Cloud Community

What amazes me about humans is that it's possible to get to know each other without ever physically touching. Mind meld. Telepathy. Consciousness raising. Whatever you call it. It's pretty cool. Like, it feels as if Joni's singing to ME when I listen to this song. It's something we should be proud of: how we communicate in such a wide array of ways. It reminds me of the song "Virginia Woolf" by one of my favorite bands in the Vagina Genre, The Indigo Girls. Woolf, long dead, guides a sullen girl through the hardships of young womanhood. My thinking upon my first and each subsequent listen to this song is this: "Virginia Woolf speaks to the Indigo Girls who have now spoken to me." Artists communicate with us, the living, through their medium like a psychic to the dead. At work there's lots of talk about cloud computing, storing information up in the clouds (the internet) instead of in your physical presence (your computer, your flashdrive). Whenever someone uses this fashionable jargon, my mind drifts off to the thought of cloud communicating. I've found I express myself easier when I'm sending my words through the clouds rather than face to face or voice to voice.

I joined Facebook about three or four years ago. My nephew Chris posted pictures during his time as a foreign exchange student in Amsterdam and I had to join Facebook to see them. I had no interest in using Facebook as a tool to communicate with anyone else. I was just fine using email to keep in touch with my friends and family. I never blogged. I never left comments on other people's blogs. I used the internet to find information, but not to discuss it with anyone on the internet. I was just a proud Luddite aunt who wanted to beam at my nephew's adventures.

Then slowly but steadily people started friending me. First my niece Kendra when she saw I had friended her brother. Then my other niece Lily, other young family members, then some of my younger friends. Huh, I see why people like this. Then friends from high school. Hey this is kinda fun. Then my mom and my siblings and cousins I hadn't seen in years. Wow, this is a nice way of catching up.

Then one day my boss sent me a friend request. Not just my boss, but my boss's boss. Crap. I had introduced a few coworkers to Home Life Syd by accepting their friend requests, but no one with any authority over me. Dilemma. If I ignore her friend request she might feel insulted or hurt. If I accept her friend request she might get to know the real me and realize she doesn't like me after all.

So who do I hurt, her or me? Neither as it turns out. I accepted her friend request. And many more from other people who had previously not known Home Life Syd.

In doing so, I discovered that I am actually not an introvert. Who knew I liked to share? Who knew there were people out there who wanted me to share my stories with them? I'm still a big honkin navel gazer, but that doesn't make me an introvert. I am an introspective extrovert. I get nervous speaking face to face with people despite my well-practiced apparent competence facade. But as my fingers release my thoughts with each tap of the keyboard into the clouds, outside myself, I feel so at peace. So comfortable. So accepted into the embrace of cloud community.

Some might argue that I had already friended an authority figure when I friended my mother, but she'd be the first to tell you authoritarian isn't a personality type I abide. Mom's parenting style leaned more toward the Montessori method. Whenever we'd ask Mom a question she'd keep her eyes on the book she was reading or the TV she was watching or the canvas she was painting and say, "Hmm. I don't know. Why don't you look it up." She wasn't neglectful like the mother in The Glass Castle, but she was similarly interested in her children figuring out life by themselves with as little authoritarian influence as possible.

My favorite way of figuring out life is by listening to music. I married Hank because he sang to me. Literally and metaphorically. When he plays the guitar and sings in front of me, without ever touching my body, I feel as if he's making love to me. And in this way I have many lovers, as does Hank. We have an open relationship musically. It feels so good when I'm alone in the car on my way to pick up Stella from Grandpa Logan's house fooling around with my favorite artists as I drive with the stereo cranked up and I'm singing along. And woo hoo: when we put our ipod on shuffle as Hank and I make love. It feels like we're having a musical orgy with the human race. But it's not just sexual love that is expressed through music. I don't want to get off on that tangent. (Beavis and Butthead: "Huh huh, she said get off!") I'm just saying songs are a great way to communicate without physically touching.

The problem is, I can't sing. Hank argues that I can, but he thinks everyone can sing. He's like the dad in "Ordinary People" who obviously loves his son, but the son shrugs it off with a "he loves everyone" excuse.

http://ap.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/23/3/174

I can't sing, but I can write. Maybe it's the bilateral stimulation that occurs inside my brain as I use both hands to communicate via keyboard. If it is the bilateral stimulation that's helping me share my story with you, when I cloud communicate with a keyboard, not only is that exceptionally alliterative (isn't it grammar geek friends?) but it's also a great way to give words (stored in the left side of the brain) to experiences (stored in the right side of the brain). Or it could simply be that I can type almost as fast as I think, but my Midwest voice can't keep up with my universal thoughts.

A Peaceful Sleep

I had a couple of hours alone to get some good writing done. When I went upstairs to get a drink of water after an hour of non-stop writing without a break, I could feel my rosacea flushed face warm. I was excited. I began daydreaming about getting my novel published and the big book tour I'd get to go on to read before audiences like my idol David Sedaris. I'd make tons of money and stay in luxurious hotels and travel to cities I would have otherwise not had a chance to visit. We could pay off not just the credit cards, but our house. We could buy a Prius. Two Priuses. Priui? So I wouldn't have to stop every few seconds to autograph something for a fan, I'd have to start wearing sunglasses (ooh, I could get Lasik surgery so I wouldn't have to wear glasses anymore) and a hoodie when I'd go to the grocery store when my maid was on vacation because I'd be such an awesome employer I'd give my help great benefits. But then I snapped to. Who am I writing this Mental Wellness blog novel for? Is the most important thing I could achieve by writing this story riches and fame? Or is the most important thing I could achieve by writing this story writing it? Getting it out. Sharing with others so I don't feel so burdened with the sadness and selfish with the joy. This kind of awakening, which was achieved ironically through much introspection, is for sharing. No fair keeping it to myself. So here I go, back to the basement to shoot it up into the clouds for you. It's not quite a luxurious hotel, but it's not like I need more than my computer, my time, my family, my friends, and my bed to get a peaceful sleep.

Last Cigarette

My thumb and forefinger plucked an unfiltered Camel from its pack then flipped it back and forth to see if it mattered which side was the ash side. It didn’t appear to matter. I moved it to my brother’s lips and they parted instinctively as if having never lost their sucking reflex.

He inhaled deeply.

He had wanted to go outside. It was a very cold winter day. Snow and ice were unavoidable outside. Inside Murray was dying. Liver failure. Five months ago they gave him a month. Our brother Walt, sitting at his laptop on his desk said, “No way, Brother. You’re not going outside. I don’t want you falling on your face again. Smoke in here.”

Murray’s voice was hoarse and phlemmy, but he argued anyway, “I don’t want Adrienne to get mad at me.”

Adrienne is Walt’s wife of over thirty years. She is the last person I can think of who would get mad at anyone for anything, lest of all having a smoke in the warmth of your home on what will be the last day of your life.

Walt laughed. “Don’t worry about Adrienne. She won’t care. I’ll buy some air freshener. Go on and smoke, Brotha.”

Murray was slouching forward in a La-Z-Boy. I sat next to him at the edge of his bed. His hospice nurse had just left a minute ago after giving him a sponge bath. Murray was making people laugh to the day he died. When she opened his robe, Murray said, “Sorry about my penis. My liver made everything else on my body swell up, but my penis shrunk.”

He didn’t want to get right back into bed after the nurse left, so he stayed in the chair. His left hand was about a foot from his Camels. I saw his hand flick, his fingers twitch as his poisoned brain tried to navigate his hand from his lap to the cigarettes.

“Here, I’ll get you one.” I grabbed the pack. Murray laid his hand back in his lap. “You want me to get one started for you?” I’m not a smoker, but I know how to light one.

“Nah, nah, I can do it. Just put one in my mouth.”

After he had the cigarette between his lips, I flicked the Bic to give him some fire. He inhaled like he was smoking materialized love. The cigarette stayed between his lips even as he exhaled, and then he began to snore. After a couple of snores, the cigarette dropped to the carpeted floor beneath him. I rushed to grab it. I sat patiently with it between my fingers, my hand a human ashtray. He came-to in about twenty seconds, his wiggling fingers searching for the cigarette they were just holding.

“I’ve got it. Here.” I put it back up to his lips and we repeated this exchange until the cigarette was such a stub I burnt the tip of my pointer finger trying to pick it up before we burnt another hole in the carpet. I am secretly proud to have helped my brother smoke his last cigarette.

I asked Murray if he was ready to put it out and he said, “Uh huh. I think I’ll lay back down in bed.”

