Of Straws and Memories

Last month was heinous at best…ants, hearts, and terrible memories…ending in open heart surgery and oxygen.  At the beginning of last month my dad had a “cardiac incident”, meaning that he had chest pain and pain running down his arm.  His doctor did an EKG and noticed an abnormality and his heart rate was WAY too high…off to a Cardiologist for him and nitro to go in his pocket.  When on the stress test for the Cardiologist some weird things started happening and off he came after only 2 minutes, and in came the doctor to tell him that they needed to do an Angiogram and most likely a stent.  In one week he was to admit himself into St Bernadine’s Hospital in San Bernardino.  Needless to say, the stress increased exponentially in our lives…but we had no idea then what was coming…oh, if we had only known then.

Meanwhile I had a crown prep done on one of my teeth that had needed it for a while and I had started grinding my teeth…oh the pain!  I was fitted for a mouth piece to prevent the grinding and force my jaw muscles to relax, which came in the day before dad had to be at the hospital.  After much debate, it was decided that I was to drive him up to the hospital at 4:30 in the morning. 

As I was driving them up that morning in the dark, I was reminded of a time in my life when my father would pick me up out of bed at some God-forsaken hour of the morning and load me in the car and drive somewhere.  When my father was a High Councilor in the north woods I was only about 11 years old, when he was sent to speak my mother (who was the Stake Primary President) and I would accompany him.  Of course we were both enlisted to speak too, but because our stake was spread over such a great distance we left very early on those Sunday mornings.  I remember waking up in the car and Mom would give me my clothes, and I would dress in the car on the way to wherever we were going.  All these memories came flooding back to me that Tuesday morning while I was driving my father somewhere in the dark…I thought about how at some point we do for our parents what they spent 20 years doing for us.

After about an hour and half we heard that dad was to be admitted to the hospital and would be having surgery the next morning.  The doctor explained that one vein in his heart was completely blocked and 3 others were 90% or more blocked…this would be a quadruple bypass.  When we got to his room, the surgeon told us that he had a heart attack at some point, but that his chances were above 95%.  My father is 74 years old, this is not generally something they do on a man his age.  My mother and I brought the images home and Matt came and told us what they would do…It was bad, really bad.  We cried and prayed, as our faith was tested once again.

As the surgery was being performed I was at home with my son after having that stupid crown glued in place.  I wandered around the house cleaning everything I could find…until I had nothing left to clean and all I was left to do was to sit and wait as my father’s body was being violated by a power tool.  I was crying while sitting next to my son on the futon and the next thing I knew my son was putting a pacifier in my mouth…I guess he thought that I needed the comfort that only a paci can bring.  He sat with me while he watched his show until I got word that the surgery was over and that the surgeon was pleased with the way it went. 

During the time he was in the hospital I had a lot to deal with in my mind; this was the 3^rd time I have had to see my father in a hospital bed in bad shape.  I was 9 years old when he had a bleeding ulcer and had to have a transfusion to save his life.  2 weeks before my wedding he had a stroke and I had to drive him to the hospital.  Now this, a quadruple bypass…I was not sleeping or eating, and I had a fear in me that I couldn’t shake.  I am the youngest of my parents’ children, and I will be caring for them for the rest of their lives…but for the first time the realization hit me that someday they will leave this earth.  I have hope that before this happens I will be able to make peace with the concept that I have to give them up.

 

By Labor Day we got to bring him home with his traveling oxygen tank…then a generator was delivered to the house with a really long tube.  So now we have a very alive and grateful Grandpa wandering around the house trailing his tube behind him.  He has a really big scar and a heart pillow that he is fondly attached to, but his color is coming back and we are glad to have him home!  I made him a new fuzzy pillow so that his other can be washed, I check on them several times a day, and once again I am the last person in this house to go to bed. 

 It’s not the big things that throw us over the edge, it is the little things.  The straws that break the camel’s back aren’t bypass surgeries or strokes, it’s the crowns and ants that hit us at the same time.  It is the silly work schedules and not seeing each other that lead to losing your mind because of stress.  So here’s to memories and straws, may they not be so heavy that we collapse under the weight.  And may we learn early how to cope with life’s lemons that are thrown at our heads when we least expect it.

World Suicide Prevention Day

I have had a hard month; that is no secret, but today is a day of remembering for me…last year our family lost 2 people to suicide.  Jasone, my husband’s younger brother, killed himself about a year and a half ago.  And a little over a year ago my uncle shot himself.  This day has great meaning for me, but not just because of them…because of me too.

Many years have passed since I made the decision to live, after much debate in my mind.  I was in the midst of a trip down the road of insanity, and it was winning.  I fought every day to stay on this earth, it was a daily wrestle within my mind and heart.  Until late one night I sat with a knife in my hands and the image I saw was my mother standing over my grave, I never picked up a knife that way again.  I decided in one small moment of clarity that I could never put my mother through that kind of pain, suddenly my selfishness was erased and I remembered my mother.  The fight with insanity trudged on for quite some time, but my desire for death had been erased and replaced with a desire to know why I felt this way.  I wanted to understand myself, and eventually help other’s to understand them as well.  I turned what focus I had toward education and understanding, and becoming a well person.

My trip to getting well was long and extremely painful…there was medication and therapy…there were tears and pain…and then there was discovery and resolution.  I had been beat down by others and I had a disorder that would prove to be life-long.  I had also made decisions in the midst of insanity that I could not take back…decisions that, in combination with other things, would haunt me for years.  I learned to live with the nightmares, and I coped with the difficult times in the ways I was taught.  Eventually I began making progress toward recovery; and now, many years later, I can honestly say I am a well person.  I have my bad days and I still take meds every day, and despite the judgment of others, I would like to say that I am an advocate for the mentally ill.

In the years that I have been dealing with my disorder, I have noticed a growing trend where people think that if you have to take meds then you are weak, and in the church are “not exercising faith”.  There is also the all-encompassing belief that if you are depressed then you must be doing something wrong in your life.  Then there is the knee-jerk reaction that suicide is shameful, that we should be ashamed if someone close to us committed suicide.  All of these things are false and nothing but judgments by the un-educated, un-feeling people of this world.  The reasons why a person choses suicide are their reasons, and if we are going to begin helping people then we have to put our own stupidity aside.  People who are saved from suicide talk about someone who listened, not who talked.

Maybe if Jasone hadn’t isolated himself from everyone who loved him…maybe if he had had someone to talk to…there are so many maybes in that situation that you can’t even begin to count them all.  I know one thing for sure, that his mother misses him terribly.  My heart sank when the policeman handed me the note he left, because I knew what it would do to his mother when she saw it.  As I have seen her stand over his grave I am reminded of what stopped me…I know I made the right choice in staying here to finish my life.  I am grateful to my mother for the principles that she taught me, but most of all I am grateful for her love that she gave freely. 

 

I mourn Jasone, not because I knew him and I miss him, but because it was a life that was lost un-necessarily.  May we all take this time to think of someone other than ourselves, is there someone who could use a listening ear and an understanding heart?  Suicide is preventable, but only if we are paying attention to those around us.  I read a quote recently that was attributed to Mother Teresa that said “If you judge people, you have no time to love them.”  I love this because it puts simply that you can’t be helpful to someone if you are judging them.  How about if we all put our judgments aside this week so that we can love people, because I really believe that love is what prevents suicide.  Complete, all-encompassing, un-conditional love…the way that God loves us.  Here’s to love, may we all take it for a spin and watch the miracles that it can produce. 

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