Chapter Thirteen: Hand Prints

MEMORY CHAIN

“Just remember,” says the quote, “we’re all in this alone.”

All alone.

Lonely.

Lone Ranger. Hi, Ho, Silver!Saturday afternoons with my brother and candy from Joe’s corner store.

Silver bullet.

Silver lining.

Does every cloud really have one?

Clouds have shapes. Sometimes they look like spilt milk.

A gallon of milk. A half-gallon of milk.

An empty milk carton. Dennis must be home.

Home alone.

Home sweet home.

Home, home on the range.

Range of motion. Range of freedom. Range in my kitchen. My new kitchen!

Kitchen cabinets.

Cabinet doors.

Front door.

Back door.

In and out.

Out to dinner. Out to lunch. Out for the count.

Out of luck.

Lucky day. Happy day.

Daybreak. Daylight.

Light of my life.

Life long. Long life.

Life preserver.

Life saver.

Save! Save! Save!

Sale! Sale! Sale!

Sail away,blown away, gone away. In and out the doors. Revolving doors.

Way out. Way in. which way to go?

Going my way. Going your way. Go away. Far away.

Way down upon the Swannee River. River of hope.

River of dreams.

Dream at night.

Nighttime.

Time to go. Out the door. Front of back.

Go alone.

All alone.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

AUGUST 24, 2000. 9AM.

            We spent some time in the emergency room yesterday. A hernia has popped up on one of Ron’s many incisions, so today we are on our way to see Dr. Huffman again and schedule more surgery. Poor Ron must feel like a pincushion by now! But this surgery, we've been told, can be done as an out-patient. No big deal. Funny how my perspective about surgery has changed this year; it used to be that any procedure would be a big deal

            The doctor who saw us at the ER (Dr Brauvard? Who can read a physician’s handwriting?) was impressed with the thickness of Ron’s chart. She asked him to explain what happened during the accident, but Ron’s memory became disjointed and his words began to stumble. She turned to me. It has become a new role of mine, being Ron’s translator to the world. “You've been through quite a lot,” she said, “ but the good thing is you’re able to talk about it. You’re up and walking around and with your family.”

            All things in perspective, we have been blessed. Lord, help me to remember that as the medical bills roll in from yet another hospital visit.

            Dr. Huffman is happy to see us and greets both Ron and me with a hug. “You look well,” she says to Ron. “You look tired,” she says to me. We are ushered into the examining room immediately because, “you people really need to move on with your lives.” Joan is pleased with Ron’s improvement and asks about work and memory problems. Carefully, she probes his abdomen. “This happens a lot when someone’s had abdominal surgery,” she says, “and Ron’s had many. The muscles just aren't as tight as they were before.” She would prefer, she says, to wait until January when Ron has had more time to heal and recover. “The body,” she says, “ is amazing at regenerating itself. I’d like to give it more time to recover.” Ron becomes insistent. He wants it done now. He wants to get it over with and put it all behind him. I see the sense of this. But I also know that Ron out of work for several more weeks will put a severe crimp in Christmas. I sigh to myself. Our shoestrings are used to being tightened. Dr. Huffman writes some notes on Ron’s chart and checks her schedules. She has rather reluctantly agreed to expedite the surgery. “We can get this done before Labor Day,” she says. I take out my pocket calendar and we agree upon a date.

            Ron is given a sheet of instructions to follow. No eating after midnight the day before surgery. No medications. Arrive at the hospital at 10:00 AM. Ron is chatting with Joan’s assistant when the surgeon pulls me aside.

            “Are you alright?” she asks me.

            I am startled. I have convinced myself and everyone else that I have spent the summer resting and recharging. I nod. “I’m fine,” I say. “School starts next week, so I've been busy getting things together.”

            “Is that all it is?”

            “Sure. Ron’s better. Things are good.”

            She gives me a long, hard look. “Linda, you've been carrying a lot. Have you talked to anyone about all this?”

            I shrug. “Some. A little. But I’m okay. Really. It’s Ron who needs your concern. Not me.”

            “Remember what I told you that first night, Linda? I worry about the families of my patients as much as I do my patients.”

            “You don’t need to worry about me, “ I assure her. “I’m fine. I can handle it.” I offer her my brightest smile.

            She nods, unconvinced. “Talk to someone,” she says. “Now. Before you need to.”

            “Alright, “ I agree reluctantly. I am already wondering whom I could talk to. My pastor, who has already left for his new job across the river? Ron, who is not yet a whole man? My friends, who extol my virtues as a wonderful, strong Christian wife? Or my children, who need to know that they still have one parent left that can count on?

            I can handle this, I tell myself as we leave Joan’s office. This is a minor bump in the road. We've been through much worse than this.

AUGUST 24, 2000. 5 PM.

            In a way, the car accident has made it easier to explain Ron to the world. Bi-polar disorder is a complicated and little understood malady, as hard to define as it is to live with. When Ron’s first episode landed him in the hospital, an acquaintance asked me if I had known Ron had mental problems when we married. It was a startling question. Had I? How could I? I was twenty years old with stars in my eyes. Ron was tall and good-looking and had the same beliefs I did. He loved me and if I sometimes worried that he loved me more than I loved him, it was all the love I had to give. I panicked a week before our wedding, wondering if I was indeed doing the right thing. I knew Ron would never have an important job or be rich. Those things meant little to me. What mattered was the way he made me feel: safe and loved. His mother had told me that she felt he probably had some learning problems that had never been diagnosed, that he was a “little slow” at learning new things. And in the year we dated before our marriage, I was aware that his tongue often stumbled over difficult words.

