Skipping Over Life

My mother had a long string of snot hanging from her nose that she wouldn't wipe off. I figured it was her way of letting me know how very angry she was about being committed. I wondered, though, if secretly she found some relief being persecuted against her will, crucified so tightly that there was no possibility of even considering she might have to help herself.

“I know you weren’t intending to have me locked up,” she said. “But that’s exactly what’s going to happen.”

“But Mother, I didn’t have you Bakered. You Bakered yourself when you kept yelling at everyone that the government turned your apartment into a hospital. They didn’t need any of my help to put you away. You did it all on your own!”

She ignored me.

“I don’t know why you’re so angry with me. I’m just trying to do the best thing for you.”

“Honey, I know you're trying to help... but you don’t know all the facts.”

“I know enough. I know this has been happening again and again for years.”

“It has not. I was fine. I had everything together and then I got sick.”

“That’s not true. Before this, you had something else and before that, another thing. You’ve been spiraling downhill and I’m not going to sit around and watch you die.”

Michael, the tech, was sitting there watching us fight.

“Please forgive us, Michael,” my mother said to him. “And don’t feel you have to stay out of it, either.”

“No ma’am,” he said. “I’m just here cuz they pay me to be.”

My mother smiled. She seemed to find him adorable. I really couldn't understand why. I found him horrible. Plus, he had some strange rash on his neck that he wouldn't stop scratching.

“I have no rights," she mumbled. No motherfucking rights.”

“Mother, I promise you this is not nearly as romantic as you think. They’re most likely going to let you go in 3 or 4 days. Even if you wanted to be committed, I’m sure they’d still make you leave in 3 or 4 days because the system is so screwed up. But as long as you’re being committed, why don’t we try and get you on disability? Wouldn’t that be great? You wouldn’t have to worry about working anymore?”

“I am not a candidate for disability, Jessica.”

“How do you know?”

My mother rolled her eyes, and rubbed some more lip balm on her tongue from where she bit it in the seizure.

“Well, your social worker says she can do it. She just needs records of all your emergency room visits.”

“Call the Defense Department and ask them.”

“Ok, Mother.”

An hour later, a nurse peeked her head into my mother’s room to tell us they were just about ready to wheel her down.

“Very well,” my mother said, straining, trying to sit up. "I will get through this the same way I... get... through... everything, because I’m strong as shit.”

“I know you are.”

“You bet your ass I am.”

“I’m agreeing with you, Mother.”

She hardly looked at me as she hobbled to the little mirror in front of the bathroom, her hospital gown open in the back. I think it was the first time I ever saw her naked rear end. I closed my eyes.

She opened some sugar packets, and rubbed the sugar all over her face.

“You should be doing this,” she said to me. “It's how Cleopatra kept her skin looking beautiful. It’s probably still beautiful somewhere.”

She fixed her bathrobe sash like a headband and dabbed some lipstick on her cheeks and lips. And before she was through, a man dressed in drab security garb, lord knows his story, entered the room, at the helm of a wheel chair.

Michael the Tech helped my mother sit down, as she mumbled more about having no rights, and I followed behind, carrying a little plastic bag filled with all of her things.

The elevator ride lasted forever. Standing in that little cube with my mother quietly sobbing, probably wondering how it was possible for her life to keep going downhill.

And down to the first floor we descended, past the snack bar, past other wheelchaired people, to a large double set of doors with a computer keypad.

The guard punched in some numbers, opened the door, and as I followed, he blocked my way and told me I had to wait.

“It’s lock-down in here,” he said.

“Lock-down?”

"Meaning, you’re not allowed in."

I saw images of Frances Farmer in my mind and suddenly I feared my mother was right--her brilliant brain was going to be lobotomized and destroyed, all because of me.

I panicked, picking my cuticles, waiting for what seemed like forever for someone to let me in.

Finally a nurse opened the door and directed me to this horrible freezing cold room to wait while my mother had her intake appointment with the psychiatrist.

For close to 45 minutes, I was left alone with five empty chairs set up in a circle. A saggy lazy thing. Another more dignified. Another disrespectfully sprawled out. A judgmental utilitarian. And a tight-lipped know-it-all. As time ticked by, I became increasingly acquainted with them all, and began to fear the nurses would see me on video and lock me up in a room next to my mother.

But finally, my mother and a nurse arrived.

