Down Anastasia!

Right now, I’m sitting in the cafeteria at work. It’s actually quite a beautiful spot. I’m surrounded by windows and through them a wonderful view. A pond, some lingering Canadian geese and lots of trees and shrubbery sporting typical fall foliage – the colours are breathtaking really. Inside, there are lots of conversations going on around me at once. It’s a hush that falls over the room, this muffled talking that surrounds me. I’m watching people who are rushed and only taking the time to buy their lunch; hurrying back to their desks and the mountains of work they feel obligated to return quickly to. Others are taking what is probably a much needed break (myself included). Just a few moments to get away realizing the re-charging power a break can give you. A break that prepares you for the crazy work-filled afternoon that is sure to follow. And in the midst of this lunchtime symphony, I sit here in the middle of the room completely invisible. Like I have borrowed Harry’s cloak. I can watch everyone yet no one can see me watching and it occurs to me that I take on multiple personalities on any given day at work.

Some days I am a fortune teller. I have a Russian accent and ridiculously long fingernails. I have a mole or two on my chin with hairs growing out of them and I’m surrounded by rich, deep shades of purple and royal blue. My name on these days is Anastasia (probably because I loved the animated film) and I have to look through my crystal ball to predict the future to ensure we make the right choices and keep our customers happy. Other times I am the ringleader of a circus. I imagine my name is Octavio (for some reason, I’m a man with this persona) and I’m tall and skinny. I have very bushy eyebrows, a handlebar mustache and my legs are insanely long compared to the rest of my body. It’s my job to entertain the crowd while keeping the show moving along. Making sure the clowns are doing their job (even though I really hate clowns) and wondering if the acrobats are performing as safely as they assure me they are or if they are just showing off. Every once in a while, when a show isn’t going so well, I’m punished. Blindfolded with my hands tied behind my back. Being pushed down the mouth of a cannon which the clowns threaten to light to propel me skyward and land who knows where. (Damn those clowns!) Sometimes, I am a nurse. Betty perhaps? (I think I watch way too many movies!) Taking care of the very sick, figuring out ways to make them feel better and yes, some days it feels like I’m changing bedpans. I’m short and blonde and I only wear the dress style uniform with the little hats that nurses wear in old movies. I wear white sneakers for comfort; the kind that squeak on the floor with every step. I am admired as Nurse Betty because I can usually mend what is broken and I work well under pressure when there is an emergency.

Its crazy busy at work these days and I long for my invisibility cloak. Something I can throw over my head when it gets to be too much and I want to take an hour to just hide and watch and be myself with all the other personalities tucked away in my desk drawer. I should take lunch breaks more often…I think Anastasia is starting to take over!

5 Years of Crazy...

I lovingly refer to the years between the deaths of my parents as the crazy years because they literally were crazy. And not just because we were experiencing all the new eccentricities associated with bipolar disorder. Not even when the kids were babies was my life so incredibly busy. The baby years turned out to be like a vacation compared to this time in my life. We were utterly consumed. Consumed with doctor’s appointments, prescriptions, phone calls, visits to the hospital, making sure that all potential weapons were out of sight and making sure Dad had enough ‘money’ (or cigarettes as most people call them). Consumed with all the stories we were hearing all of a sudden – stories that we thought were true because we had no reason to doubt the source. Stories that we later learned might have started with the teeniest tiniest ounce of truth to them (so tiny that they were nothing really) but were blown so out of proportion by confused delusion. I grew up convinced that my father had never lied to me so why would I even stop to consider that the things he was saying weren’t true. This is where it gets a bit tricky (and why I believe my father was misdiagnosed). It’s not that he was lying to us. He really believed what he was saying. And he was very convincing. Hell, he’d had 30plus years of practice. He was good at it!