Walt jumped up from his office chair and hurried over to grab Murray by the elbow. I grabbed his other elbow and we three got Murray back into the hospital-style bed he got on loan from the hospice care his insurance was paying for. He let out a little pleasurable groan when his aching back hit the cushiony mattress. We covered him up and left him to snore.

The rest of the afternoon we took turns waiting for his snoring to stop. Walt had a brief work meeting. I had taken off the rest of the afternoon, so I was left alone with Murray for about an hour, but it was uneventful. I read some stories Walt had lying around. I Facebooked briefly. At one point I got up to pee. As soon as I came back from the bathroom, I held my breath for a few seconds until I could hear Murray’s snores again. My stomach jumped and I regretted eating those Hardee’s curly fries earlier in the day.

After Walt got back, we chatted a bit, filled out some forms we had to mail for Murray’s insurance and 401k money. Walt and Adrienne had been letting Murray live in the ground-floor apartment of their cool old Carriage house for a little over a month. It worked out. Murray had his own space, and so did Walt and Adrienne, but they were close enough to Murray that they could help him when he needed it. Adrienne being an RN was a bonus. When Adrienne got home to keep Walt company, I decided to go home. I hadn’t seen my daughter all day, and I was ready to be in my own home. Murray could continue snoring like this for a couple more hours or a couple more days. We didn’t know.

I approached Murray. I stood starring at him, unable to decide if I wanted to take a picture of him in my mind or leave my memories of him to the more carefree images I had stored. I put my lips to his ear. I whispered, “I love you. May you find peace. I love you.” I moved my lips gently from his ear to his cheek, as Murray had once given me gentle Eskimo kisses on the nose when I was a little girl. Before I removed my lips from his cheek, between raspy snores, Murray murmured, “I love you too, hon.”

I turned around to find Adrienne hugging her weepy husband. I joined them for a group hug and then I left.

No One to Blame for it

I drove the interstate home thinking about how all the irritation and anger and frustration and finally acquiescence I felt toward Murray’s terminal situation these last few months all boiled down to these two things: He was a drunk. He hurt me when I was young. But I don’t think either affliction was intentional. Or my fault. Or anyone’s fault. And it really sucks to hold inside all this pain and have nowhere to put it. No one to blame for it.

See You Soon

I spent a few years avoiding Murray. I’d answer his calls occasionally, usually after he had left me three or four messages to call him back. But I didn’t have time to listen to him ramble on and on, even though his ramblings were mostly quite entertaining. I was trying to spend time with my daughter during the few hours she was awake while I was home from work, so when he called I mostly just wanted to get off the phone.

But my feelings changed instantly when I read that he was dying. It was decided I’d be his primary caretaker since I lived closest while Murray still lived in the house he had bought with his fiancée Cheryl before she died of liver failure in August. Murray got his diagnosis about a week after Cheryl died when he finally went to the doctor to complain about his swollen left foot, which at first he had assumed was caused by using the clutch on his work truck so much. But since he’d been off work for a couple months taking care of Cheryl as she was dying, the only other explanation he could think of was that it got swollen from all the walking he was doing during his hospital visits with Cheryl. But when the swelling still didn’t go down the week after Cheryl had died, he gave up his guessing and went to the doctor.

Walt emailed us, “Disturbing news from Murray. He is swelling up and turning yellow. Early tests from the hospital say his liver is failing. Big surprise right! Anyway, they say he'd be a candidate for a transplant, but not if he would continue the behavior that ruined the old one. He says more tests will provide more info on options and expectations. In the meantime he needs to get his affairs in order and asked me to help with that. More info as I get it, but feel free to communicate with him yourselves in the meantime. Love to all, W.”

I called Murray. We spoke briefly. He told me what Walt had said in the email. I asked him if they had any idea how much time he had left.

“One month.”

I had to leave. I said, “See you soon.”

Neglected Family Pet

From then on I started going over to Murray’s house to care for him – to run to the corner market for his Camels and his 100-proof either Peppermint Schnapps or Hot Damn, to make sure he was eating, to watch TV with him so he didn’t feel too lonely, or take him to doctor’s appointments so they could drain the poison that was building up inside him with a barely functioning liver. It felt weird to see him so much. I was glad to take care of him, to help him through some of his final months. But I wasn’t used to seeing him so much.

I was six when we moved from St. Joe to Kansas City so my dad could have a closer commute to work. My parents took only the two youngest kids, my 13½ year old sister Hazel and me. They left in St. Joe my brother Walt, who was already in college. But they also left behind two high-schoolers: my sister Marty, a 17 year old senior, and my brother Murray, a barely 15 year old sophomore. Marty lived throughout her senior year at my dad’s—her stepfather’s—sister’s house, Aunt Lois. Murray stayed with our mom’s dad, who we called Grandpa Joe. Grandpa Joe and Grandmother Ruthanne, our mom’s mother, divorced when I was about four or five years old. I remember because it was Thanksgiving and Grandmother Ruthanne came over. I looked behind her and blurted out, “Where’s Grandpa Joe?” My older sister Hazel’s hand went over my mouth and I was shushed.

Murray became an apprentice to our grandfather. Grandpa Joe taught him how to fix things, how to build things, and how to smoke Camel nonfilters and do as you please. Murray dropped out of school shortly after we moved to Kansas City. He came to stay with us, in our basement like a neglected family pet, for a month or two. I think he even attended high school again briefly. But eventually, he fled our family for the most part.

My dad kicked him out of the house over some stupid rule Murray broke. Murray stayed with friends, worked in the kitchen at PJ’s Bar and Grille, and hitchhiked during his extended vacations. He’d basically save up enough money flipping burgers to take off a few months to hitch around the country. He followed a good friend up to New York. Lived there for awhile. (That’s where he was staying when he sent Mom the letter.) Then he lived in California for awhile, Santa Barbara and some other Santas I can’t remember.

Over time, Murray visited us occasionally, and whenever he worked at PJ’s Bar and Grille, my friends and I would walk there to talk to Murray through the screen at the back of the building. My friends always thought Murray was so cool. When Murray would visit us at home, the first thing he’d always do was go outside, no matter what the weather, and wrestle/play with our neglected pet mutt Brownie.

I remember Murray and Hazel whispering into my ear to “Go ask Calvin if we can get a puppy” when I was two years old. It’s one of my earliest memories. I remember we were at the bottom of the stairs, watching Calvin, who was sitting at his desk with the bright desk lamp on. I don’t know how I got the nerve to approach Daddy while he was working at his desk, but somehow I did, and somehow he agreed to let us get a puppy.

Murray and Hazel had already asked for a puppy, but my dad, their stepdad, said no. It was the first time I realized not all people are treated equally.

Murray Memories

I was underwater. Everything was murky and brown and it stung my eyes to open them but it terrified me to keep them shut. I was probably about four. Murray would have been about thirteen. Murray jumped into Bean Lake and pulled me out of the water after someone, maybe even Murray, threw a firecracker which exploded right in front of me. It scared me so much I jumped back and fell into the lake and got my sandal stuck in the mud. Murray pulled me out of the water. I was crying. I remember my dad running down the dock toward us, screaming at everyone, "What happened? Where's her sandal!" I remember thinking I was going to get into trouble for losing my sandal, which had stuck so much in the mud at the bottom of the lake that it hadn't come out with me when Murray saved me from drowning.

I remember Murray visiting me the summer I was sent to live with Grandmother Ruthanne. I had been diagnosed with anorexia nervosa. I was 11. My mom didn't know what to do. Because of Mom’s history with electroshock therapy, she was leery of psychiatry. So she sent me to live with her mother. I can only assume my mother's thinking was that my living with someone who really was insane would make me feel relatively saner and help me snap out of this not-eating phase. Or it was my mom’s idea of sending me to boot camp. I was miserable living with Grandmother Ruthanne, who was as strict as my mother was lenient. I wasn't used to living under such a microscope. I felt trapped.

Then Murray showed up one afternoon when Grandmother Ruthanne was taking a nap. He took me for a drive in his truck. We drove around the old neighborhood. We stopped and had an ice cream at the Dairy Queen that we lived up one block from when I was born. The one that Mom ate at every day while she was pregnant with me. We had a nice time, sharing memories. He entertained me with his adventurous tales from on the road.

We got back and Grandmother Ruthanne was on the porch with her hand on her hip. She was furious. Of course she was worried about where I was, but she would never say such a thing. Instead, she started screaming at me. Murray immediately jumped in and talked Grandmother Ruthanne down. Saving me from near death again.

