CHAPTER SIX: BEFORE

THINGS THAT BREAK

It was beautifully wrapped in silver paper and topped with a purple bow

But when it slipped from her hands and hit the pavement

One shake was enough to know

That this crystal pitcher, so carefully chosen

Would not be part of the bride’s trousseau.

Crystal pitchers are not the only things that break.

Zippers break and will not slide

Carousels break and you cannot ride

Bones break and snap in two

Chalk can break, computers too

Thread, so fragile, can easily give way

Leaving the mending for another day

My grandmother’s china, so dainty and rare

Will shatter to pieces if I do not take care.

Lots of things can break.

Friendships can fracture with one thoughtless word

Silence be broken by sounds best unheard

Families torn apart with strife

And marriages destroyed, souls damaged for life.

Dreams can be shattered like delicate, spun glass

And lives ripped apart and withered like grass.

Promises made and easily broken

Relationships torn by words left unspoken.

But sometimes the outside still looks good.

The wrapping is not torn. The bow is still in place.

We smile. We nod. We can save face.

It is easy to hide behind the pretty wrappings.

Like hearts that beat on in spite of the break

And spirits that falter beneath the deep ache

And churches that wander away from God

And feet that are bruised but continue to trod.

God is not fooled by our outward wrappings

He sees into our hearts, despite our trappings.

Are we so deaf

We cannot hear,

The sounds of broken glass so clear?

Wrapped up in silver and tied with a bow

These things are not fit for the Bride’s trousseau.

CHAPTER SIX.

BEFORE…

1999

            Electric shock therapy. Or it’s better known term, ECT. It conjures up images of Frankenstein’s monster being attached to electrodes that are ignited by a lightning bolt. But ECT, Dr. Malachi has told us, is a very safe and often effective way to treat patients who suffer from severe depression. After four weeks at Friends Hospital—four weeks of trekking up Roosevelt Boulevard on the weekends and holding the world together alone the other five days—Ron seems to be only a little better. He has graduated from a red band—which meant he needed constant supervision—to a yellow band. The yellow band allows him to accompany us to the cafeteria for ice-cream or for walks around the pond and through the quiet paths that border this mental institution. Despite the pastoral scenes, it is hard to forget that we are behind high and guarded walls.

            Reese and I are in the waiting room—a different waiting room—while Dr. Malachi administers the first of Ron’s ECT’s. There will be eleven in all. We think we are prepared. Mild electric shocks would be sent through electrodes attached to various parts of Ron’s body, stimulating nerve sensors that were now, in common jargon, all jangled up. There might be a temporary state of amnesia for a short while after the procedure. Ron will feel only mild sensations during the ECT, rather like static electricity shocks. It still seemed to me the stuff of science fiction novels and late night black and white movies, but Dr. Malachi has said the treatment was so safe and effective he would recommend if for his own mother.

            I did not ask him if he had a mother.

            Reese holds out high hopes for these treatments. He envisions Ron walking out the the treatment room a totally new man, all mental problems left behind. I busy myself with filling out insurance forms, wishing one of my own parents had come today as well. If this does not work, what will it do to Reese? Can I handle two depressed men?

            Friends Hospital of Philadelphia was found in 1813 by the Religious Society of Friends, the Quakers. The institution was originally named, “The Asylum for Persons Deprived of the Use of Their Reason.” It seems to aptly apply to Ron, no longer sure what socks to put on or how to tuck in the corners of the bedspread in the small room he now occupies alone. Historic photographs grace the hallways, pictures of the original Friends’ Asylum, with its patient rooms along one corridor, patients playing croquet on the lawns, the miniature train that provided amusement to the residents, people working in vegetable gardens, and others strolling along wooded paths. There are also paintings of the founding Quaker fathers: Thomas Scattergood, Isaac Bonsall, William Turke. At a time when many viewed the insane as less than human, Quakers saw “the true light that lighteth every person that cometh into the world (I John 1:9)”. Somewhere inside Ron, I have to believe, there is still a light and a sense of reason.

            In the four weeks that Ron has been behind these walls, Allen has been here only four times. He comes on Sundays after church, usually tucking a game of Stratego or chess under one arm, determined that his father will remember the intricate moves involved. The game box always sits on the table in the common room unopened and after a few minutes of trying to engage Ron in conversation, Allen takes out his Game Boy and entertains himself until it is time to accompany his father to the dining hall for ice cream bars. Dennis has not been here yet. It is doubtful he will ever come. With a personality similar to Ron’s, he sees himself reflected in his dad’s face; it is too close for comfort. He prefers not to confront the abyss. And Bonnie? She, as usual, will never let me come alone because, “It’s a pretty scary place.” While not really the creepy stuff of B movies, Ron is still housed behind locked doors.