I remember walking into his new house (the one he bought after he sold my mother’s house...I hated that new house!) and he was relieved to see me which I thought was a bit weird. Happy sure, excited even to see the kids, but relieved? He confided that he was glad someone else was in the house. That maybe the other voices would stop talking now. Or when my brother went to visit him on one of those 72 hr holds and he noticed there were napkins taped over the light switches because it was the only way our dad could get those darn light switches to stop talking. Imagine our frustration when his psychiatrist asked him about it (because we snitched!!) and he denied the entire thing. Said he was just joking around. This is where treating a mental illness differs from treating a physical one. If I had taken my dad to the emergency room and told them he had pains in his stomach they’d run some tests and check it out. But taking him to the emergency room because he’s hearing voices? What were they going to do if my dad denied it? Nothing. Continue on with current treatment unless my dad gave them a reason to change it.

And so we went on. Doing what we could - hiding cigarettes in pockets so that he could use them to barter for phone time or an extra dessert and tattling to his doctors when necessary. Sometimes hiding ourselves because we just didn’t want to deal with the crazy anymore. Putting our own grief aside to get the one parent we had left healthy again. And living with the regret for the people that were hurt in our attempt at getting back the dad we adored.

Secrets....

When I was a teenager I collected music boxes. I had so many that there wasn’t a surface in my room untouched. I loved the sound of the music and the imagery that each one created. I could just sit there listening, watching and getting lost in the daydream. My dad used to get a kick out of sneaking into my room at 10am on a Saturday morning and turning them on. All of them. All at the same time. He said that I had slept long enough and that it was time to get up. Really though, he just wanted to spend time with me and turning on all my music boxes to wake me up was his way of telling me that I was spending too much time away. Away with my friends, away from my family.

On these mornings we usually ended up having a big breakfast where we all pitched in to make it, where we had great conversation and where we got to re-connect with each other after a hectic week (or month or however long it had been since the last time). We even did the dishes together. Well…all of us except my dad. Somehow putting his dishes on top of the dishwasher was always good enough for him. Sometimes we would curl up on the couch with our pillows and blankets and watch a movie. Usually it was Steel Magnolias and my dad always cried. A lot! Other times we would take the dog for a hike through the Rouge Valley, let her off the leash and just follow. With my dad and my brother always out in front and mom and I trailing behind calling them Wally and the Beav or Pete and Repeat.

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about this secret I’ve mentioned. About whether I really knew my dad as well as I thought I did or if I only saw what he wanted me to see. Could we really have been as close as I thought we were? I think about how this image that my parents created completely unraveled after mom died. Dad’s need to remove every object that reminded him of her; it started with her wedding rings at the funeral and never really ended. The shopping sprees – not just for clothes or things for the house but a car or…well…a house. When he lost his job and that house and we had no idea that these events were actually warning signs of my father’s mental deterioration.

We discovered the secret the first time my father was hospitalized on a 72 hour hold in the psyche ward for suicidal thoughts. A psychiatrist explained to us that our father had something called ‘Severe Bipolar Disorder’ but that was only part of the secret. The other part was that he was originally diagnosed when he was 15 years old. After this veil of secrecy was lifted, we were propelled into a world we weren’t prepared for. We started to have to worry about how a housecoat belt, shoelaces or the cap to a can of shaving cream were potential weapons. A world where bags were always inspected, where security let you in or out and where cigarettes were confiscated and then handed back one by one at designated times. This went on for years – one 72 hour hold after another, a 4 day ICU stay after an actual attempt, and a 60 day stay in a psychiatric facility all in our desperate attempt to get him stabilized as he had been for 30 years.

My mom died keeping his secret, remaining loyal to the end not realizing that this sugarcoated darkness, this world she helped create would come crashing down and that her kids were going to have to pick up the pieces.

Trying to keep it real...

So, I was re-reading my posts trying to gather some kind of inspiration around where to go next in my story and it hit me. I’ve painted quite the pretty picture of the perfect mother who got it all right with the short time she had. Well folks, my mother was many things – loyal, loving, honourable, fabulous…I could go on and on – but perfect was certainly not one of them.

My mother was your typical last minute Christmas shopper. She thrived on procrastination and accomplished much of her best work the last few hours before a deadline. She died right before Christmas and the hardest part of that first holiday morning without her came when we realized that for the first time, most of her shopping was done. She was ahead of the game. And it was awful and bittersweet sitting there crying and going through the Christmas morning motions. Opening presents that she had hand-picked for each of us. Opening presents that we had hand-picked for her. And while this probably can’t really be classified as something that makes her less perfect sounding, it sure felt dreadful.