I remember Murray bringing his girlfriend Lundi over when I was about nine. He adored her. Lundi was the prettiest girl I had ever seen, and I wanted to look just like her when I grew up. She had long, messy hair, wore a wrap-around batik skirt, and she had hairy legs. She was the first woman I had heard of who didn't shave her legs. She was my new hero. That night they all got drunk and high and Lundi taught me how to French braid using Murray, with his long hair, as the model. We gave him a little braid on his beard to match. I still have a photo we took of Murray looking at his French braid by holding a hand-mirror in front of his face and looking into the bathroom mirror. His beard braid had a little tiny red ribbon I snagged from my Barbies. Lundi left me with a sense that I didn't have to be anyone I didn't want to be and I could still have a boyfriend who adores me.

As a young adult I remember getting a call in the middle of the night to come bail Murray out of jail at like 39th and Troost, and I did it without any hesitation. I owed him a couple of bail outs for the drowning Calvin and screaming Grandmother Ruthanne things. I remember driving Murray places because he'd lost his license from too many DUIs, and I remember Mom and me visiting him at the county jail where he served a short sentence. Yes, let's jail alcoholics and see if that helps them to quit drinking and driving. How about this? How about we take all the money we're spending to incarcerate people who enjoy going out for a drink and spend it on a decent public transit system that runs at all hours all over the city so people could go out, spend a little money, stimulate the economy, and not have to worry about driving home drunk. But I digress...

I remember the long-winded answering machine messages Murray would always leave. He'd fill up an entire tape and never even get around to asking me the thing he called about in the first place. Then I'd erase his message and later get another one from him saying, "So, anyway, I'm writing this story and I can't think of how to spell this word, and so I think, who would know how to spell a weird word, and of course, Syd, my sister the librarian! So, how do you spell queef? Call me back."

I remember sitting on the front porch with him and his fiancée Cheryl after they had moved in together. We were swinging on the porch swing, talking, laughing, enjoying our beers. Random people would walk by and Murray would call out to them all, inviting them up to the porch for a beer. Every person Murray ever met was a friend.

So for the first few months after Murray’s diagnosis, I came over a few times a week to check on him, bring him food, bring him cigarettes and booze, and bring him company. I wasn’t the only one. It seems like every friend and many ex-girlfriends called to tell him how much he meant to them and how much they’d miss him.

I remember that every time Murray would make an appearance at a family gathering, whenever someone would say to him, "It's good to see you," he'd smile wide and say, "It's good to be seen." But now that his fiancée, his first true love, the first woman who loved him in spite of himself, now that she had died, he found no reason to continue living on without her. He wanted to die. He wanted to be with her again in the afterworld. Up until then, I didn’t even know Murray believed in God.

Always a Part of Our Family

A relative’s death is incomprehensible. Experiencing death around young children makes it just that much more unexplainable. A couple of weeks after Murray died, at the dinner table my four year old daughter Stella announced out of the blue, "Now you have three sisters and one brother, Mama." I said, "I still have two brothers. Uncle Murray is still my brother even though he died." Hank said, "Yeah, just like BoBo is still our dog even though he died." Stella said, "And Ferdie is still our cat even though he died!"

So then we dropped it and moved on to another conversation.

Later in the evening, I started crying when I saw this picture of Murray and me when we were about 12½ and 3. We both look so young and innocent, and it made me sad to think of all that has happened in our lives and how the world takes away youthful innocence.

Stella came up to me and asked why I was crying. I said, "I'm still sad because Uncle Murray died." She hugged me, stepped back and held onto my shoulders with her hands, looked me right in the eye and said, "It's ok, Mama. You're still a part of our family, and Uncle Murray is still a part of our family too."

I wish I could bottle up Stella's beautiful innocence and take a sip of it from time to time. I know I cannot protect her from the cruelties of the world no matter how much I want to or try to. But I can constantly remind her that our family is here for her, just as it is here for me now.

The Game

I’m the first to understand the irony that what comforts me during this grieving time is the family full of abettors and enablers, perpetrators and narcissists, but also heroes and nurturers. Often all within the same individual.

“Here we go. Up the road. To a birthday par-ty.”

One of us, either my friend Lisa or I, depending on whose turn it was, would plunck out the song on my sister’s upright piano that divided the rec room from my brother Murray’s bedroom, which was really just an annex of the laundry room. The other one of us would take Murray’s hand and follow him into his bedroom. He’d bounce us on the bed – one, two, three – wee! We’d listen to the piano, “Here we go. Up the road. To a birthday par-ty!” We’d get dizzy and slightly nauseas from the bouncing. The room was hot from the dryer, which was always going with our big family. Murray’s shirt was off. His chest was skinny and sun scorched. He was smiling and laughing. Sometimes he’d reach under his pants and touch his thingy. Sometimes he’d reach under mine and touch me. It kinda made me feel like I had to pee, but I held it. I didn’t want to get spanked for having an accident on someone’s bed.

These were our secret games, only the three of us knew. I’d be inside Murray’s bedroom with him. Each time we’d finish our game he’d remind me, “Don’t tell Mommy about our game, remember? We don’t want to upset her and have them take her back to the hospital.”

But then Lisa couldn’t come over to play at my house anymore. It was ok for me to come play at her house, but her mommy didn’t want her to come over to our house. When I was spending the night at Lisa’s house one night, Lisa took me into her bedroom and shut the door. She opened her closet, and then a chest within her closet. She pulled out a pair of her pants. She stuck her fingers inside the pants and wriggled her thumb through a hole in the crotch of the pants.

“Mom found this and now she won’t let me play at your house anymore.”

So then Murray and I were the only players of the game for awhile. It kind of scared me, but it kind of made me feel special too. I liked the special attention. I liked knowing it was something he shared with only me.

But that feeling changed one afternoon when I was led into his bedroom. The basement curtains were pulled shut so it was pretty dark in the room and it took my eyes a few blinks to adjust. Lying on Murray’s bed was Greasy Gary. I think his name was Gary Adams, but everyone called him Greasy Gary. I think he was the same age as Murray, but he looked almost as big as a grown man. Gary was reclining on Murray’s bed. His jeans were unzipped and he held his thingy in his hand. Only this thingy was big and meaty…and hairy at the top. It was the most disgusting thing I had ever seen. I turned to run out the door. Murray put his arm on my shoulder and said, “Come on, it’s ok.”

When I was 16 or so my Mom and I watched a Phil Donohue episode that dealt with childhood sexual abuse and it got us to talking about my early sexual experiences with Murray. Mom claimed I didn’t tell her all the details of what happened when I was five. I thought I had told her everything, but it had been eleven years of actively not trying to remember it so I was a little fuzzy about the details. Mom says I told her Murray and his friend showed me their penises so she told me to stay away from them, and she told Murray to stay away from me and keep his friends away from me. So she didn't know the whole story. I always wondered why she didn’t get Murray or me, or preferably both Murray and me counseling. I assumed it had to do with Mom’s skepticism of mental health practices since she received electroshock treatments in the mid-Sixties for what she saw as her emotional response to the news that her husband was cheating on her with his secretary and that she’d soon be a single parent with four children between the ages of 8 and 3. So she's a follower of the “less-is-more” idea of mental health treatment. But maybe she really thought it was nothing but innocent experimentation. I don't know.

What I remember about telling: In my memory (of something that happened 35 years ago, mind you) as soon as the Greasy Gary game was over I ran upstairs into the kitchen and told my mother what had happened. She calmed me down and dried my tears and I told her. I don’t remember what happened after that. And for all I know, it could have been days or months or weeks or months later that I told her. And I’m sure at the age of five I didn’t have the vocabulary to describe to her everything I experienced. At age forty I’m still deficient at such an extensive emotional lexicon.

Then the worst thing I could imagine happened. What seemed like the next day after I told Mom about the Greasy Gary game, I woke up to an empty house. Most likely it wasn’t the next day, as measuring time is questionable in the realm of memory summoning. But what I remember is waking up and knowing it was morning, but not knowing where everyone was. I got out of bed and looked from room to room. First the kitchen, where Mommy usually was when I woke up. Then the bathroom, the bedrooms –Mommy and Daddy’s, Marty’s, and mine and Hazel’s again. I checked the living room. I even went downstairs to the basement, which I HATED to do alone. No one. Anywhere.

They had taken Mommy back to the hospital just like Murray said they would if I told her about our game!

I ran back upstairs, tripping a few times, snot and tears streaming down my face. I looked for a place to hide. I ended up in Hazel’s and my bedroom closet, with the door shut. I could feel the walls on each side of me. I sat on shoes and toys. Hanging clothes tickled my head. I cried until I feel asleep.

The closet door opened and there was Mommy’s face. I had never seen her look that way: confused, worried, relieved, concerned. She picked me up and kissed my wet cheeks. “Sydney, there you are!”

I instantly burst back into tears. “I thought they took you to the hospital!” I gulped out between bellows.

