Post #43 – Women’s Memoirs, ScrapMoir – Matilda Butler and Kendra Bonnett
By Bettyann Schmidt
Stealing words from Charles Dickens, “My mother-in-law was dead to begin with.”
The Windows of My Mind
I’ve always loved that opening sentence from A Christmas Carol. Always considered it an ingenious way to start a story.
So, to begin with…Thanksgiving Day 2008 was a somber feast. My 96-year-old mother-in-law, known to us as “Gee” (soft g as in go) had passed away October 6th. Gazing at her empty chair, I felt her spirit in the room, and my mind rambled back to the three months we’d lived in her home, about a football field away from our own place. She’d lived to blow out her 96 candles.
I never begrudged helping her, and I was thankful I’d done it. However, when we moved in with her in July, I was already in a dire state of depression. I thought I could lay my own state of mind to the side and comfort this woman I loved who was so frightened by death. She fought each and every day to stay alive. She asked Gary and me on one occasion, “Don’t people older than me keep living?”
Gee & her sister Clara. When Clara, her last sibling died, Gee felt all alone
I’d been reminded of my younger sister’s death by cancer years earlier, when I moved into her home in Cincinnati to take care of her. During the early and mid stages of her disease, she was still in possession of all the faith that filled her Christian heart and soul, but as the months dwindled to weeks, it became harder and harder for me to keep her fear at bay. I didn’t want her to suffer from physical pain, or from mental or emotional pain.
My sister died in October 1991, and in July 2008, I was back in the same position, this time trying to ease the suffering of my husband’s mother. We’d lost my husband’s father two years earlier, also at 96, and we’d brought him home to honor his wishes. My husband, Gary, was insistent on neither of his parents ever being placed in a nursing home. He fully intended to care for them at home until they died.
My Mother and Father-Law in 2003
His father went to the hospital after what appeared to be a stroke, and after a week, it was evident he was dying. Somewhere in his confused mind, he knew, and insisted on going home, fought to get out the bed, repeatedly ripped the heart monitor contacts from his chest. He was in a constant state of agitation in spite of the IV drugs running through his veins. The old people out in this community are stubborn folks. They work hard all their lives and don’t stop until they’re no longer able. There is no retirement age. Mentally, they never give up, and when death comes knocking, they fight like the dickens.
With no drugs left to calm my father-in-law, our doctor got our permission to withdraw life support. He soon went into a coma, and Gary brought him home with Hospice assistance. That evening, after neighbors and friends paid their respect, he passed away at 10 pm, peaceful and unafraid, having been home not even one whole day. He knew he was home, and he could leave.
My mother-in-law’s demise was different from her husband’s. She didn’t have to be in the hospital at all. Gee had wonderful Hospice nurses who provided all of the drugs we’d need. The problem was, though, that her family opposed giving her the drugs. They wanted to “wait” until they saw signs of pain. She was dying of old age and her body had grown feeble. But her mind was still sharp, and that was actually where her pain was. It was something we could not see. Maybe I’ve become an expert on emotional pain, but when she and I talked, I knew what she was going through. However, I was not in charge; I was merely the daughter-in-law. Hostility hung in the air.
Gee rarely slept at night, and when she did, horrible nightmares invaded her subconscious, and when she woke the next morning she thought the gruesome dreams were reality. Watching her the last month of her life, knowing she didn’t have to suffer if we’d use the drugs prescribed for her, I couldn’t handle it. The dark monsters inside me forced their way out, and battles ensued with the family. I stormed out one day and went home, only to be called back by my mother-in-law. I appreciated that she knew I only wanted what was in her best interest.
I was not afraid of giving drugs to someone who needed them, and I gave them to her when I could, and she knew I would do it again. A woman who had never taken drugs her whole life, who had said one day she was afraid to take Tylenol because she didn’t want to get “hooked,” now welcomed medication because it made her less afraid and allowed her to sleep without the dreams.
I talked to the Hospice nurses on several occasions, and they said the medication was a common problem with family members. Some of them wanted to use them to provide a sense of peace to the patient, while other members of the family were strongly opposed. The nurses agreed that family feuds usually ensued. They said in the hospital setting, my father-in-law’s scenario, it was a lot easier because medical staff were in charge. More than one member of the family being the “charge nurse” in the home usually didn’t work well.
