2000-04-14 - 21:18:09

April 14, 2000

History

Our first girl child was born

four years after her brother made the scene. That would

make it 1948. At first everything seemed normal, she

was a happy baby. When I came home from second shift

work, I would heat her bottle, wrap her in a crib

blanket, sit in the rocker and feed her and croon to her

as I rocked. Then I would burp her, change her entirely

and change her bedding. Everything seemed

perfect.

Then as time went on her mother noticed her

getting red in the face, grunting and apparently

straining. It soon became quite obvious that the

darling's efforts to defecate were almost fruitless. Our

doctor had us put her in the hospital for rectal dilation

and told us it would be about a week before she could come

home and urged us to try to come some laater time after

each session.

She would be so happy to see us come in

and we would cuddle and cosset her. When time to leave

came, she became frantic, screamed at the nurses who

were trying to help, she obviously feared our leaving.

I think that she had figured out that she would undergo

torture of the damned before she would see her Mom and Dad

again. I could see the despair in her little eyes when

she would see us start to go out and see the pleading in

her eyes that spoke louder than words, "Are you going to

leave me in this horrible place again ?"

It was a week

before we could take her home and her rectal problem was

taken care of. No problems a that location

afterward.

It took quite some time for us to make her

feel secure and comfortable with us. We did everything

we could for her, but we could see the fear rise in her

when we would dress her and put her outer wear on to go to

see her grandparents - - - I think she dreaded and felt we

were taking her back to that awful place.

Life is series

of unanswered questions - - - - - a fast moving parade of

"what ifs" and "whys," with no simple solutions. We

have wondered if that was the thing that caused her future

problems. Over the years, we have puzzled over this and

tried to determine where we could have done a better job

of child rearing. Maybe as a baby the psychological

shock of her very painful treatment, and separation from

Heather and I before she was old enough to talk and

understand caused a psychic storm to lie in wait for

her.

Through her school life she was an excellent

scholar, neat, careful about her dress. Still, she was

the squeaky wheel, demanding much more of our attention

than the other two (and later three) ever could get. Her

absolute requirement was that she get more and better than

her siblings. If she didn't, the thunder and lightning

of her rages knew no limit.

Her younger sister and

brother became frightened of her and tried to disappear

when they could see trouble brewing. In her high school

years she was not the kind of person who could accept help

from anyone. It was a tense and painful time. I can

remember times having to hold her wrists in self

defense.

Several days after her graduation from high

school she told her mother and I off and moved out to a

friends apartment and went to work. Relations were

strained to say the least due to her antagonism

Around

1962 she seemed to do a turn around, came home and

started going to the community college here in town and

started working part time at a posh department store. We

seldom saw her, between going to college and working, and

what spare time she had was with her peers, where ? We

knew not

The 1960's was a weird time in the world, it

seemed that Timothy O'Leary was the guru of the age and

not only LSD was being used but many other drugs were

widespread too. Heather and I suspected she was into

some kind of drugs, but never saw her, "under the

influence," that we could tell. She had been going out

with a nice young man and as we found out later, became

intimate with him and got pregnant. A marriaage did not

take place between the two, shrouded by the mystery of

non communication.

Later, before too long she met and

started dating a young man who soon married her and took

her to his home town a state away from us. Somehow he

found out that the child to be wasn't his and began to

treat her quite badly. They came to town for

Thanksgiving, He was going somewhere with his friends and

told her as he dropped her off that he wasn't coming back

for her. When the young fellow arrived at his home, his

parents asked his where his wife was and he then told them

the same story. The father was infuriated, beat the

heck out of his son and pleaded with us to let our

daughter come back to their home. The father assured us

that he would see that she received fair treatment. And

on the face of it, it appeared so. Her husband's

psychological abuse of her, put her in the old double

bind and she attempted suicide as the only solution.

After her release we brought her home and a divorce soon

ensued. She carried her baby to full term and the whole

family clued in and helped all they could. They were

marvelous. Before the baby was three months old my

daughter got a chance to spend the week end with her older

brother and some of their friends. Her baby was left

with Heather's sister who was raising her brood well.

That night she put the baby in a big easy chair surrounded

on both sides, face up and the open end of the chair

blocked by another one, and Sis slept across the room on

the couch. My sister in law always was a light sleeper

like Heather, when little ones were around.