“What? No, no. Oh, noooo, I had to take Murray to school. He missed the bus. You were still asleep and I thought I’d only be a minute and you wouldn’t even wake up while I was gone. It’s ok, honey, shh, shh…”

Never a Daddy's Girl

Pretty shortly after that, half my family moved to Kansas City. The Greasy Gary game was overshadowed for many years by living in a household constantly on the verge of breaking up. Since the age of four my mother had been asking me and my siblings if we thought it would be a good idea for her to divorce my father. Even when we advised her to, she still didn’t until I was 21. So I got to grow up under the same roof as my father, who understood me so little and ignored me so much I don’t even feel compelled to include him in memories of my childhood other than to say he was a raging narcissist who cried when he found out I was a girl instead of a boy.

Making Amends

As soon as I pulled off the interstate, into my driveway and into the comforting familiarly of my own home, Walt called to say Murray had died.

He told me the story of how it happened. Walt was holding Murray’s hand. Adrienne could tell he was nearing the end because his mouth was bubbling, an indication that his lungs were failing. Walt sat at the side of his bed and watched Murray’s labored breathing. He laid his head on Murray’s chest and listened to his heart beat.

“I love ya, Brotha. Go be with Cheryl.” Walt called out through tears.

“I’m tryin.” Murray replied. Walt was still holding Murray’s hand, his ear to Murray’s chest, when our brother’s heart stopped beating.

We knew it was going to happen. We had everything pretty much planned out. Murray had seen a lawyer and drawn up a will. He tied up loose ends with the big Fs: finances and, more importantly, his friends and family. His father who left our mother with four small children when Murray was four years old, his father who had seen his son only a handful of times since he left the family, his father flew in from Florida to Kansas City to visit his son. And perhaps to proselytize, since I found his church’s brochure lying on top of a stack of photos he left for Murray.

Our brother was making amends. We were spending more time with him these last few months than we had in the last few decades. It was kind of nice to have him back in our lives.

And then he’s gone.

Paths to Memories Flooded by Many Other Storms

The Greasy Gary game got shoved under years of eating disorders, first binging, then anorexia, then purging, chronic dieting, then binging again. It got shoved under years of failed intimacies. Therapy sessions were taken up talking about how to quit obsessing over food and my weight and how to be less ashamed of my body to have a healthy sexual relationship with someone I love and who treats me well.

By my thirties, I found myself in a pretty good place. After years of therapy and reading Harriet Lerner and Linda Bacon books, I found a man who loves me and makes me feel like I can be myself around him. We got married. We had a daughter despite fertility problems. I have a good job I think is interesting and important as a paraprofessional librarian at the public library. Life is good.

Sure, family gatherings are always a time of anxiety. Someone at some point will mention off-handedly some sex abuse case in the news. Since the only person in my family I’ve talked to about my sexual experiences with Murray is my mother, no one else would know I might get prickly around such talk. Murray wasn’t usually around family gatherings anyway. When he was, I was ok, surrounded by everyone else, cushioned by time. Most of the time.

On more than one occasion throughout the years, usually when we were alone in the car together as I was driving his license-revoked ass somewhere, Murray creeped me out when he mentioned that whoever his current girlfriend at the time was “sometimes acts likes a crazy bitch because she has issues since her older brother sexually abused her when she was little. Isn’t that sick! If I got my hands on that sick fuck I’d rip his balls off.” I wasn’t ever sure if that was Murray’s weird way of letting me know he felt bad for what he did to me, or if he really had blocked our experiences out so much they simply did not exist to him. Either way, I said nothing. I ignored him. I returned to my basically happy life.

Until one day I opened the email from Walt, which opened paths to memories that had been flooded by many other storms.

No Longer Suffering

I am relieved that my brother is no longer suffering. Liver failure is not what dreamy alcoholics would like you to think it is, getting smashed one night and dying peacefully in your sleep. It involves swelling and pain and vomiting and a lack of control of your limbs until it finally takes your last breath. Murray didn’t want to stop drinking. I don’t like his decision, and I think it was made during an agonizing time for him while he was in the midst of his grief over his fiancée Cheryl’s death. But I respect his decision to end his life the way he wanted to, drinking 100 proof liquor and smoking unfiltered Camels. And I understand why. The way I get to this place of understanding, and even forgiveness, is by reminding myself of all that Murray went through during his time on earth.

When Murray was old enough to walk, but just barely, his dad came home one night drunk. Murray was toddling down the hall. He got in his dad’s way, so his dad wrapped his hand around the boy’s skull and slammed it into the wall.

Murray once told me his first memory is of clinging on to Mom’s legs as they were taking her off to the hospital to get electroshock treatments.

After our mom divorced their dad, the kids—Walt, Marty, Murray, and Hazel—needed someone to stay with them while Mom went back to work to support her family. Mom felt her only choice was to leave the kids with her mother, Grandmother Ruthanne. Horrible things went on while Grandmother Ruthanne babysat the kids.

I found out about one of the incidents when my mom showed me the letter Murray had written her while he was staying in New York. He described Grandmother Ruthanne’s irrational behavior and torturous punishments. She wrapped rubber bands around Murray’s testes as he screamed for her to stop. She put him in a diaper, put cat poop scooped out of her litter box into the diaper and made him go outside in front of other children. Crazy, awful stuff. And each time she hurt him, she said, “Don’t tell Mommy. We don’t want to upset her and have them take her back to the hospital.”

An Otherwise Impressive Line of Leaves

At age 16, I was already able to comprehend that the reason good people sometimes do horrible things is because horrible things were done to them. For a long time, I blamed the bad things Murray did to me and everything that went wrong in our family on Grandmother Ruthanne. If only Grandmother Ruthanne had gotten treatment for her obvious mental illness, my mother would have been better cared for and would have been better able to care for us, and on and on.

But how could Grandmother Ruthanne have gotten treatment? In her lifetime it was common to lock hysterical women away at the “State Lunatic Asylum No. 2”, which has in recent years been renamed to the more euphemistic “Northwest Missouri Psychiatric Rehabilitation Center”. Would such treatment have been effective? What I wonder about the most, though, is what was the source behind Grandmother Ruthanne’s mental illness? What horrible thing was done to her?

There was some story about Grandmother Ruthanne being sent away to live with her grandmother in Oklahoma when she was a teenager. And a marriage to a man from St. Louis when she was sixteen. A divorce when it turned out he abused her. People learn how to abuse when they are abused themselves. Is this where she learned it? I have no idea. No proof of anything.

What I know is that Sidney Joseph Murray, who we called Grandpa Joe, was an introverted genius who had been orphaned at age 12 and worked his way up to owning his own plumbing business and that Grandmother Ruthanne was pretty when she was young. They met after Grandmother Ruthanne’s first marriage ended and she landed back at her parent’s house. She met their plumber friend, Sid, who she renamed “Joe” so people wouldn’t think he was Jewish.

Yep. Where are all the “Happy Easter You anti-Semetic bitch, Grandma” cards at the store when you’re rushing in late to pick up your contributions to the Easter Sunday family dinner? Feeling pleased with yourself that your family has come to rely upon you to remember to bring napkins and ice, you decide to go a bit overboard: buy Grandma a card! This was always when I snapped to and headed for the register. There was no use even looking at the variety of Easter cards from which I could pick for the grandmother I despised.

She was able to attract Grandpa Joe, though. They married, had two kids. Mom remembers Grandmother Ruthanne being sick all the time. Mom spent her childhood being quiet and coloring. Waiting with Grandmother Ruthanne in the doctor’s office for her non-stop appointments. Going to the market and running errands for her mother whose agoraphobia kept her inside between doctor’s appointments. Mom’s earliest memories are these: eating ants in the cracked earth in their back yard at the end of the Great Depression. Her father brushing her hair without pulling it like her mother did and washing her face without scraping it off like her mother did. And sitting on the couch, trying to get her shoe on, while Grandmother Ruthanne was screaming at her to “Get up, Get up! The couch is on fire!” Mom said she thought Grandmother Ruthanne was just being hysterical as always and figured she had plenty of time to get her shoe on before she’d burn to death. Grandmother Ruthanne was so crazy she couldn’t even convince her daughter she was a trustworthy enough source to heed a call not to burn.

I don’t know why Grandmother Ruthanne was mentally ill. I have only puzzle pieces of her abuse story passed on through the generations of a fallible family which nonetheless grows on laughing, loving, working, playing, and teaching our children and regularly reminding ourselves that compassion and creativity and humor are our enviable hereditary traits, but there are certain weedy stems that, if ignored, will choke the family tree and wilt its otherwise impressive line of leaves.

