The Gate

May 2, 2019

The other day, I accidentally drove by the state prison. Right in my line of vision, there were those giant steel gates again.

I don't think I exhaled for a full minute.

But you may be wondering how this happened by accident. Here's how: I had been blindly following my GPS directions to a workshop on Trauma. 

I know. The irony is not lost on me. 

Without thinking at all, I just hopped in my car, plugged in the address, and began to drive. Before I knew it, I was right there looking again at those giant, steel gates topped with swirls of barbed wire.

Seeing them brought lead to my belly and metal to my tongue.  

And, though my car windows were rolled all the way up, for just a moment, I could almost hear the inmates yelling, banging on the window bars, calling out their last-minute declarations to their visitors headed to the parking lot after visitation time was up.

A whirred blend of dread, anticipation, fear, hope, and love made up those Sunday afternoon visits to the prison.  With ever-varying amounts of each ingredient in this recipe, the concoction was never quite the same from week to week.  

Seeing those gates again triggered me. 

And they reminded me what it felt like to be on the outside looking in, not able to alter the reality of what I knew was on the other side. I could only show up to visit and hold the telephone receiver, stare into my boy's eyes and utter mother-ramblings and anecdotes about the family cat, ignoring the reality that a thick wall of plexiglass divided us.

But this post isn't about driving by the prison gates the other day and feeling triggered.

And it's not even about Trauma, though I should mention that my state officially declared May as Trauma Awareness Month. That, paired with the national observance of Mental Health Awareness Month during the month of May ought to give us plenty to talk about.

But no, this post isn't about Trauma, either. Not exactly.

When I was teaching middle school, I read a great book with my students that included this quote from an old poem:

"Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage."

It appeared in the book when the young protagonist was pondering whether or not to help break someone out of jail. No, this post has nothing to do with breaking someone out of jail. 

But that quote matters. I can't stop thinking about it. Some people can physically be inside prisons, yet feel emotionally and spiritually free. And, some people may put themselves in prisons of their own making. But what about the walls, or gates, or bars that exist between us and the ones we love that we can't seem to penetrate? 

A barrier still stands between my son and me. It's thicker than the plexiglass and fiercer than the barbed wire-topped fencing. This barrier exists because of his illness and because of his repeating pattern of agreeing to and then refusing treatment.

I'm sitting on one side of the barrier and I can see him there on the other, but I just can't get through to him. I can almost hear him calling out a declaration of hope and acceptance, but then I realize I'm only dreaming.

For now, I wait. And gently stir my new recipe: equal parts anticipation, fear, grief, frustration, and love. And, I hope that someday he'll break through that stone wall, say he's ready, and this time, he'll mean it.

Requiem for a Turkey

Nov. 22, 2017

Seven years ago, as Thanksgiving loomed, my household was slowly unraveling. I was a single mother with two teenage sons, one of whom was experiencing the onset of serious mental illness. We had not shared with our friends and family anything about his condition. We hadn't really acknowledged it yet ourselves. In fact, my sons' father was unwilling to discuss it with me at all, citing only typical teen angst and a mother's over-reaction. And, as far as I could tell, my younger son was well-distracted by video games, 13-year-old girls, and new pimples. I had hoped he had not noticed the gradual disintegration of our home.

Only my immediate family knew that my 18-year-old son was seeking mental health treatment and that he'd been diagnosed with depression. That was the extent of it, and most people didn't even know that.

I was denying the obvious, determined that silent resolve was my only option.

And, because I usually hosted my parents for Thanksgiving, I first thought I'd just put on my game face and power through it. Only a few times a year I attempt a Martha-Stewart-Style meal, so I figured I needed to suck it up. But as we reached mid-November, it became clear that I was not cooking a turkey this year.

I remember agonizing over how to tell my parents I wasn't hosting Thanksgiving Dinner. At no point did I recognize that what I really feared sharing was far more intense than the thought of thawing and stuffing a 12-pound Butterball.

Instead, I convinced them (and myself) that I wanted to do something for others on Thanksgiving rather than host the traditional, gluttonous holiday meal. I expressed disdain for our society's disgusting obsession with the "wrong" message, even dipping my toe into the Pilgrims-Natives historical perspective and claiming revenge for our American Indian ancestors.

Frankly, I was off the rails with rejection about hosting a classic Thanksgiving. I researched local organizations that offered service opportunities for the day and opted for Meals on Wheels. Under the veil of social consciousness, I pitched the idea to my parents.

They weren't thrilled, but they agreed. My mom offered to help me make plans to "give back" for Thanksgiving. Funny, I don't even remember telling my sons about this. I suppose it didn't rile them one way or another or I'd remember, right? In hindsight, my suspicions are that my older son was so deep in the throes of his illness by then that he wasn't able to care, and my younger son was so traumatized by the daily uncertainty of his family life, that he wasn't able to care either.