            Reese generally drives us up on Sundays. Allen counts the cars abandoned and stripped of their tires along the way. Bonnie keeps up a cheerful line of conversation with me while Reese sits stoically behind the wheel.

            “He seems better,” my father-in-law will say on the way back. “Don’t you think he seems better?” And I will acquiesce that perhaps he seems a little better but still has to be at Friends for a while longer. I am determined that my husband stay as long as his needs and the insurance allows.

            Despite the air conditioning, it is warm in the room where we wait for Ron’s first ECT to end. I am finished with the insurance forms. Since I had left the employ of The Christian Academy at the end of June, we are now funneling everything through Ron’s insurance company and Medicare. When I begin my new job as a sixth grade teacher at Westtown in September, my new insurance will also kick in.

            The decision to leave The Christian Academy has been a difficult one. I had taught high school English there for the last three years. I had come to love the staff and the students. The salary I earned was not large, but it was enough for a second income.

            That changed the night Ron was taken to the crisis center and stripped of his shoelaces and his belt. Now into July, it looked doubtful that Ron would be able to resume his job anytime soon.

            In the meantime, I had an offer from Westtown on the table, a phone call suggested to a dean by a graduate school professor. I had no idea where or what Westtown was, but I had visited the campus the very day before Ron’s breakdown. I called the principal at the middle school the day Ron was carted off to Friends and told her that, due to our current status, I would have to decline her offer. Phyllis, principal, called back a week later and urged me to reconsider.

            I went to Pastor Tripler for advice, my usual list of pros and cons in my hand. The salary I made at The Christian Academy would not pay the mortgage and feed my family. The salary Westtown offered would.

            “Your choice seems simple,” said Pastor Lou. “Your first obligation is to your family.”

            “But what about teaching in a Christian school?”

            He smiled. “Quakers are Christians. Professing Christians, anyway. I can imagine you shaking them up a bit. But, Linda,” he put his hand over mine, “you were called to teach. It seems to me that this offer is from God’s hands so that you can care for your family.”

            I nodded, tears streaming down from my eyes. I knew then that I would tender my resignation to the principal and headmasters at TCA. I folded up my pro and con list and put it away, rising to leave.

            “And how are you in all this?” asked Pastor Lou.

            I shrugged. “Okay.”

            “That’s what you always say.”

            “I’m handling it,” I said. “Do I have a choice?”

            He thought a minute, his eyes fixed on mine and his hand still over mine. “Yes,” he said finally. “you do have other choices. But none that you would choose. Still,” and he hesitated, “ if this all becomes too much for you, if Ron cannot recover, if at some point you feel you just cannot continue to carry his burdens as well as your own, I want you to know that I would not rebuke you. I would understand. And so would God.”

            Bonnie accompanied me to TCA the next day where I spent hours packing up my room into cardboard boxes and orange milk crates. As head of the English Department, I had started a systematic cataloging of the novels assigned in each grade. The principal, Anita, came down to my room to tell me I did not have to finish it. With tears in my eyes, I told her that I would indeed finish it and leave it as my legacy. She hugged me and whispered, “You leave more than this.”

            It is now almost an hour after Ron has been ushered into the treatment room; the door opens to release him. He shuffles out, his head hanging low, his mouth slack, reminding me of models I have seen of the evolutionists’ idea of prehistoric man. Half-ape, half-man. Not really human. His arms dangle at his side loosely. My heart jumps into my throat and I gasp.

            I have destroyed him, I think. Now he really is a hollow man.

            But Reese is on his feet in an instant, clapping a hearty hand onto Ron’s back. “Wow! You look better! Do you feel better? You’re walking just like a man!”

            When I get home from the hospital that day, I place my wedding band in the box it came in over twenty years ago. The plain gold band winks at me from the velvet lining. In the first year of our marriage, I glanced at it often, winding it around my finger with my thumb and enjoying the smooth, cool feel of it. It was, the minister had pointed out, a perfect and unbroken circle. The intervening years had worn the band thin in spots and left the engraving on the inside hard to discern. To LKW Forever RAC. The ring comes off my finger with a slight rug, not the wrenching pain I had expected. Perhaps I was now beyond pain. I close the lid on the box and tuck it into my lingerie drawer, not certain that I will ever wear it again.