Premeditated Medication

I knew I should have gotten back on my meds when I found out Murray was dying. I had been off them about five years. I wanted to try my pregnancy with Stella meds-free, so I went off before we tried to conceive. I took fish oil pills at the advice of my shrink at the time, which seemed to help especially with the depression and social phobia. After a bout with postpartum depression during which time I temporarily went back on Sertraline, I felt ok, so I went back off the meds, figuring I’d wait and see how I felt and maybe I’d never need them again. I was starting to feel like a success story.

When I found out Murray was sick, I made a mental note to set up a doctor’s appointment for myself as a preventative measure. I didn’t trust fish oil to handle this kind of anxiety. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to take him to any of his doctor’s appointments if my agoraphobic ass kept me inside the house all day.

But it was weird. As soon as I started going over to his house nearly every day to bring him food or smokes or liquor, or just to keep him company, I felt great. I mean, I felt horrible that Murray was sick and unless some miracle saved him he was going to die. But I had loads of energy, I felt like how a marine must feel right when she’s called to action. I was living on the surge of adrenaline that was coursing through my body, keeping me strong to help Murray feel better.

After a couple of months, and through Thanksgiving, our family had that arrangement. I was Murray’s primary caretaker, but his friends, and parent’s of his friends (that is how much he was loved), and whichever other sibling could make it over took him to appointments and came over to bring him food and hang out with him. By mid-December, Walt told me Murray wanted to come live in the ground floor apartment of his and Adrienne’s Carriage House. Walt had called me at work to tell me this – and to tell me they were planning on moving him that weekend – I had to get off the phone and immediately excuse myself for a break.

I started walking the path around the park. I was walking fast. Faster than usual. Faster than ever. I felt like running but my size 42F boobs couldn’t tolerate the pain of that kind of immense bounce. That’s one thing I really miss about being young: flat chest = running is fun. I kept walking faster and faster. It was chilly. I was proud I had my apparent competence façade up after I hung up the phone with Walt. I calmly walked into my supervisor’s office, asked her if she minded if I took a break, grabbed my jacket and left out the back door. I maintained composure, other than huffing and puffing in the cold, damp air, until I got about half way around the park and I started crying. I stopped walking. I kept my head down and turned toward the center of the park, where there is a gazebo and bench. It wasn’t raining, but it was very damp out. The tears running down my cheeks felt warm in the cool air.

I got to the bench under the gazebo. With my elbows on my legs, palms covering my face, I cried. I felt so relieved. The burden was coming to an end. Then I felt horrible and cried more. Murray hadn’t been a burden to me. Well, I mean, I was completely exhausted and some of my OCD compulsions were returning (blow three kisses toward the house or something bad might happen to Hank and Stella while I’m gone…Checking three times to make sure I locked the door. Now where’s my keys? I lost my wedding ring. Found it later in the bottom of the washing machine. I lost my driver’s license. Found it later in my car even though I had previously searched my car before replacing it. I was getting grouchier and grouchier with Hank and Stella and the pets.

I was becoming a mess but I wouldn’t admit it. Even to myself. I was so glad Murray agreed to move in with Walt and Adrienne. They had asked him to before, but he wanted to stay in his own house as long as he could, until we got the letter from the mortgage company that he had 60 days to vacate the premises since the house had been purchased under Cheryl’s name and not his name because of his bad credit, and since Cheryl died and they owed more than the house was worth, it was going back to the bank. Murray was so pissed off he wanted to move the moment Walt read him the letter aloud since Murray’s vision was starting to fail too.

I sat in the middle of the park and stopped crying as I was thinking of all this stuff I’d been through taking care of Murray, working full time, taking care of Stella, trying not to completely ignore Hank, making sure my dogs and cat get pet at least once a day. I stopped crying. I had caregiver’s burnout. Of course. Who wouldn’t? Why was I being so hard on myself for wanting more time to myself? Also, Walt had arranged for hospice care for Murray, and with Adrienne, a nurse, right above Murray in their second floor apartment, he was going to be able to receive much better care than he was getting from my every couple days visits and his friends popping in and out. We’d done a good job of keeping him comfortable with our companionship and love while we could, but his body was shutting down faster now and he needed professional help to stop the pain.

I lifted my head and the cool air stung my hot cheeks. I knew my rosacea was flaring. If someone across the park could see my face they would probably think I had sunburn. I looked all around the park and saw no one though. I was alone, thankfully. I felt quiet. I felt peaceful. I felt like taking a twenty hour nap.

I missed the next few days of work and finally my husband dragged me to urgent care when I had been having vomiting and severe diarrhea for four days nonstop. I could barely get out of bed. I was in so much agony. I didn’t want to eat or watch TV or get on the computer or read or play with Stella or watch a movie with Hank. I just wanted to lay there and stare at my ceiling while periodically jumping up to run into the bathroom to either puke or have diarrhea. When we got to urgent care they gave me IV fluids and Lorazepam. I sobbed to the nurse, had diarrhea a few more times, and then, about thirty minutes after the big dose of Lorazepam, I felt a stillness blanket me. I stopped crying. I felt better. I went home with a prescription for some Lorazepam. Dude, drugs.

I looked over the pages of information they gave me. Under diagnosis it said “anxiety attack”. Huh. So that’s what that is. Nearly all of my forty years I’ve had them but I didn’t know that’s what they were. I thought I was just crazy. Or overly-sensitive. Or emotionally imbalanced. Or hormonally imbalanced. Under causes it said, “Tends to run in families and could be hereditary.” I can’t believe it never occurred to me that this could be a genetic trait. I’d always sat on the nurture side of the nature vs. nurture fence. But huh. Maybe I should take a look at what nature has to say. What if we just had a slight defect in our brains and meds really could help correct it? Grandma Ruthanne had severe agoraphobia and bulimia. Mom had two “nervous breakdowns” with electro shock therapy. And from both sides: my dad is the best candidate I know for any kind of anti-anxiety medication on the market, but he would never admit he needed something like that, Goddamnit!

I’m sure the way we treat each other affects how we are. If we’re cared for by gentle, loving, mature adults, we’ll be better off than if we’re cared for by people who didn’t know how to use birth control. But as with most wellness issues, there is a mind-body connection that can’t be overlooked. I’m glad I’m working with my medical doctor for brain-altering chemicals while simultaneously working with my therapist to alter my perception of my trauma through talk therapy, Dialectical Behavior Therapy skills workbooks, and through Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing treatment for people with posttraumatic stress disorder, I feel like my whole self is healing. Oh, and the baths, the park with Stella, the walks through the woods, the blend of physical and spiritual fun I have with Hank, the eyebrow waxes and professional massages. It’s all good for healing.

I feel like one of those women who goes into labor who didn’t even know she was pregnant. Oh, so I have anxiety disorder? I had been diagnosed with depression and OCD when I was younger, but not anxiety. Oh, so that’s why I feel like staying in bed and not facing the world sometimes? I thought that was depression, which it can be, but my therapist said it can also be the response from your body when you become overwhelmed with anxiety and your body forces itself to take a break. Oh, that’s why I scream at the people I love instead of speaking calmly but directly to the person I need to have a conversation with. That’s why I’ve been yelling at the dogs a lot lately. That’s why sometimes it feels like the whole world is spinning and I must sit before I fly off. Oh, that’s why out of nowhere I’m hit with nausea. And I just thought I was pretentious like Sartre’s Antoine Roquentin.

The thing about Murray’s move to Walt and Adrienne’s was they needed a place for Murray’s two dogs. Adrienne was allergic. It was agreed that I would take Noodle, the bigger, younger one, and Hazel would take the smaller older one, Elvira. Hazel’s family was going to keep Elvira since they had a big lot and only one other old female dog.

Since we already had two dogs, a cat and a little kid, I planed on fostering Noodle until we could find her a good home. I placed an ad on Craigslist and asked all my Facebook friends to share my posts of her. Murray had adopted her (well, stolen her) from a homeless man who he had been letting sleep in his basement at night. The homeless guy borrowed $30 from Murray to go get a state ID so he could apply for a job. That’s what he said. When Murray got home, the guy was in the basement smoking weed. Murray asked if he was able to get the state ID. The guy said no, he got sidetracked. Now Murray didn’t care what people do to their bodies regarding drugs or alcohol. But when you borrow money to get something so you can get a job and then you waste it on something that definitely won’t get you a job, well, a legal job, then Murray’s patience runs thin. He kicked the guy out. The guy started to bring Noodle with him since she was his dog, but Murray said, “What are you crazy? That dog can’t live on the streets. Where you going? You don’t know. Leave that dog here until you get settled into a place.”

