I’ve forgotten — it’s quite easy to do — that the life i’m experiencing doesn’t match the perceptions of the very very sick husband.
I’d forgotten.
One morning, a few years ago (it was before dawn on June 20), I woke up insistently. It was dark, there was no reason to be up, but I just knew I should be awake. There’d been an arrangement that ManicHub would be leaving some boxes of things during the night, and perhaps I remembered this when I went down and went to see out the door.
He had been manic and feral and on the loose for a few months prior to that, had come up with the idea that I was his worst enemy, and imagined many things I’d done to wrong him; none of which was true, but that didn’t seem to color his perception. It took almost another year before he finally understood to what extent he was mistaken.
But on that morning, June 20, I cracked the blinds and peered out just at the moment he was stooping down to move a box, on my porch just outside that door; we spotted each other and froze. I opened the door, but now I can’t remember what made that seem like a gesture that might be welcome. Perhaps – i have a slight recollection – we pantomimed asking each other if this was OK. It was. I went out, we sat, we talked until dawn. I recall being viewed with irritable suspicion, as an enemy who had done the worst to him. I was only tentatively met halfway at first, as though he expected at any time that I’d suddenly…i don’t know. Something bad. He looked different – aside from this look of distrust he wore silly childish clothes, raggedy friendship bracelets that someone had made, and smelled awful — the medication smell I associate with geriatric wards, greasy hair, unfamiliar shoes. I don’t know why seeing a beloved person in unrecognizable clothes always gives me that start. Perhaps it is only in this case, because it reminds me that he is removed from my life completely. His manners were coarse in a way unfamiliar to me, his words crass and his language bad. I could see that I was laying down only a thin sediment of trust, but it was enough and I carried the memory for months. Many months, as it turns out, because some of the worst was yet to come. But I think that morning was the first time it occurred to him that the whole delusion that I was out to get him and trying ot hurt him finally was challenged.
Today, I think, was another such day. A counselor told me once that with serious mental illnesses, a lot of the work we family members do is a constant process of rebuilding or regaining or maintaining trust. I understand.
Somehow, despite his restraining order against me, he contacted our son to come by and install new licence plates (in retrospect, he just may have needed tools), and I agreed to a few minutes unsupervised out in front. There they were, the horrible clothes. I don’t even know if they really were all that horrible. He looked like maybe he smelled of medication and oily hair. I don’t know. I glowered from behind the shades, eaten with anxiousness, but then brought a few things out for him, mail, etc. At some point I just decided to not treat it with fear, and a few minor words were exchanged. I sent out a few things, like a big apple and some coffee, and darnit, wouldn’t you know I couldn’t keep my resolve, I sent a small bag of fresh pumpkin seeds.
I don’t know what it means. I did have a few words eventually, nothing much, let him know we care about him, and after he left, O told me he said to tell me he loves us.
For just that long moment, I had a “so this changes everything” moment, and let it hang in the air for awhile, then let the wind blow it away. I feel bad that he doesn’t know that he probably doesn’t have a home to come back to — or really, a family. But secretly, it also feels a bit churlish to hang onto the idea of a future where he is completely locked out.
Big step for me – not falling for the “I love you.”
