Twirling

"Well, I fought with a stranger and I met myself
I opened my mouth and I heard myself
It can get pretty lonely when you show yourself
Guess I could have made it easier on myself

But I, I could never follow
No I, I could never follow"

- Dixie Chicks, Long Way Around




Here's the thing. Some folks in my family think I'm crazy. Or at least seriously consider it.

I have done some crazy shit. I have made many mistakes and hurt some folks along the way. I have, at times, been desperate and panicked. I do not live traditionally, nor do I wish to do so. I take a lot of risks and I don't worry about how things look very much. I open my mouth and stand up for myself sometimes. This, I know, baffles some folks, especially when my ideas directly oppose some of theirs - or the other way around. But, on a very basic level, I am not even one iota of crazy.

Trust me, I would be. I even should be and have been, briefly. But not today. Not today. And not for most of the days of my life.

I told the therapist i was tired of living, told him I had thought about ending it. I was seventeen. I had been abused, my parents were divorcing, and my mom was a raging drunk. I was in all advanced courses, working twenty five hours a week, was president of the orchestra and twirler in the band. I don't know, call me crazy. Oh, wait. I actually think I was just tired and depressed. Oh, and drinking alcoholically. Minor detail.

They hospitalized me for "major depression." It was actually voluntary. I signed myself in. Imagine that. I thought i could use some help and rest. Sounds nuts, I know.

I forgot to mention it was Christmas time. I am pretty sure all these things can depress you. In any case, there i was.

The morning after I arrived at the sanitarium, Mom came to visit.

What an entrance. She wore her blue, silk dress and fox fur coat, hair all done, stumbling in her heels, smelling like liquor, and loud for the very quiet "unit" I was on.

Oh, the irony. She left. I stayed.

Relatively speaking, nothing much happened. I hung out for a few weeks, had some therapy, and left.

But first, Mom had to ask a question. The day before I was discharged the doctor told me he was testing me for bipolar disorder. I asked why, whether this was standard operating procedure. He said that it was not. So, then I deduced that he must suspect me of being bipolar and suggested such, to which he replied that no, indeed he did not suspect me of being bipolar. When I looked at him quizzically he grew agitated and finally burst out with his explanation.

Sighing heavily, he quipped, "Kollette, your mother has requested this."
"Oh! Is she worried about me?"
"In my opinion, Kollette, she knows you are being released and yet you still do not see things her way. Therefore, even though we are telling her otherwise, she thinks something must still be wrong with you."

This simple statement set my world on edge. It both terrified and freed me. It has served me multiple times, since Mom is not the only person who has gone to such lengths to perpetuate some needed fantasy.

And the strength, the power, the cunning and baffling force of the disease of alcoholism once again attempted to engulf us both.

Comatose

Home for Freshman summer of college.

You have to do it! You just have to!
But I didn't have the strength. I simply did not have it.

I had walked in the door around midnight and she sat in the lounge chair near the front door of the little rental town home. All of the lights were off. She had her eyes closed. No movement. I was annoyed by her being so drunk that she just fell asleep right there like that.

But when I tried to rouse her, I got nothing from her.

I shook her a bit. Nothing. Harder. Nothing.
She was bluish. A little chilly to the touch.
Oh, God! Could she be...?
I cannot do this by myself. I cannot do this by myself.
I called for help.
That's when he demanded that I take her pulse while he got on his way to come over and help me.

My chest was made completely of molten lead. My brain was ice. I again attempted to summon up the needed courage and force myself to do it.

Nothing happened. It would not come.

The Hospice Lady and Peace

Evenings when the weather was rainy, or cold, or boiling hot, I would look out my window and hope and pray that she decided to stay in the mission, or at a shelter, or that a good person had an extra bed for her, or that she had maybe gotten money for a motel.

She would call but I often couldn't answer. I could not take the chance that she would be raging and drunk, or full of the latest drama she had largely brought on herself. Or maybe it was also that it was just so damned painful to hear from her. I knew that I was no match for the pain she was in nor for her desire to escape it. Nothing would stop her, not even her love for me. And that hurt more than I can put into words, even though it shouldn't. That should bring me relief, somehow, that it wasn't personal. It's just that it felt so personal.