One of my favourites (if you can classify a mother’s mistake as a favourite) was when I was a teenager. There was nothing mom liked better than to come home from work and have a slice of bread with peanut butter on it (sometimes she switched it up and had Cheese Whiz on it but usually it was good ole PB). This simple little slice was like her drug of choice, a pick-me-up that she needed after a hard days work before she had to put on her mom hat again and start supper and boy did she look forward to it. On this particular day, my brother and I decided to have this same treat as a snack after school. So we did. Except…we sort of finished the peanut butter and maybe we put the empty jar back in the cupboard…

Shockingly, this didn’t get a warm reception that day when my mom came home from work. There was lots of yelling, Mike and I started fighting while we denied the entire thing and then it happened. She didn’t just ground us – she kicked us out of the house. For eating the last of the peanut butter. Seriously! I was old enough to understand that she didn’t mean it but stubborn enough to try and make her suffer for it. I marched (or maybe stomped my feet up the stairs) to my room and started packing. I called my best friend and arranged to stay at her house for the night. I was all set. Then I noticed that my brother was sitting on the corner of my bed very close to tears wondering what we were going to do and while I was yelling at him that I was moving out and I didn’t care what he did, I changed my mind. I was the older one. It was my job to take care of him. So I sucked it up, marched back downstairs and asked my mom if we really had to move out. Of course the answer was no and we were all relieved and happy again.

There is one mistake she made that took a very long time to forgive her for. A mistake that we didn’t even realize she had made until about a year after she was gone and one we struggled to cope with for years afterwards.

This mistake was a secret that my mom kept for over 30 years…

It's good to be the king!

I thought she was crazy and I really wasn’t in the mood to play her game. You know how kids get when they think their parents are embarrassingly lame. I folded my arms across my chest, rolled my eyes and refused to give in. Did she really want me to say ‘Zulu’s’ when she finished her sentence? Seriously? Well, I wasn’t going to. No way Jose! My lips were locked and sealed and I threw away the key. The line has been drawn!

To put it simply, I grew up acting as my mother’s very own personal circus monkey. Riding my unicycle and pounding my cymbals while teetering on a very high tight rope. Sometimes I was a seal performing in a show. Barking, clapping my fins and blowing kisses to the audience. On rare occasions, I was a stage starlet. Clutching my heart and falling to the ground, all spotlights on me and roses and curtain calls galore. I was her entertainment and her boisterous laugh and encouragement were all the reward I would need. Mom loved all things silly – especially when it was coming from children. She loved the look on a five year olds face when she asked them if they were married and she loved teaching kids (not her own of course) that the ‘magic’ words were never please and thank you but ‘RIGHT NOW’! A particular favourite was when my brother, cousins and I would act out scenes from a Mel Brooks movie. It didn’t matter if we were ‘Putting on the Ritz’ or giving Count De Money fashion advice, she loved every second of it. And mixed in with all this silliness were lessons that I was able to see later in life. She taught me how to be entertaining and make people laugh and that I shouldn’t ever take myself too seriously.

Now, this wasn’t so much fun when I was a teenager. In fact, it was downright painful. Or, at least it started out that way because no matter how much I wanted to just lock myself in my room and hide, she was just too much fun. Like when she rearranged the furniture because company was coming and we needed more room for charades. Or when she named our Thanksgiving turkey Tommy and taught him how to fly before he had to be stuffed. We can’t forget our little mouse ‘problem’ when she became so fascinated by one (mostly because he was too smart to be killed) that it became a member of the family and we named him Herbert and he would come out of his hiding hole and watch movies with us at night.

So, in the end I gave in. Like she knew I would. Like I knew I would. I found the key to unlock my lips and I erased the line that had been drawn. But it made her smile and no matter how much of a brooding teenager I wanted to be, I couldn’t deny her…

Mom: “So, I was in Africa playing poker with the natives.”
Katie: With a heavy sigh…“Zulu’s?”
Mom: “Nope. I won!”