My only recollection is that I stressed out about telling my parents that I wasn't cooking a turkey.

As all the planning for holiday humanitarianism was playing out, the symptoms of my son's illness were becoming more obvious and harder to ignore. Yet, somehow, I did just that. His volatile moods had become an expectation rather than a surprise. His swings between angry accusations and weepy apologies were now the norm.

Each day, driving home from the school where I taught and where my younger son attended, we avoided discussions about his older brother. He didn't ask any questions and I didn't offer any answers. It was as if we had made an unspoken pact of distraction and denial. Instead, we silently savored the steady, predictable hum of the engine as we traveled the 25-minute commute back home, never acknowledging the reality and unpredictability of what may be waiting for us there.

Thanksgiving Day went off without a hitch at first. We used two cars between the five of us and distributed hot meals to grateful individuals living in seclusion for various reasons. Some were elderly, some ill. All of them were alone and deeply appreciative of our offering.

I remember thinking, "This is really good for the boys to experience. I'm so glad we're doing this. They need to see what outreach looks like. They need to be involved in caring for those in need of support, those who really need help."

I never once realized that we, too, fit in that category.

Once we'd delivered all the dinners, it was time for us to seek out our own hot meal. I had imagined we'd go to a Chinese restaurant. In my mind, that would be the perfect outright objection to the holiday nonsense that I'd claimed had inspired me to skip all turkey prep this year.

We piled into one car and began our search for the perfect Anti-Thanksgiving respite. The Chinese restaurants that I had in mind were all - surprisingly - closed.

Somehow in my planning, I'd failed to actually call them to check. I had believed completely in my fantasy that our local Chinese restaurant owners would ignore their new home country's holiday and remain open to serve revolutionary families like ours.

So we drove up and down the highway in search of a restaurant that was open. My sons were hungry and so was my dad. I bit my nails nervously, scanning both sides of the street for someplace with lights on. The first time we circled, my dad had spotted a diner serving a "Traditional Turkey Meal". I immediately opposed the idea - citing my determination to rebel this year. As we made our second and third pass by Said Diner, the growling from my companions grew louder.

I finally relented.

We slid into a booth at our neighborhood diner less than one mile from my house. And, despite my strong objection, most of our party of five chose from the menu the Traditional Turkey Meal.

There's a lot to give thanks for these days, seven years later: my sons, my parents, my husband of three years. But, I really can't get into that right now.

I've got a turkey to cook.

StillHopefulMom...One Year and Counting

December 22, 2013

Today is day 364 of this blog. I remember typing out my story as tears streamed down my face that morning. And the tears stream down my face today as I type this now. So much has changed, but there is a thread that hasn't...that thread is HOPE. I am StillHopefulMom.

A year ago I was nervous about my son visiting my home for Christmas after two years of being away, being estranged from us.  Today, one year later, I just returned home from a visit to my son...in prison. He's been there since March 28, 2013.

A year ago I worried that we wouldn't have anything to say to each other when he visited. Yet today we filled all 45 minutes with tears and laughter, memories and promises.

In this hellish 364 days I have seen a twenty-one year old boy transform from a place of denial to a place of acceptance. I have reunited with my firstborn son--we are closer now than we have been in years. And I have renewed confidence that he will continue to seek the mental health support he needs as we await his release. Sentencing is February 14th.

I don't know when this hell will end yet, but there is hope. I still have hope. I am StillHopefulMom.

Foresight (Updated)

September 1, 2013

Pictured above is Van Gogh's Rain. Van Gogh is my older son's favorite artist. For his 20th birthday in May of 2012, I took him to see the Van Gogh Exhibit which happened to be near our hometown that month.

He loved it. And I loved that he loved it. That day was an amazing respite from the days we'd been living. We hadn't seen each other or spoken in months at that point. He was in the midst of his diagnosis denial and living a wild life of booze and drugs.

But that day he settled down and went with me to the art exhibit. One of the features of the exhibit was an opportunity to write a haiku inspired by Van Gogh's Rain.  He and I both wrote one.

Mine:

Springtime sadness seeps

through the grey blue misty sky

waiting for my son

His:

The field swells with guilt

wallowing, faded, almost

swallowed by the view

How did we each capture the future in 17 syllables? How did we know that there would be sadness and waiting and guilt to come?  I have no idea. I have no idea. I truly, have no idea. But somehow we did. Today, a year and a half later, I would do anything to have that poetry card back again. I'd write a new haiku. 

I'd write:

Weep, misty skyline

But see the sun shining through

There is hope ahead

Oct. 6, 2013
I asked my son to write his own haiku. Here it is:

Little figures fall
building a giant steel trap
time is not wasted