CHAPTER TWO: OVERWHELMED

We are sitting outside under the tree in the front yard, enjoying the coolness that sometimes comes at the end of a hot summer day, stitching together the pieces of a plastic canvas Noah’s Ark that will be our gift for a friend’s new baby. We work in companionable silence, instinctively picking up each other’s stitches. It is my daughter who breaks the silence, asking the question I knew she would one day ask.

            “Why did you marry Dad?”

            It is not an easy question to answer. With the wisdom of a college freshman, Bonnie has seen the changes wrought in our household the last years since her father began his battle with mental illness. I think a minute and choose my words carefully, speaking to her of the love and faith Ron and I had shared…

My daughter asks a question

“Why did you marry Dad?”

I pause and carefully consider;

I don’t want to make her sad.

“I married him because

Of the kindness in his face

His gentle, loving spirit,

Things time cannot erase.

While dark clouds now

Have weighted him

And given him to grief,

Yesterday’s still part of him.

This is my belief.

When he slides,

Unknowing,

Into some gray and long abyss

I remember days of sunshine

And joy

And smiles

And bliss.

My own spirit has grown

As his has slowly ebbed away.

Tomorrows are just echoes

Of what passed

Yesterday.

I have been empowered

By his silent abdication.

I’ve had my own successes

My joys and my elations.

Now, I wait in silence

For the

Man

That I once met and knew.

It was through his despair and darkness

That my light and my strength grew.

CHAPTER TWO.

MARCH 3, 2000. 3 AM.

            The phone next to my bed jangles loudly and I reach for it across the sleeping bodies of my daughter and son who, after trudging off to their respective rooms a scant hour ago, have dragged back blankets and pillows and crawled in next to me. I am grateful for their warm presence and grab the phone quickly, my heart lurching into a staccato pattern that will become commonplace as the months wear on. The voice on the other end of the phone is faint and choked with tears.

            “Is he still alive?” I shake my head a moment to clear the cobwebs of sleep deprivation, recognizing the voice of my oldest son. I have half-forgotten the message left a lifetime ago on Alana’s answering machine. While I have been cocooned by my family and friends, Dennis has had only the cold comfort of a terse message: “Dennis, Dad’s been in an accident. It’s bad. Call as soon as you get this message.”

            “Is he still alive?” my child repeats, fairly screaming now.

            I find my voice. “Yes. Yes, Dennis, he’s alive. He’s in intensive care and he’s had several surgeries but he’s still alive.”

            “I’m coming home.”

            I shake my head, knowing he has been on the road for two straight days already. “No. Don’t come. There’s nothing you can do but pray and you can do that there. Stay a few days and rest before you come back.”

            “What happened? Did he do it on purpose?” It was the very question I have been afraid to let myself think about. “No, I don’t think so. He was coming home from work and a pick-up truck ran a red light and hit the driver’s side of the Taurus. It’s totaled. Dad’s lucky to be alive.”

            Dennis gulps. I can imagine his tall, 6 foot 9 inch frame shaking. He is a grown man in most respects, but he is still my child. And it is not the first time he has come close to losing his father, in one sense or another. “What’s…what’s wrong with him?”

            I run through the litany of injuries, one I will repeat often for friends and relatives as the day progresses and more phone calls are made and received. I shudder to myself at the extent of damage a human being can sustain and still live. On the other end of the phone, I sense Dennis doing the same.

            “But he’ll be alright?” Dennis has always been a bottom-line kind of guy.

            “We don’t know yet. There’s a lot of things that can go wrong. But right now…as of the time I left the hospital…he’s stable. I’ll call the ICU in the morning. Well, later on in the morning.”

            “How are you? And the kids?” It is typical of my oldest son to ask. During the year he has lived away from us, several emergency calls have buzzed across the phone wires. After ascertaining that his dad is “okay”—a relative term—it is always his next question.

            “We’re alright,” I say. “Exhausted. Scared. But alright.”

            “What can I do to help?”

            It is becoming a common question. Everyone wants to help. I repeat what I’ve said to everyone who has asked thus far: pray. But to this oldest child of mine I add another request. “Allen’s going to need someone around for a while. Dad’s going to be in the hospital a long time. He’s going to need a big brother.”

            Across the miles to New Orleans, I can almost see my large son smile. Here is something tangible he can do. “Tell Allen that whenever he needs me, and whatever he needs me for, I’m there.”

            A few moments later, I hang up the phone and snuggle back down under the covers for a few more hours of sleep, holding close to me the images of my wonderful children.

MARCH 3, 2000. 9AM

            When Bonnie and I arrive at the hospital, we are still exhausted but propping each other up. The nurse I spoke with at 6AM told me that Ron had a quiet night. My own was punctuated by the sounds of crashing metal and squealing brakes. Later, I called various schools and reported absences. We haven’t brought Allen this time: we want to be able to prepare him for what we will find. Last night Ron was still and gray as a waxed image. My daughter and I paste smiles onto our faces and hold each other’s hand tightly. We are not unfamiliar with hospitals. In the ICU, the whir of medical machines hum as we walk down the hallway to Ron’s blue-curtained cubicle.

            We enter on tiptoe, hesitant to disturb the silence. Ron lies on a raised bed, his arms tied down with tubes and straps. The ventilator makes his chest rise and fall and emits the sound of whooshing air. I touch his hand. He stirs. Eyelids flicker. On the other side of the bed, Bonnie rests her hand on her father’s shoulder. He shudders—as he does sometimes when he is having a bad dream—and opens his eyes. We hold our breaths, waiting. He blinks several times.