Maybe I will always wrestle with that, as well as whether there was more that I could have done. Feeling so powerless, actually being so damned powerless, was also very painful.

My faith was also hugely affected. Terribly affected. For years I struggled with this question: how could You? God, how could you let her never, ever get out of pain? I prayed, I got and stayed sober, I begged, I helped, I stopped enabling...so why? I would hear someone say that they prayed and their brother got sober, so prayer really works. I would seeth with grief and rage, quietly daring God to explain that, to ask Him whether He wanted me to understand that prayer for others works but not for me and my mom. Why was her whole life so damned tragic?

I still don't fully have the answers to that. But I do trust God. He Has just been way too good to way too many people, myself included, for me not to. So, He definitely must've had His reasons. I think now that maybe it was actually more merciful to mom and that she was of better use to God just as she was, to leave when she did, the way that she did. The Hospice Counselor explained that when Mom actually died, she had a very peaceful expression. The counselor said that she had seen countless people die, and that no amount of drugs or medicines could keep a horrible look off of their faces if they were not at peace, so she knew that Mom was.

I know that her story has definitely inspired me to do all that I can to stay sober, and that many of my fellow alcoholics have not been able to do so. I also have realized, being forty two now myself, that although she was fairly young when she died - fifty three - that forty two and fifty three is a long time. I have already had a good life. She lived a very long time, had a long marriage, two kids, jobs, friends, and interests like singing for a whole lifetime before things got really, really bad.

There are those who believe that my mom was mentally ill, perhaps bipolar or some such other problem. But I don't think that's the case. I think she quite simply had alcoholism, and also PTSD from past abuse. Then I think person after person let her down, and she also did not turn to some places that she could have. I see Mom as a champion for women's rights in that she did whatever it took to stand up for herself. She was willing to lose support from people she cared about. Perhaps she was somewhat misguided, because certainly there is no bigger way to say "fuck you" to society than to quit living by its rules, but the ones she broke may have hurt her more than anyone. Still, she did it, which was enormously brave and I am so very proud of her for not going back on her truth about the abuse. I can only assume that at some point the lack of support was too much and so she got together with hurtful people and also back with her sister. Certainly much of her rebellion was aimed at continuing to blot out her pain with alcohol. Certainly that part hurt others, and ultimately I will call it wrong. Yet I have enormous sympathy for it. I know what that terror feels like, when someone has hurt you and you want the people you love to believe you, to protect you, to support you, and they don't. So you find something to help with that feeling. You deny it's a problem so that you can keep your defense. I understand that. I understand so much about her still today. She continues to inspire me still today. My whole life is one of bravery largely due to her.

I wouldn't even have said anything about my own abuse if it hadn't been for Mom. She taught me to speak out, to speak up. She believed me, and she thought I should be heard. She was my advocate.

Jesus, Joseph, Mary, and...

Paul. Damn him! Wait. I don't need to do that. Pretty sure he's already damned.

But what a conniving, awful, lech of a person. I know we are all children of God, but even as such we can do some low down things. Does it get much worse than strangling someone, hanging out in their hospital room when they almost died because you don't have a home, drinking with them when they are dying from drinking and so are you, not telling their daughter that they are in hospice dying, and then giving hospice the daughter's number when the bill needs to be paid but it's too late for the daughter to see her mom before she dies?


Even when I got Mom on disability and they placed her in that mission, that effing Paul managed to get placed there, too, somehow! But at least at that point I knew that she was in a facility with rules and was being watched over.

They had moved out and gotten their own place again after their time was up there, shortly. Then they lost that, I'm sure. I stopped keeping track of Mom's exact whereabouts when she started communicating again with her sister, Mary.

Mary was one of the family members who absolutely didn't stand by me or Mom when we made our claim that we had been abused by a family member. That member was someone Mary wanted to protect, so she betrayed us, as I saw it. For years, Mom didn't have anything to do with her because of that. I'm not sure exactly at what point she changed her mind.