My mother looked resigned and exhausted.

“How was it?” I asked in a whisper.

“Typical. Just get me the fuck out of here.”

We followed the nurse to my mother’s room which was next to this guy Howard’s room, a little guy with long dark greasy hair wearing a Native American headdress with brightly colored beaded crucifixes around his neck, seated at a desk outside the door of his room, filling out what looked like charts.

A caffeinated nurse walked by and said, “Are you in charge here, Howard??!” like he was a baby, and Howard nodded enthusiastically with overly-medicated googly eyes.

“Hello there, neighbor!” he said to my mother.

My mother didn’t seem impressed.

My mother’s room was very sparse. Not nearly as nice as her room upstairs. There was a light brown wooded bed and a matching set of drawers. It reminded me of a room in a monastery, decorated to test faith on the deepest level.

“I’ll bring you some flowers.”

“I don't want fucking flowers. I just want to get the fuck out of here.”

She started crying. “I just can't stand the thought of being in this room, all by myself.”

“Well, I don’t think anyone should be all by themselves. Let’s go to the rec room.”

The rec room was a typical behavioral health rec room. People rocking in front of the weather channel. An elderly woman in a pink sweatsuit saying, “Is it time to get up yet? Is it time to get up yet?”

“Lovely,” my mother grunted.

“Well, at least it’s nicely decorated,” I said.

“Please. If I see one more shitty Monet print, I’m going to kill someone.”

I poured us each a coffee and my mother held the cup with both hands and sipped hard. “I’ve had some time to figure out some of what’s been going on here,” she said, her face serious, but still medicated. "I realize now, that it's because I listened to the monitor, that I wound up in this predicament. I should have been stronger."

I sighed. “I really wish you would stop thinking that people are punishing you. You haven't done anything wrong."

“That is precisely what I was trying to explain to you, before you so rudely interrupted. That I’m not going to be listening to them anymore.”

“Well, good,” I said.

Suddenly, a teenage boy practically ran into the rec room, plopped down on the couch across from us, and started sobbing. Even though he was wearing sunglasses, you could still see his eyes, red and puffy.

My mother and I took one look at him and then at each other.

“Mother, we have to help him!”

My mother nodded and braced herself to stand up. “Let’s go,” she said.

And that’s when Marc, the behavior health tech, rushed over. “You can’t do that!” he said.

"Do what?" I asked. "You mean we can't help him?"

"It's against the rules."

"You can't be serious," my mother said.

“Think about it. What’s he gonna do when you leave?”

“He isn’t a gorilla in the jungle, Marc,” my mother said. “He’s a human being. You can’t starve a person from love just because it might not be there tomorrow!”

“I have an idea!” I said. “How about we let him know we’re available for him and he can choose himself whether to come over or not!”

“Fine,” said Marc.

So that’s what we did. We let the kid know we were here for him if he needed support, and he walked right over and sat right next to us on the couch, explaining in wailing tears how his mother had had an accident on her horse when she was pregnant with him, that she fell in a ditch on her belly, and that he was born brain damaged and had anger problems and tried to kill himself, and that’s why he was there.

He was so soft spoken. So beaten down. And crying so hard, my mother had to say, “Soap, honey (that was his name) I’m going to teach you how to deep breathe. Because you’re going to make yourself sick. Ok?”

My mother held his shoulders and did some deep breathing exercises with him. And he eventually calmed a bit. “Nothing I do is ever right,” he said. “I wish I was never born.”

“Ok,” my mother said. “I hear what you’re saying. And I understand. So… here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to create a new story for you. Ok? Now I want you to listen to me and listen very carefully. Can you do that?”

Soap nodded yes.

“You survived a horse accident. In utero. Do you realize that not everyone would survive such an accident? Do you realize how strong that makes you? You… are a hero!”

Soap smiled. In fact his whole demeanor changed. And I looked at my mother. Her whole demeanor had also changed. She was shining so bright. And I wondered, why couldn't she help herself like that, and do the same thing with her own story?

“You survived that accident," she continued. "And now you are here for a purpose. Don’t you ever forget that. And don't you ever believe any other story you’ve been telling yourself… Not only are they untrue, but if you waste your time listening to them, you won't be able to hear your true purpose calling you.”

Soap was now crying tears of joy, and he asked to give us both a hug. And though it was apparent that his brain was damaged, his heart seemed ok.