Noodle was about six months old then, so she was still smallish. When the guy came back seven months later, had a state ID, had a job, he took one look at how big Noodle had gotten, said he had forgotten something at home and he’d be right back, left and never came back.

Murray and Cheryl were good to Noodle. They had become attached to her. They were glad the bum didn’t come back.

So I wanted to find Noodle a forever home that was just right for her, the poor girl who had been tossed from no home to home to no home again. She deserved better.
She got along surprisingly well with our two other dogs. The cat hated her, but I’d think there was something wrong with the cat if he didn’t. He’s that way. She settled into our lives. She barked. A lot. She ate. A lot. She pooped. A lot. She got beat up by the cat. A lot. She’s a sweet dog, but I was ready for her to go to her forever family.

One night Stella and I were getting home late after a long day at work and then going over to Murray’s to take him some food. As soon as I stepped out of the car I could hear the three dogs barking. The windows were shut, but they still sounded like a pack of wild beasts, I kid you not. I started to unhook Stella from her booster seat when – crash – I heard something break. I instantly knew it was Noodle. She had a tendency to stand at windows and paw at them when she sees someone. Problem is, at 80 pounds my old fragile windows couldn’t handle it.

“Oh my gosh.” I said quietly, hoping if I didn’t say it loud enough it wouldn’t be true. I had moved one of our end tables in front of the window to keep Noodle from jumping up there, but it looked like she hand scooted the table away. “Oh no.”

Stella looked at my crinkled face and her face started to crinkle too. “What’s wrong, Mama.”

I said flatly, “I think Noodle just broke our front window.”

We walked up to the house and into the door. There was shattered glass everywhere and the cold air was pouring inside our house. The dogs did not lick our chins like they usually do when they greet us. The just stood back and were like, uh oh. What should we do?

I grabbed Noodle by the collar and started whipping her and yelling, “Bad dog!” over and over again. Stella covered her ears and ran to her room.

I beat Noodle and as I was doing it, I knew I shouldn’t. I knew it was wrong. I knew Noodle didn’t mean to break the window. I knew she was just excited to see her new pack leader. But no rational thought could tame me. Something came over me, something from deep within me I couldn’t hold back. It was as if I turned into a sadist for a few seconds. With every strike I felt less capable of seeing anything but the pain I had been through. I didn’t give a shit about anyone but myself for a few seconds as I beat Noodle’s butt so many times the palm of my hand started to hurt. She didn’t even whimper. She just stood there and stared at me with her tail between her legs and a worried look in her eyes. I stopped and sat down on the futon. The other dogs were quivering in the corner. Stella was in the bedroom crying.

Oh what have I done?

The house was silent. I stood up and walked into Stella’s room. She looked like she was afraid of me. Oh my God what have I done? I stepped over her toys on the floor and picked her up and held her and squeezed her and told her I was sorry I scared her.

She receptively held my embrace. I was so glad. Our bond had not broken. She calmed more with every breath. I sat at the edge of her bed and put her in my lap facing me with her head and arms draped over my shoulders.

“You shouldn’t hurt Noodle, Mama.”

She said it with no hint of judgment. It was as if she was explaining something to someone who had just moved into a new culture.

“I shouldn’t have. No, I shouldn’t have. I was so angry and I’m so exhausted from all these people and pets and bills and work I need to take care of I felt like I couldn’t take it anymore and I exploded.”

“Like when I had diarrhea in my pants that one time?” She asked, very seriously.

“Yes, just like that.” I smiled and held on to her.

We were quite for a few seconds. She was still draped on my shoulders sitting on my lap.

“But you’re right, I shouldn’t have hurt Noodle. I wasn’t really mad at her. I was mad at the whole situation.”

Stella sat up and looked at me. We had both stopped crying, but our cheeks were dewy. “What a situation?

I thought for a minute and almost couldn’t come up with a definition. So I just decided to tell her the truth. “I’ve been very sad and tired of taking care of Uncle Murray. So I was really mad at Uncle Murray for getting sick and I took it out on his dog. I shouldn’t have done that.”

Her expression didn’t change. She was looking all over my face, like someone studying a painting. “You’re still learning, Mama. We all make mistakes.”

We hugged a long time and I breathed her in. I inhaled all her goodness and said a prayer to the Universe or God or the Energy Field or whatever it is that connects us, “Thank you for this girl.”

Then I felt the need to check on Noodle, to make sure she was ok. Stella and I stood up and I opened Stella’s door. There were all three dogs, tongues panting, tails wagging, waiting to reunite with their pack.

When I left urgent care a couple days before, they told me to make an appointment with my regular doctor. I hadn’t gotten around to it. I hadn’t even filled the prescription for Lorazepam yet. I wanted to believe I didn’t need it. After petting Noodle and the other two dogs and telling Noodle how sorry I was and doing all the bad dog owner makeup stuff, I picked up my phone and called the after hours appointment desk. My doctor could see me tomorrow.

Noodle found a forever home a few weeks after that. A friend of a friend. An old country boy who treats this big ole yeller dog like she’s his little princess. My friend sent me pictures of them. She’s lying under the covers in his bed, watching TV on the couch, and snuggling with his daughter. I’m so happy she has a stable family now. I hope she can forgive me for not being better prepared to combat my anxiety.

Who Takes Care of the Family When Mom's Sick?

The first few days after Murray died, Mom, Walt, Marty, Hazel and I really bonded, although none of us touched each other physically. We bonded via cloud communication. We're not a super traditionally religious family, except for Hazel, but she’s open-minded. Murray asked that we not have a funeral. So we’re having an internet memorial to Murray. We’re posting videos and notes and pictures and memories on our Facebook pages and in our emails to each other. Mom's handled everything really well. We've talked on the phone several times and via email and on Facebook. In one email she had sent us a few months back when we first got the bad news, she said this, and it impressed me how committed to acquiescence she was: “I've been of no help and cry at the drop of a hat. Even writing this makes me weep. The news about him sounds hopeless. We have so little control over others except to love them….Love, Mom” At first I blamed Mom for not doing more. For not getting Murray therapy, for not immediately rushing to his side when he was diagnosed with liver failure, for letting him make up his own mind to live the way he wants even if it kills him. It’s as if Mom has some kind of wise understanding that we’re all going to die someday and we must stand back and love each other the best we can. I was able to find some understanding of what it must have been like to be my mother right after Murray died and I had my four year old daughter Stella to take care of. I couldn’t. It was as simple as that. I couldn't hold down anything, even water, so the anti-anxiety meds weren't able to get into my system to work. All I could do was cry and vomit and run to the toilet to have diarrhea and moan back in bed and do it all over again. Stella didn’t need to see me like this. Again. So I had my husband Hank call his brother Mike to see if Stella could come spend the day with his family. She’s always asking for playdates with her cousins. They happily agreed to take her. But as Hank and Stella, bundled up in their coats and hats, came to kiss me goodbye in the bedroom I couldn’t stop sobbing thinking, “I can’t take care of my baby. I’m too sick to care for my baby. It’s my job to care for my baby and I can’t do it.” Later, after a long post-hysterics nap, I awoke with a clear head. I laid there in bed, alone, not really looking at anything. And I thought. This must be how my mother felt when she couldn’t take care of us, either because she was sick with a nervous breakdown or sick with doubt over how to handle whatever crisis was presented to her. I wouldn’t want someone to blame me for finding someone else to care for my daughter while I attended to my own health care needs. My mom did the best she could with what she knew and what she had. And so do I. Period.

Telling Marty

But something still wasn’t right. It was hard for me to breathe normally as I looked over the online tributes to Murray. What a guy. Everyone was his friend. He literally gave that girl the shirt off his back. He took in homeless people’s pets. He made everyone laugh.

What is wrong with me? I think those things too. Then why do I feel like something’s missing? Why do I feel like only part of Murray’s story is being told? Why do I want the bad things he did to be acknowledged as part of his story? Why can’t we forget about those and just remember the carefree times?”

Maybe I could if I desired to keep the pharmaceutical industry in business for the rest of my life with their anti-anxiety chemical remedies. Maybe I could keep stuffing down the entire bag of chips instead of using my mouth to say what I really want to. Maybe I could teach my daughter that it’s ok not to face up to her fears and try to overcome them the next time she calls out for help at the playground. Maybe I could continue keeping my pain a secret.

Maybe this is my midlife crisis. My “Hey Look At Me! I’m Becoming Irrelevant.” I turned forty in November. Many middle age, middle class Americans spend gobs of money on tummy tucks or sports cars. I spend gobs of money on long-term intensive cognitive therapy! Woo hoo! But now that Murray has died, and now that I know probably at least half of my life is over, I feel that I must make some changes. I’m tired of avoiding life when it gets hard. I want to quit fantasizing about being that courageous woman I’d like to be and actually be her.