            And so we wed. For better or worse. When mental problems first began to rear their ugly heads, I repeated the vows to myself. I wouldn't leave Ron if he had diabetes or cancer or heart problems. Why would I leave him now?

            The way I answered that acquaintance became the way I answered all others. “No,” I said. “None of us knew.” A counselor tried to convince me later that of course I had known and on some level had chosen Ron because of the mental problems. He would always be someone I could control. I have never been able to accept that theory. What do twenty-somethings know of mental disorders or miscarriages or mortgages or trauma units? And anyone who thinks you can control someone with bi-polar disorder is just, well, crazy.

            After March 1, my explanation for Ron became a lot simpler. Doctors, like the one in the ER with the indecipherable nametag, would turn to me. “He was in a serious car accident,” I would say and they would nod their heads knowingly. If he became frustrated making himself understood to store clerks, I would intervene. “A car accident,” I would explain and receive a sympathetic nod. Dennis became adept at playing what he called “the Dad card.” “If I need a day off from work,” he explained, “ I just make my face look all sad and say to my boss, ‘There’s been a problem with my dad.’”

            If I sometimes feel like C3PO, cyborg interpreter from Star Wars, I just shrug and add it up to my duties as a Christian wife. The list is growing long.

AUGUST 27, 2000. 10 AM.

            Before He left His disciples to return to Heaven, Jesus said that He would bring them peace, “but not as the world brings peace.” I wonder what those simple, uneducated fishermen thought of Jesus’ conditional promise. There were those among them who thought their Rabbi had come to free them from Roman rule and establish an earthly peace. But in those final words, Jesus made it clear that His brand of peace was not something the world could give. Or even understand.

            I know this peace. I cling to it. It is the reason I sit here on the 4^th floor of Crozer Hospital, pushed once again into a turquoise plastic chair, waiting for the surgeon to come and tell me that Ron’s operation is over. I do not pace or tap my foot. I do not bite my fingernails. I know that Ron is in God’s hands.

            As far as waiting rooms go, this one is not bad at all. It is open and airy, a few green plants and pastel paintings breaking the beige tedium of the walls. There is coffee in one corner and a television set suspended from the ceiling in another. No one is watching it—I have yet to be in a waiting room where anyone really does—but its noise lends a level of reality to this suspension of life. Some people are reading or pacing or conversing with others in hushed tones. I am the only one writing.

            It seems important to me that I am able to write and concentrate on ink and words. Since Ron’s first surgery six months ago, I have learned a lot about trust, about peace, about letting go. I hope that I have learned enough. Through the long, traumatic months—despite the outward chaos in which I lived—the peace that Jesus promised to His disciples took root in me. While I was often unable to verbalize to others why I could remain so calm, that peace carried me to many hospital waiting rooms. I thought it had carried me past them altogether. I had hoped.

            Peace. We think of it as being the lack of disruption or anxiety in our lives. But that is not what Jesus promised. The disruptions will still exist. Before I left the house this morning to bring Ron in for surgery, I had to pick up Dennis’ check, run to the bank, pick up fruits at Produce Junction and cold cuts at Dons’ Deli, finish the laundry I began last night, write and mail a couple of checks, and start supper in the crock-pot. Life just keeps on happening. But I hummed as I did it all, taking pleasure in my ability to use my arms and legs and brain, knowing that even then God had Ron’s surgery and its outcome firmly in His hands.

            A hospital is a busy place, full of interruptions and anxieties. My life is also a busy, hectic one, crammed with teaching and home and family and graduate school. To the outward eye, it is far from peaceful. Yet in my hectic home and this bustling hospital, I have found the peace of Jesus. Whatever is happening on the outside cannot disturb it.

            Inside, I dwell in peace.

August 29, 2000. 7AM.

            When I get out of the shower the next morning, there is a handprint on the mirror in the bathroom. No, I do not think that Hollow Man has invaded my privacy. As children, my brother and I would often draw in the fog in the car windows, then wipe the windows off with a coat sleeve and wait for our drawings—mostly panda bears wearing big bow ties—to reappear when the windows fogged up again. We didn't know anything about scientific principles. We thought of it as magic.

            The handprint in the mirror is too big to me mine or Bonnie’s, too small to be Ron’s. That leaves Allen as the possible culprit who planted his palm in the middle of the mirror, probably with the same pleasure Harvey and I gained from our panda bears. I choose not to reach for the Windex under the sink and obliterate this eerie image. It is a reminder to me of the unseen handprints in my life, handprints that belong to God.

            It is often difficult to see these prints. While Ron has struggled for years with bi-polar disorder and I have attempted to educate myself to support my family, I have not always recognized God’s hands. But lately I have tried to me more aware of His intervention in my life. It was He who led me away from The Christian Academy and to a job whose salary has supported us through Ron’s recovery.

            The handprint will stay, for the time being, on my mirror. I like getting out of the shower each morning and being reminded that God’s hand is on my life, even if I do not always see it.