At the time, I was really hurt by her getting back in touch with Mary and that part of the family. I told Mom I felt betrayed by that.

"Well, honey, I need help. I need support."
"Ask me, Mom!"
"But, baby, that's not your job. I should get help from other people in my life."

She was right. And what had I wanted her to do? I had wanted her not only to stand up to her family, also regarding her marriage for herself, etc. And she lost all of that support. Then when she became so hurtful, she lost a lot of mine, too.

Yes, possibly she could've sought help from other places. She had sought solace in the church, for sure. Even they betrayed her. A counselor at our longtime church that even counseled our family turned out to be a pedaphile. I know she did not feel that she got the reaction she wanted from the church. Although she never lost her faith in Jesus, She definitely stopped believing in the church. So did I for a very long time. In fact, the family person that hurt both of us had actually been a Sunday school teacher many years ago, so people didn't want to believe that he could possibly be a sex offender.

The one place she refused to turn that I so wish she had been able to in order to find some peace, love, and support was a twelve step program.

I guess that damned Paul had his reasons. He knew I wouldn't let him be there with Mom if I was there. Hell, one person in my family was pissed at me that I didn't call Mary when Mom died. I refused. She had not spoken to me since I made my claim that her precious someone had hurt me and then Mom told her he had hurt her, too. Mary was spitting mad at me, and I had been a child at the time. I owed her nothing. I felt she had given Mom up when she chose to protect That person. Mom belonged to me, I felt. I also felt that getting in touch with Mary could reignite a potentially dangerous situation for me.

Thank God that at that time, when I was getting raked over the coals for being "bad"for not calling Mary, Joe was there to help keep me balanced and keep me focused on Jesus, too.

If I have done something wrong, I can make amends. As it is, I have not found it necessary in this case.

Need to Write

I'm afraid. I'm afraid to even keep writing. There's some sort of powerful force in this vast expanse of grief that warns me not to go there. Do not say or write or communicate or express the things on your heart mind soul.

All was not roses and sun with Dad and me. To write about the real family dynamics when I have now lost both of my parents is more than daunting. It's terrifying.

The best I can do is to write about writing right now.

Make no mistake: I did love my father. I do love my dad. The same goes for my mom. It doesn't mean that hurtful things didn't happen. My son loves me, too. Doesn't mean I haven't hurt him. Maybe one day he'll write a blog or a book about the truth of what happened in his childhood. What I hope I have instilled in my son is a voice of his own, the ability to discern the truth in a reasonably sane manner, and to know that to speak the truth is not disrepectful or unloving. I hope if he has things he needs to say about me I can support his healing.

Part of my need - it seems like a need - to put my truth in words and to have others read it and know it and believe me is because the exact opposite happened in my childhood. I told the truth and I wasn't believed. It was an important truth. It was a truth that I needed help with, and it was brave for me to speak. I wasn't believed - not because there was any factual or logical reason to believe that i had lied - in fact I had a reputation for honesty and I still do. I wasn't believed because the truth that I told was too difficult for people to deal with, to handle, to believe themselves. So, as a child, i bore the burden alone. I was an outcast in many ways in my own family, including some members saying that I was a liar and having no more contact with them.

That's why I write my truth. Some of it may not be completely accurate or sane since it's just my point of view and I am a flawed human being just like everyone else. However, I feel confident that the great majority of my self will be revealed through my writing as truthful, trustworthy, and sane.

Everything's Different Now

The horrible truth is that Dad is dead now. The call came at 6 a.m. Ginger said she was in the ER with Dad and that it didn't look good.

I should have known that meant it was even worse than that. He had really already died. I think now he never woke up. He was in a fatal arythmia, causing his body to gasp for breath, his eyes unfocused, unanswering.

She called 9-1-1, then did CPR for 7 minutes until EMS arrived. At this point it took them 30 minutes to stabilize him in order to be able to transfer him to the ambulance.