My therapist Sara at the Lilac Center suggested I start by telling Marty. It made sense. Marty was always kind of a mini-mom to me. She’s almost 11 years older than I am, so when I was born she treated me like a living doll. When I was six months old, my mom put my crib in Marty and our sister Hazel’s room to sleep with them so my dad could get some sleep in his privately air-conditioned bedroom. Because, you know, I guess someone who gets paid to work needs a better night sleep than some kids who just have to get up and learn things at school tomorrow without earning any money.

Marty didn’t complain when I’d cry in the middle of the night. She’d get up, yawn, change my diaper or give me a bottle or burp me or whatever it was I needed, then she’d bring me into bed with her, cuddled up, safe from the world.

Plus, she kind of already knows. My mom told me she “sort of” told Marty some details about my abuse when I was in my early twenties and having a particularly hard time with my mental health. I asked what she meant by “sort of” and she said, “I didn’t go into too many gory details.”

So I took a Lorazepam and made myself comfortable on my bed. Hank was away with Stella, so I had the house to myself. I called Marty’s phone number and she picked up within a few rings. Oh God, am I really doing this?

So I told her. I told her this: “I'm just feeling mixed up because I love Murray and I’m sorry he’s gone and I’m glad he’s not suffering anymore, but I’m feeling mixed up because something he did to me when I was very young, when he was young too, something he did to me hurt me and I feel like I haven’t gotten it resolved yet.”

“I think I know a little about this.” Marty said softly.

“I know. I just wanted you to know for sure that I’m feeling mixed up because Murray and his friend sexually abused me when I was very young and I don’t know what to do with this pain other than to let it be known.” I was crying hard. I had to remember to breathe.

Marty’s first words to me after my eruption couldn’t have been better if they had been scripted by me in my own “How to Make this Conversation the Easiest It Can Be” guide. She said, simply, "This doesn't change my love for you and it doesn't change my love for Murray." I gasped. I was so happy. That was exactly what I needed to hear. The door was open for communication and I had nothing to fear.

Time to Tell Walt

And things have also become surprisingly good between my brother Walt and me from all this mess we’ve been through. Being in the same city, at first I took care of Murray the most, but when Murray needed constant care, we decided to have Walt take over as primary caretaker, which made sense. Walt is the big brother. He’s taken care of all of us at some point or another. Our mom’s first two husbands, our fathers, are a sorry example that Mom’s picker is a little out of whack, but we couldn’t have asked for a better big brother.

For example. After he made Murray’s arrangements for cremation, Walt took a trip to see his friends out-of-state. Walt used to babysit for their son before they moved from St. Joe. Walt visits regularly like he’s their grandpa or weird uncle. While he was up there he called me. We talked for thirty minutes, gabbing away, finishing each other’s sentences, having fun. This is the brother who went to college when I was five. I barely knew him growing up. Now we’re talking to each other like two people who’ve been through something together. Just as we were getting off the phone, Walt said to me, “Love ya to pieces.” My heart smiled. It’s time to tell him my story too.

Hazel's Support

Another great cloud conversation I’ve had after Murray’s death was with my sister Hazel via email. Hazel and I shared a bedroom until she moved out of the house when I was 12. When I was returned home from the failed attempt to get Grandmother Ruthanne to cure my anorexia, it was Hazel who begged our mother to take me to a shrink. It worked. I have Hazel to thank for pushing me in the direction of the healers in the mental health care field.

My latest email to the family rambled on and on about which meds my doctor had switched me to, and how my group and individual therapy was going. I went on and on, even having my own made-up conversation with Grandmother Ruthanne at the end:

“Thanks for all the support. I'm really not trying to steal Murray's thunder in the needing-support department. I can just hear Grandmother Ruthanne saying, ‘Oh, she's just looking for attention’ like she did when I was anorexic. But you know what I have to say to that, ‘Gee, Grandmother Ruthanne, I wish you had the courage and strength and resources to have sought help for your own mental health issues during your lifetime. Then perhaps your progeny would all be better off.’"

Hazel’s reply was this: “I'm glad you have the courage to go after this, Sydney.”

Hazel has a poet’s way of voicing herself with beautiful brevity.

No Secrets

I didn’t inherit Hazel's brevity. I often fall asleep at the computer typing. I want to explain more. But tonight I closed my eyes and laid my head in front of the keyboard thinking only: I did it. I told.

Hank comes from behind, hugs me, holds me, rubs my back. I must have dozed off. He sits in front of me at the chair he bought me so I’d have a seat at his side. I slump over and put my head in his lap. My face is a wreck from all the emotions I’ve been through today. He traces tracks on my back with his fingers. He tells me we're in this together. I look up at his face through my tear spotted glasses and smile. He really means it. He takes my hand and leads me to our bedroom where I give him my naked body. When I’m with him I have no secrets.

Using My Words

While I was going through my baby book to find the names of the two nurses who caught me when the doctor hadn’t arrived at the hospital yet the morning I was born, I came across some other treasures my mom and I have saved over the years:

My mom’s and my hospital bracelets we wore when I was born.

A card for my mom and me from my Walt, who was almost 13 when I was born. He wrote in it: “You’d better name the baby Sally Sue Spencer or I’ll be darn mad.” My mom compromised and named me Sydney Sue Spencer. Until I got married and finally got to drop the damn Sue and go by Sydney Spencer Logan. Much better.

In my baby book was also a card with yellow roses on it from my brother Murray (age 9 ½) and my sisters Marty (almost 11) and Hazel (7 ½). The handwriting is the same on all the signatures, so I assume my Marty wrote all their names on it. She chose a pink colored pencil for Murray, blue for herself, and purple for Hazel. Yellow roses are my favorite to this day.

There is also the announcement card from the hospital which has my “stats” on it. The hospital bracelet I wore when I had my tonsils out at age four. A certificate (that is stained with chocolate, which I had been eating at the story time party) that states: “This is to certify that Sydney Spencer has completed six months of pre school story hour October, 1975 through April, 1976 at the Washington Park Branch Library.” It is signed “Auntie B” by the children’s librarian, and printed under her signature it says, “Alyce B. Hougas, Librarian.” I LOVED Auntie B. I went to three different branches of the St. Joseph Public Library, and Auntie B’s was my favorite.

Another certificate that states: “This is to certify that Sydney Spencer is a ‘Dragon Slayer’ First Class in the Summer Reading Program of the Mid-Continent Public Library. There’s no date on it, but it has to be from sometime between 1977 when we moved to Kansas City North and 1983 when we moved to Johnson County Kansas.

They’re all wonderful treasures, but the one that makes me laugh and which I think is most telling of my innate personality is the report card stuck in my baby book for safe keeping from Mrs. Millicent Noobin, my first grade teacher at Renner Elementary school in the R5 school district in Kansas City, MO. At the end of the school year she wrote on my report card to send home to my parents:

May 30, 1978
“I have enjoyed having Sidney (sic) in my class. She has been a good worker. She is still easily upset and cries at nothing, but is doing better as we only have tears once in awhile. I think if everyone would discourage her instant outbursts she will learn to tell her problems without crying first.” Bitch always misspelled my name.

Cries at nothing? Who gets to decide what constitutes “nothing” when it comes to the emotions of a seven year old? I understand it’s beneficial to encourage a child to verbalize her problems, but calling a child’s emotions “nothing” is a bit narrow-minded and cruel. Needless to say, when I remember Mrs. Millicent Noobin's face, it always has a frown on it. But she didn’t say I shouldn’t address my problems, only that I should “tell” them without crying first.

So you, dear reader, have Mrs. Millicent Noobin to thank for encouraging me to “use my words” as child development experts say today.

Barbie World

When I was between the ages of about nine and twelve I was an avid Barbie player. My friend Miranda and I would always make up elaborate soap operaesque tales. There were two households. The Colbys, mine since I had determined that I was going to marry Jeremy Colby, and the Hendrix's since the plan was Miranda was going to marry Sean Hendrix. My Ken and Barbie husband and wife were both blahly blond. Miranda's were more progressive parents than mine, so although her husband Ken doll was also blah and blond, her wife Barbie was a magnificent black Barbie. Oooooh, I sat there jealous, in my suburban living room, our Barbie set all sprawled out to the hallway. Suburban sprawl was often a theme in our stories. I think it had something to do with hearing my dad swearing at the pump whenever the gas station attendant would come back with the Visa card swiper and have my dad sign the bill.

