her brain, hopefully that part controlling and
causing her fears and anxieties. The doctors would also subject her to
electroshock therapy. If you saw Jack Nicholson in "One Flew Over
The Cuckoo's Nest", you get a pretty good idea of what she faced in
the hospital. I remember being apprehensive. Maybe, I thought, she wouldn't be
afraid to jump off a cliff or stab herself with a knife. Not to worry, it all
went O.K.
I
came home from school one day and saw her sitting in an easy chair in our
living room. I can never forget how alone and scared she looked--the stubble on
her head only beginning to replenish what was once her beautiful hair.
Despite
its current bad reputation, the lobotomy, at least outwardly, seemed to have
the intended result. She eventually obtained a driver's license, began
attending church regularly, and came to acquire a small circle of friends with
whom she often visited. The change was amazing. If the demons had not been
exorcised, they had at least been fought to a draw.
The
one demon she would never conquer was physical pain, with her in varying
degrees almost her entire life. She suffered a stillbirth early in her marriage.
She underwent a radical double mastectomy, appendicitis, and several back
surgeries. After the brain surgery she sought relief in prescription drugs and
became addicted. At age 56, while driving alone, her car left the road and hit
a tree, killing her instantly.
She
likely would not want me to write these words but, as her son, I am willing to
risk her displeasure in my somewhat clumsy attempt to understand now what I
could not then. Perhaps also, I may help explain her words and actions to
others who were not aware of the intimate details of her many trials.
I
loved her. She loved us. Of that I am certain. She never caught much of a break
in life---I hope finally she has found eternal peace.