His heart did beat then, it's true. But he never could breathe and have his heart beat again without help. As Dad would have wished, Ginger was going to remove him from life support pretty quickly.

Then the hospital staff suggested that since Dad was so young - 66 - and that he was so healthy - having run almost 50 marathons and being in training currently - that they would try hypothermia therapy. They cooled his body down from 24 hours so that it wouldn't have to work, in the hopes that it would give his system the rest it would need to minimize damage and let him start again. They began the warm up process at that point.

I was in the room, right next to him, Aunt Katrina beside me, Grams behind us. I saw the heart monitor drop from 43 to 39 to 27 beats per minute. Then it jumped back up to the 40's, then dropped again, and a nurse came into the room. Then the monitor said VF in red, and the nurse said, "Ok, he's having some fatal arythmia right now. Where is his wife?"

Ginger had already told us that if he entered this state again, she would "call the code," "do not resuscitate."

Sadly, Ginger had just gone to lunch ironically for a birthday meal with her daughters, my husband, and son. We had all been in good spirits because Dad had showed signs of improving.

My aunt called Ginger on her cell as I called her daughter.

The staff were waiting. Ginger was coming up the stairs. I met her at the door to ICU. She asked, "Is he gone?" I replied, "They're waiting for you."

When she got there they told her the situation quickly, and she asked for them to try to resuscitate once more.

Twelve adults swarmed the room as we left it.

Ginger, Aunt Katrina, Grams, and I stood in a tight circle with our arms around each other, crying, wailing, calling out, praying.

The rest of the family came up and surrounded us.

Dad didn't get better.

Ginger looked at us, paced, pulled at her hair, and said, "Call the code."

And that was it. He was gone. We were there.

Moments with Mom

Mom

She told me that when she first saw me, she thought I was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. She said she’d had an overwhelming feeling of love and told me that she would always love me in the first few moments she met me. She told me that she would die for me, that that’s the strong kind of love she had for me.

She made my Princess costume for Halloween, complete with glitter.

She drove me to gymnastics, and dance, and tap, and choir.

She brushed my hair, went shopping for cute clothes with me, and for shoes, too.

She made sure I got the number one item I wanted each Christmas.

I had a swing set before my family had a couch.

She taught me to sing Jesus Loves Me and to play Heart and Soul on the piano when I was three and four.

She made fried chicken better than anyone, and made it often because it was my favorite meal.

She had an awesome white jumpsuit that she wore with an orange scarf tied around her neck, big round sunglasses and a permanent in her brown hair.

We sang Neil Diamond and Lionel Ritchie songs in the car as they played on the radio.

Her nails were always neatly filed in a half moon shape and the cuticles pushed back and trimmed, as she taught me.

She wore a silver fox fur coat.

Her favorite perfume was Nina Ricci, L’Air du Temps.
She thought Magnum P.I. was hot. We watched Dallas religiously.
She sang Amazing Grace in church and other hymns at people’s weddings. Her singing voice was gorgeous.

Every Easter I had a new dress.

I always had all my school supplies, all my school clothes, and church clothes.

I got to have friends over to spend the night.

When I had my tonsils out she fed me ice cream, and made a place on the couch for me to lay so I could watch t.v.

She planted azaleas and purple ivy in our flower beds and on the side of our house, and had hanging baskets of airplane plants and ferns in front of our house.

All that time I never knew that she was popping Mommy’s little helpers. Never knew she was drinking at night.

There were moments. Signs. She would later confess to me after having about three drinks that she had done something horrible to me when I was two. I was in the tub. I defecated. She became enraged and smeared me with my own feces, telling me that I was shit.

I have no recollection of that moment. It haunted my Mom, though, and I know that I did receive the message that at my core I was bad, or that there was a huge chance that I was. The fear was always lurking underneath. Sometimes it made me panic. I know that Mom was terrified that she was evil. It’s one of the side effects of being abused. The victim, so to speak, absorbs the shame that the abuser ought to feel. Happens all the time. Hearts break every day.