Then a man named Joe rolled over in his wheelchair, his legs hanging casually and limp over the arm rest. A man with the softest kindest voice. “You two are like a fresh breeze in here,” he said.

Joe stared at me for a minute. “You,” he said to me, “are like a diamond in the rough.”

I smiled, hoping this was a good thing.

“Is this your daughter,” he asked, pointing to my mother.

My eyes must have exploded. “What?! That’s my mother!" I said to Joe.

Joe smiled. “I know,” he whispered, but my mother didn’t hear this part. She was too busy gloating and primping. "Actually, Joe," she said. "This is my daughter."

"Oh my!" he said, winking at me.

“Are you a writer?” Joe asked, noticing my notebook.

“Yes," my mother interrupted. "My daughter documents everything that happens to her. You know that saying, when a tree falls? My daughter is afraid if she doesn’t write everything down, she won’t exist.”

“You must have a lot of notebooks,” Joe said.

“I do."

“She keeps them in fireproof safes.”

“It’s true.”

Joe smiled. “Will you turn your writings into a book someday?”

“I hope so,” I said.

“What will you call it?” he asked.

“I don't know. I thinking I might call this chapter Skipping Over Life.”

Joe thought about it. “I like it... because it has two meanings.”

“Yes!” I said. “The reason I thought of it is because people get so ecstatic about life and yet so sad when they hardly live it.”

Joe laughed. It felt nice to feel understood.

“And why are you here Eliza,” Joe asked my mother.

My mother composed herself. “I had a seizure because I quit smoking. And the seizure interfered with my processing.”

I looked down at the floor.

“And what about you?” my mother asked Joe.

He smiled. “I spend too much time helping others and not enough time helping myself.”

My mother considered the validity of his statement and nodded like she related.

“I’ve died four times,” he said, humbly.

“Really!” my mother said, in awe.

“His heart is upside down and on the wrong side,” Marc, the behavior health tech said loudly from across the room. “If you put your cell phone on his pacemaker, you’ll see his heart on the right side start racing.”

I didn’t think this was funny. “I would never do that,” I said.

“He’s only trying to be part of the conversation,” my mother whispered. “He has no discernment. Be kind.”

“Well," my mother began preaching to Joe. "You are precious.”

“No,” he said. “I am a blessing. We are all precious.”

My mother didn’t like this one bit. She kept needing him to agree that he was the most precious person in the entire world, just like she had always told me, except he wasn’t having it. With calm eyes, he said to her, “Everyone is precious, Eliza. Equally so.”

“You sound like my daughter,” she said. “It’s a lovely thought... but I'm not buying it. I've met too many people who don't fit that equation."

“Why are you so cynical, Eliza?”

"I am not cynical. I just happen to be based in reality."

"I'm not meaning to upset you, Eliza. It's just that through my ears, you sound cynical.

“Oh Joe, you should walk a mile in my shoes.”

Joe smiled with his wise eyes and said, “I can’t!”

“You’re damn right you can’t,” my mother went on, not getting that she’d just told a paraplegic to walk a mile in her shoes.

Joe smiled patiently. “I mean, I really wouldn’t be able to,” and he pointed to his legs, propped up on his wheel chair.

My mother finally understood. And she cocked her head. “You know what I meant, Joe... Don’t be a smart ass.”

By the end of the day, everyone in the rec room had become friends.

My mother even warmed up to Howard, the overly medicated Cherokee priest who she even allowed to bless us, which he did from his heart, even though his tongue kept getting in his way. Even Betty, the lady with the walker who’d been begging for Librium let my mother style her hair and put rouge on.

"I don’t think I’ve ever seen this rec room so lively," Marc said, still sitting by himself.

“Why don't you come over Marc,” Joe said. “Join us.”

“Come on over, Loverboy,” my mother added, flirtatiously.

And even though I was blushing, it was wonderful to see my mother shine. It was wonderful to see all of us shine, really. And it made me realize, that this is what all these behavioral health centers are missing: they ban the very thing that's needed for healing--a space for the people in pain to elevate themselves by discovering the gift they have for elevating each other.

My mother passed unexpectedly in 2016. In this podcast, I share the stories and scenes I collected from our time together, and also the stories and scenes I’ve been collecting from my present perspective since becoming a mother myself.

-JLK