Miranda and I enjoyed playing Barbies at my house not because it had better feng shui or more space, but because my mom didn't make us clean them up. So we could go on these epic Barbie binges for weeks without having to interrupt the storyline because we had to pack up the set.

I owe my mom for most of my positive attributes. But I'm especially impressed she figured out that giving kids lots of freedom to make messes and explore and have unadulterated adult-unsupervised fun turns naturally inquisitive, creatively motivated kids into the same kind of adults. Sure, it takes a lot of energy for me to complete any task I'm asked to do that I don't like. But if I like it, I possess great stamina and become highly motivated to study a subject thoroughly. Push me and I'll stand still. Let me walk at my own pace and I'll keep moving forward.

The Barbies Hendrix had twelve children if I remember correctly. Many were even Skippers, which made Miranda's Barbie family seem more realistic since in real life most kids are shorter than their parents. I simply had to work it into my story that the Barbies Colby had a bunch of teenagers--quadruplets with their first birth, twins with their second and third births, and finally fraternal twins with that in utero complication where one of the twins takes more than her share of nutrients and grows much bigger than the other twin resulting in one large baby and one small baby. That way I could pair my one Skipper doll with a Barbie and say they were thirteen year old twins.

The Barbie, the large twin, I now realize represented me when I was young: very tall, early onset puberty, both with first menses and early breast development. I was much more physically mature than my peers, but much less emotionally mature in many ways. Just barely ten, I was confused when this rust colored stuff started coming out of me and sticking to my underpants. I kept taking them off, throwing them down the laundry shoot and putting on a fresh pair. I did this until I ran out of underpants and had to ask my mom to do a load. I remember feeling ashamed, like I kept wetting myself uncontrollably. Then it occurred to me that this was the “period” my sister Hazel and my mom had told me about and I was even further confused because I thought it would be just a dot of blood, like a period that ends a sentence.

Historical naval gazing shows me now that playing Barbies then helped me work out a lot of the stress I experienced from being physically mature but an emotional late bloomer. Playing Barbies was my first shrink. I could express my feelings of alienation and ugliness and weirdness by acting them out with the thirteen year old Barbie big twin. Putting words to feelings, even though I was pretending the story wasn’t autobiographical, comforted me in a complicated world at a time in which my already fractured sense of self and sexuality was becoming even more vulnerable. At the same time those three boys at recess would stare at my already adult sized boobs on my ten year old chest and chant “Sydney is a slut! Sydney is a slut!”

I’d pretend I didn’t hear them and continue playing with my friends. When we were let out at three o’clock, I’d rush home as fast as possible so I could have the maximum amount of time to spend playing Barbies before Mom would call me to dinner.

Playing Barbies wasn’t the only way Miranda and I acted out stories. We also loved to draw our future families. My fantasy family consisted of Jeremy Colby as a grown up (taller, with a beard) on the far left side of the drawing paper. Next to him I’d draw myself as a grown up (taller, bigger hips). Next to myself, in order of birth, stood our ten children. I wrote our names above each person’s head, our ages next to that. Our kids were always only one to two years apart. How my mom had her first four children before she divorced their dad, married my dad, and had me almost eight years after second-youngest Hazel. I missed that feeling of growing up in a pack. At age twelve, after all my siblings had moved out and left me with Mom who had a headache and a bad day at work, and Dad who was mad about everything, and no one appreciated that I made dinner or was making good grades at school when I showed up, I felt pack-less. Like a lonely dog on a chain. Sitting in the dirt. Hasn’t been noticed for days.

So I made my own big, close family in Barbie world. And the best thing of all? I had complete control over the story.

Gluttony, Envy, Sloth and a Vanity

I stole a lavender hair brush from my friend when I was nine years old.  I can’t even remember her name, but I vividly remember two things about spending the night with her. 

She scooped oddly small dishes of ice cream.  We’re talking Barbie shot glass size.  She put one tiny bit of Neapolitan ice cream into my bowl and then started folding in the sides of the rectangular ice cream carton.  I must have given her a look.  Her hands froze as she said, “Oh.  Did you want some more?”

I immediately said, “Oh, no” like I couldn’t imagine eating more than a thimble size scoop of ice cream.  I don’t even think it was real ice cream.  I bet it was ice milk. 

Not only do I remember feeling uncomfortably gluttonous around her, she had an irritating way of reminding me of my affinity for sloth.  We finished our two bites of ice cream, took them into the kitchen, rinsed them off, and actually put them in the dishwasher. Freaking goody-goody. What kind of weirdo third grader doesn’t want to gorge herself on sugar and fat and then leave the mess for her mother to pick up?  I could almost catch a glimpse of the halo forming above her neatly parted pigtails.  I began thinking of ways I could escape before she tried to get me to attend church with her in the morning, but they all involved walking home in the cold rain in my flip flops and my soggy sleeping bag.  At least church is warm.

Next came envy.  After loading the dishwasher, it was finally time to play. We headed to her bedroom. Her lovely lavender bedroom. So frilly and lacy and lovey dovey girly girl. Lavender walls. A lavender bedspread. Lavender pillow cases…and shams...laid atop her neatly made bed. She turned on the lamp with the lacey lavender shade next to her bed. Her dollies in their lavender outfits were arranged neatly on her lavender shelves. Stuffed animals placed in a row on her bed were only white or lavender. Her white wooden canopy bed with lacey lavender netting matched her other white wooden furniture. A desk. Her own desk in her own room. No wonder she got good grades. If I bothered to do my homework, it wasn’t at a desk but on the couch in front of the TV. A dresser and night stand. Even a toy box, with toys inside it. Then the most amazing thing of all: a white wooden vanity and stool with a lavender cushion. She let me sit at the vanity. I stared at my sweaty, sunburned face in the oval mirror.

I don’t remember looking at myself in the mirror very often as a kid. Maybe because I was always seeking other people’s opinions of me rather than forming my own opinions about myself. But also, up until then, I never thought much about my appearance. I had recently been escorted to Montgomery Ward by my sister Hazel and our mom to pick out my first bra. I found punching the cups so they sat inverted on the table much more entertaining than paying attention to which kind of bra I got. Hazel pointed out that my first bra was already bigger than hers even though she’s nearly eight years older than me. I was used to it. Mom always reminded us that when Hazel entered kindergarten she weighed only 35 pounds and I weighed 65. Hazel favored her dad’s mother, who was short and petite. I favored my dad’s mother who is the reason I learned the word cankle far earlier than I probably should have. I wore the clothes my mom brought home from her job at Kmart or I wore Hazel’s hand me downs. Although by the time I was nine I was bigger than seventeen year old Hazel, so the hand me downs stopped being handed down. Most of my polyester pants and shirts were Blue Light Specials. The ponchos and acrylic sweater vests were the results of my mother’s voracious need to craft. She went through a wild crocheting phase in the mid to late Seventies. Quaaludes weren’t my mom’s thing, man. Her idea of unwinding was winding yarn around a big hooked needle.

But there I sat, sweaty and red, thinking, “Lavender Girl will probably ask her mother to wash this vanity seat cushion now. No, she’ll probably put it in the washer herself.”

It was the first time I remember feeling self-conscious. I looked down at the vanity. Lotions and kiddie perfume were aligned on the left side of the vanity. On the right side by a white comb, clean, no sand in it from deciding the Barbies needed a vacation and brushing their hair for two hours in the sand box (beach) next to my backyard kiddie pool (ocean). Oh. That’s why I was sunburned. Next to the clean white comb lay a lavender hair brush.

I have no memory of my thoughts before I stole the brush. All I remember was picking it up in my hand. I remember nothing more of the sleep over. Did I call my mom and ask her to come get me or did I stay the night and I just can’t remember where we slept or what we did the rest of the night thirty-one years later?

After a couple of days, Hazel noticed the hair brush inside our underwear drawer while she was searching for her pot stash. She asked me about it. I lied. Who cares, I’m a sinner already. “A friend gave it to me.” I stared at the plastic lavender handle and wondered what I should say or do next. Hazel grabbed her stash, smiled and said, “Oh. Cool. That was nice.” She kissed me on the forehead and turned to leave. Kevin, her future husband of going on twenty-seven years now was waiting outside in his big blue boat—that’s what my dad called it. Whenever Kevin would pull into the driveway, Calvin would say to his step-daughter Hazel, “There’s that big blue boat. I bet it’s a gas guzzler.” His one contribution to parenting ticked off the list inside his head, he’d go sit in his chair and watch TV.

As Hazel left the room to go on her date with Kevin, I looked at the picture of Jesus that hung on our bedroom wall just above the light switch next to the door. It had waxy lip prints covering Jesus’ forehead. Come to think of it, I might have snagged one of Lavender Girl’s lip balms from the vanity too.