During the night the baby suffered a crib death. It

saddened all the family and Heather's sister almost went

down over it. The baby was sadly buried and life

continued its inevitable passage.

She went back to work

and did her best. She was very uncommunicative, but

seemed to be working her job alright.

I was sent

overseas by my company as a tech rep., while I was gone,

as my wife was trying to decorate the rec. room for

Thanksgiving it appears that our daughter refused to help.

The wife had a fall that broke her elbow and put her in a

cast. It was so difficult for Heather, trying to take

the youngest (now there were five kids) to and from

school, grocery shop, and do housework.

Our beloved

daughter's behavior had been becoming more erratic as

time went on. I returned from overseas and resumed my job

in town here. It is hard to remember now all the ins and

outs of events, she became somewhat on the schizophrenic

side and tore wiring out of the ceiling and claimed "they"

were spying on her and listening. It became impossible

to help her and Heather had to see to the welfare of the

other four. The doctors in town could not help her and I

had to take my beloved daughter, and a lawyer to the

county seat and have her committed. After the

proceedings the lawyer was picked up by his associate and

it was up to me to take her to the place where she would

spend quite some time. Across the entire metro area from

one town to the other my beloved girl child pled her case

with me, begged to be taken home, cried and promised

anything and everything to avoid being taken from home.

My God, what torture to see her in the process of mental

disintegration and knowing that it could not be. She spent

some time in an institution famous for its treatment of

young people.

During this time her high school

sweetheart began to visit her and his visits and little

flowers and keepsakes seemed to help her heal. She had

to earn her every privilege, and she worked hard and

earned her way back into the world.

Soon after release

her high school sweetheart married her and they set up

house keeping about two blocks away from us. She

continued to go to the mental health clinic - a county run

thing - and everything seemed to be going wonderfully

well. She had a rapport with her technician that was a

veritable rarity, he closeness daughter had to her. We

would go over to visit them, and my daughter and I would

have these deep conversations about things we could never

have had before.

My daughter's technician / therapist

resigned her job and went completely out of the field into

something else and moved away.

We saw and knew how this

saddened daughter, but I guess we did not know how very

deep the wound was.

It wasn't too long after that,

while her husband was at the store, she found his gun

where he had it hid and tried to kill herself once more.

For a year our family would work and go to the hospital to

be with her, we ate out meals in the snack bar and fell

into bed when we would finally get home. She does not

speak, the doctors said the slug wiped out her speech

center which would have enabled her to speak. One side of

her body is involved, she shambles a bit.

She spent

some years in custodial care homes with the aged, due to

the fact she couldn't really communicate she did not

qualify to stay at the only facility who had brain damaged

and crippled young people as residents. It was a self

help place and pretty well run by the residents.

Obviously custodial care made her very unhappy in those

places and she disquieted the older people there

also.

Finally about two and a half years ago her name

rose to the top of the waiting list for a brain damaged,

self help residence. We would go about 25 miles each

way each week end to visit her. Oh, she was so happy

there, the difference in her personality was amazingly

great. Finally an opening occurred in a residence hall

about five minutes from our residence and she happily went

there, became acquainted with and friendly to the staff

and her fellow residents. She has small duties there and

takes care of her washing and her rooom. She is very

happy there and the residents like her too.

She still

shambles, one arm is bent at the wrist and a brace isn't

helping. She has never said one word, she can read and

understand what is said and is happy to visit with all of

the family. The thing I can see but Heather cannot is

that daughter does not want to get close to the events of

the world or family and therefore won't print or type more

than yes or no answers to our questions. Our daughter is

comfortable and happy.

Heather has a mother's sadness I

guess maybe all mother's get when they can do nothing to

help a child improve, and it is hard on her. With me,

my daughter is happy, she is functioning adequately and

happily in her slot and is at peace. While she was in

the custodial care facilities my thoughts and feelings

were on the rack and hot tongs pulling at me, because I

could see how unhappy she was with no relief in sight.

But she is happy, we get to visit frequently, and she

noisily gets together with the family and has a good time.

When we take her to Mac Donald's, Burger King or Diary

Queen she is well behaved and quietly enjoys

herself.

The vagaries of life at times leave me limp,

wondering if there was something better I could have done

to prevent her and Heather's travail.

Bastion is not at

peace, but closer. Somewhere there are some tears yet

to shed over things past. I think I have shed some

silent tears tonight.

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