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.