I definitely was not in charge and felt helpless. If I hadn’t had those meds when my sister was in that state where she knew death was at her door and not able to be at peace, I don’t think I could have held up under the burden. That I was not holding up under the present setting was easy to see. My rapid mental decline was set in motion.
During dinner that Thanksgiving, I knew I’d been in the worst possible place for all the right reasons. I tried to find something to be thankful for.
After dinner, Gary and our son Jeff left for Atlanta with our church group to work at the Operation Christmas Child event, and I’d stayed behind because one of our dogs was sick. I was alone. I’m a person who likes the peace of aloneness, an empty space to think, write, and work on projects. This was not one of those times. My mind began roaming deeper into its memory’s corridors.
I have lived 68 years and suffered only one actual breaking of my heart. One moment in time when I distinctly felt it break inside me with all the accompanying pain as severe as having a limb sawed off.
In July 2008, one week before we moved in with Gary’s mom, one of my children wrote a bluntly worded, savage message to me. Out of the blue. I never saw it coming. It took me as much by surprise as my mother falling on the floor one day when her abdominal aorta burst, and I never had the privilege of speaking to her again, except when she was in a coma for a few hours. That was a tragedy. My grown child’s bitter attack ended a relationship of two people both still alive. It took everything away from me.
My older daughter tried to explain that her sister was punishing me for having stayed in a 20-year nightmare of a marriage to their father. I protected my children as best I could during those years and suffered physical and emotional abuse in doing it. Three of the children have moved on. One couldn’t. I made a bad choice in that man. A choice born out of my need to leave my parents’ home and create a “good” home. I did it too fast and without much thought.
The events of my childhood never broke my heart. They taught me. The first marriage never broke my heart. It made me fight back. I’ve been heartbroken “for” my children, when they’ve been hurt, sick, confused, attacked. Only one has ever broke my heart intentionally. I’ve become stronger through all of my hardships in life. This one stopped me in my tracks. There was no going on. This was my condition when we moved into Gee’s home.
Digging In and Digging Out
After Thanksgiving, the dreary days of winter arrived. Christmas came, but I was in a stupor and don’t remember it. I trudged through the days, trying to appear normal. I hated waking up in the morning. I began to wonder what not waking up would be like.
January, February, March 2009. Had it not been for my friend Debbie, one of the court reporters I’d known in my career, I don’t know where I would have turned. Debbie owned a farm in the next little town from ours. It was an easy drive, just a few miles, when I couldn’t bear living in my own house. Debbie was the only adult I could lay bare all of my feelings, and she talked me through them until I was able to go back home.
April 2009. Time to plant the crops. I tried, but I had run out of energy. And then I felt eaten up with guilt because I wasn’t as strong as I thought I should have been. When Gary’s sister came out and spent days helping him plant, I tried to keep up. That’s what I’ve done all of my life. Pretend to be as tough as the next person. After one day of working and bending, I got sick. Nausea, dizziness, plus a pretty good backache. I had been eating very little and not keeping hydrated and was not able to do the heavy work I felt I had to do.
I became angry with Gary for even thinking of growing long rows of spinach, lettuce, cabbage, and onions. What was the purpose? He patiently tended his cold frame outside, while I thought, “What a stupid waste of time.” Didn’t he see how foolish all of this was? Those were my thoughts in early April.
My temper spawned tantrums. I screamed at Gary. I chided him constantly for everything he did or didn’t do. He remained stoic. He’d walk away, head hung. This made me even more agitated. I’d come to know him as the enemy who’d caused all my unhappiness. I reasoned that if his love for me was strong enough, he’d be able to make these feelings I had go away.
I began making plans, known only to Debbie. I was in a dark, long and narrow cave, and I felt if I dug hard enough I could reach the opening where a small swath of sunlight beamed. I had to get out of the cave, my home, the farm. I needed to leave what was for so long my idyllic life. Debbie was my way out. My only way out.
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In Part 3, I document the next steps that placed me in the spiraling cyclone that finally awakened everyone to my complete disparity. And yet another tragedy involving my friend Debbie, the worst event in her life that will be her nightmare as long as she lives, but ended up being my saving grace.
If you missed Part 1, here’s the link.
Bettyann Schmidt
http://journey2f.blogspot.com