            Then we see it, that spark of recognition. He gives us his lopsided smile. Tears fall onto the bed sheets. It doesn’t matter whose tears they are. It is enough, for these few moments, to just be near him, touching him, reassuring ourselves that he is still alive. I want to say—so much—but words are not important right now. I can feel Ron’s pulse in his hand. The monitors over his bed register his vital signs in an eerie green glow.

            Minutes—or hours—pass. Ron dozes. We wait. Nurses walk in and out on quiet crepe soled shoes, offering us smiles and nods. One thoughtfully pushes two chairs into the cubicle, but we do not sit. We do not pace. We wait. Ron’s body has been terribly damaged. We do not yet know what the injuries will mean to his mind.

            Suddenly, Ron jerks, startled out of his sleep. His eyes fly open. His hands flail. The monitors signal a rise in his blood pressure and a beeper sounds. He groans, grunts. Tries to open his mouth. A nurse enters, all efficiency. She checks his tubes, straightens his covers, touches his brow. She nods toward us. “He’s trying to tell you something,” she says and produces a memo pad and pencil from the pocket of her blue uniform.

            I position the pencil in Ron’s hand and hold the pad at chest height. Laboriously, he prints. Each letter takes an eternity. I do not watch the pad but focus my eyes on his face. I telegraph a question to Bonnie and she nods. She, too, is worried about what Ron’s first words will be. We have lived with the effects of bipolar disorder too long to predict.

            Finally, the writing is finished. Nine words, printed crookedly on a hospital memo pad. It takes me a moment to decipher the letters. They lean awkwardly against each other. My hand goes to my throat. Tears cloud my vision. I pass the pad to my daughter.

            “I am beginning to see how precious my life is.” These are words of hope. We have a very long battle ahead of us, but, for now, hope is enough.

MARCH 3, 2000. 2 PM.

            Hope. There have been times in the last few years when hope has seemed to be a cruel farce. Much better, I would think sometimes, to be done with hope. To just let go and move on. But hope continues to propel me forward on the day following Ron’s accident. I find myself in the hospital again that afternoon; visiting time in the ICU is divided into fifteen minute fragments.

            I am walking along the corridor that connects the parking garage to the hospital building when I encounter Ron’s aunt and uncle leaving. We stop for a moment and chat; they have been up to see Ron briefly and are happy that he seems alert. Aunt Shirley touches my arm. “You are just the sort of wife Ron needs,” she says. We exchange a few more words and I give them both a hug before I move down the corridor and take the elevator up to the ICU. Aunt Shirley’s words echo in my ears. I am just the sort of wife Ron needs. Am I? In the years since hospitals and psychiatrists and therapists have become a way of life for us, I have often questioned if I am what Ron needs. My friends and my minister have assured me that “God never gives you more than you can handle.” I question myself, though, and my own strength. Can I really handle all of this?

            There is a white-coated man in the cubicle with Ron when I enter. The ventilator is still in place, but Ron is alert and smiles at me. The doctor has set up a chart with shapes and letters on Ron’s bedside table. He is, I believe, administering a test to ascertain if there is brain damage. Dr. Huffman mentioned it last night. I pick up Ron’s medical chart at the foot of the bed and flip thorough it. No one stops me. I will discover that no one ever will.

            I have heard the list of injuries before, but it is startling to come face to face with them in black and white, written in a nurse’s neat hand. Critically ill male adult. Split diaphragm, broken ribs, deep muscle laceration on left arm, torn pancreas and spleen, collapsed lung. Currently breathing on ventilator. Morphine infuser. At risk for pneumonia and pulmonary edema. Contact: Wife.

            I sit down in the chair at the foot of the bed, trying to arrange my face into positive, cheerful lines. The list of injuries is daunting. How can one human being survive so much? Just what the heck do the spleen and the pancreas do? The machines around me him as Ron is ventilated and infused and monitored. Dr. Huffman had told us last night that it would be a “couple of weeks” before Ron will be well enough to leave. In the cubicle of the ICU, the truth begins to dawn on me. Despite Dr. Huffman’s optimism, we have a very long road ahead of us.  There is no going back. It will be far longer than two weeks when Ron is able to leave the hospital and  our lives will be forever changed. Today starts the part of our lives I come to think of as “after.”

            But I know none of this as the neurologist leaves the room and I take my place by my husband’s side. I know only that somehow, for some reason, we have been brought to this place. I take Ron’s hand and begin to pray, not only for his recovery but for my endurance.

MARCH 3, 2000. 4 PM.

            The notepad by the phone is full of memos when I return home. The house is quiet. Bonnie and Allen have taken refuge in their beds and are catching up on some missed sleep. I sit for a moment, adding things to do onto the notepad.

            Call from Phyllis, Charlotte, Gus, Debbie, Aunt Meryl. Church is bringing supper. Dottie from work called. Call Dr. K. to let him know about Ron. Cancel knee surgery on 3/14. Leave message for bowling league. Call insurance agent. Was ER notified that it was a car accident? Give insurance cards to admissions office. Gus found our car at Truck Maintenance. Need to get things out of trunk. Cards from secretaries at TCA. E-mails from Ross, Deb, Brittney, Michell, Harvey. Lawyers say Ron will need to sign medical authorization and power of attorney to me. Police report is favorable; other driver blew red light. Two eye witnesses. Received insurance cards and report from West Goshen police. Call from Chris.

            It is overwhelming. For the second time since my arrival at the hospital, less than 24 hours ago, I allow myself to cry.