When you want to get attention from your students, when nobody in your class is listening to you, just lower your voice to a whisper. Look someone right in the eye and begin whispering. It’s your lecture, but now you’re whispering it to someone and suddenly everyone wants to hear what you are saying. As if it is a secret you are only sharing with the one you are making eye contact. Ha ha. Good trick. It only works once or twice with the same raucous crowd though.

I guess most people try to hear others when they are whispering. Whisperers make funny faces when they are trying to be heard only to a choice one or two. They exaggerate their silent words making their mouths look peculiar. Their eyes get big and the animation is amusing. But it’s the whispering that gets the attention first.

Mom and I were whispering to each other in front of Steve, my stepfather, her husband of 30 years. He had Alzheimer’s and we thought he was sleeping. His hospital bed was next to Mom’s normal one. We were able to keep him at home, with visits from the hospice team, and all the meds he needed to be administered by us or the nurse who came regularly. Anyway, we thought he was sleeping. Suddenly he shouted, “What are you two whispering about?” The tone of his voice sounded angry. Actually I don’t even remember what we were whispering about; that’s not the point. We were only trying not to wake him.

It was one of those moments when we were brought down to our foundations regarding the strangeness and the inconsistencies of that horrible condition named after the scientist, Alzheimer. Just as suddenly as my stepdad boomed his question, he was lost in a world we weren’t a part of, never hearing our response, or possibly forgetting he’d even asked the question. Alzheimer’s is a sad and strange way to go. All Mom and I could do was look at each other for relief; just one of the many times we sought solace in each other’s eyes.

But by this time, Steve didn’t even know who we were most of the time. Well, that isn’t altogether true. Sometimes he would call me by name, or something close to my name, but he always remembered who Mom was. He called her “his sweetie.” He would look over at her and smile and say, “Hi Sweetie.” To the end we felt he knew who his sweetie was. They were together when he passed.

It’s such an old tradition to lay the deceased body out for viewing. I don’t know anyone who professes to like this tradition, but it somehow carries on. As people gathered into the “viewing” room, I watched them looking uncomfortable as they timidly went to the casket. Or maybe it was my own feeling of unease that I projected onto their demeanors.

I made my own way over eventually ready to say goodbye and I stood staring at the ghost of Steve who was in the casket. We had him in his favorite red shirt and his turquoise tie he loved so much (see picture), and because he always carried his glasses in a case in his front shirt pocket, we tucked them in as well. It’s obvious that the “real” Stevie wasn’t there, but I repeated the farewell I’d given him when he was sleeping in his hospital bed in his own bedroom two months before: “Thank you for loving and caring for my mother, for being a wonderful stepdad, and such a loving and fun grandfather to my boys.” Touching his arm, I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, leaned in and whispered, “I love you, Stevie, and I’ll miss you.”

Stevie and me, a very long time ago…

I’ve been sober since April of 1979, which is a little over 35 years. Sometimes I feel angry, resentful, and bitter about being the one person in a group who can’t have a drink. I dislike parties. It isn’t any fun to be around people who have had a few too many. I don’t know why I sometimes get resentful. Succumbing to the Devil (alcohol) has never done anything good for me. That’s why I quit. It was either alcohol or me, and I wanted desperately to win. So, like I said, it’s been over 35 years since I’ve had any alcohol. I don’t even take Niquil. 

Remembering the things I did that make me ashamed brings on Guilt. (I’ve capitalized guilt because it is almost like a person to me). I don’t dwell on Guilt very often anymore, but when I do, the struggle is sometimes overwhelming. Then Depression comes to call. It gets ugly. However, I am tough, and I will not allow the Devil, Guilt or Depression to win. And besides, most of the time I am happy and satisfied with myself and my life. But once in a while…

I know. I know. I’m not a drinker any longer. I’ve been sober for a longer time than I was a drunk. A therapist once told me to think of it this way, “This happened. Now what?”

I wrote the following piece almost four years ago. We’d only been living in Baja for a month. Today I am feeling a lot better. I haven’t had a bout like this one since the day I penned this. 

…………….

12-8-2010

Let’s face it. Math is not easy for me, and I have struggled with it forever.  But fighting my way through math problems seems trite and inconsequential when I consider the many times I have entered the ring to combat my own demons. In a whirl of my own fists, and the tangle of my own limbs, I am clawing at my heart. Repeatedly, I tear myself down, only to fill my lungs with breath enough to force my legs to stand again. Certainly, I have come out stronger for having this combat with myself, but I am so exhausted with the energy it takes, and I want to lead myself down the hallway to a safer place.

Okay, slow down. Take it easy. But it’s just not that simple and sometimes I don’t know how to slow down or take it easy.  What I know how to do, what I have always done, is to close my eyes, imagine digging a big hole, and burying whatever the hell it is that’s bothering me.  Put it neatly down into that pit. How nice. No need to wrap it up, or put a bow on it. Just toss it down the hole and forget it. It tumbles down so easily. Now cover it with the dirt from the hole and the job is done. Out of sight, out of mind.

As I brush the imaginary muck from my hands, I know I will be back to dig it up later when I least expect to be there. The timing is always wrong. Oh yes, I’ll go down there and get it again and the fighting with myself will start all over— when I should be living happily ever after, licking the ice cream that’s running down the cone.  You’d think that after all these years, all these crazy, upside down years, I’d learn. Instead, my theme song has been, “Beat my head against the wall, do dah, do dah,” and I’m just getting better at carrying that tune!

While I try to make some sense of all this, I remember a time in junior high when I saw Psycho. It was a shocking movie for its time. I remember one scene so vividly. I watch the crazed arm that holds the knife. I see it slash the woman in the shower, and terrified, I stare at the blood pool as it flows into the drain. The poor woman grabs the white shower curtain and slides down so slowly into the tub. The movie is in black and white, but her blood pours red. I see it. It swear it is red.

The horror of this scene stayed with me, and like many others who saw it, I was too frightened to take a shower for a long time after that. Only a bath would do. Every noise, real or imagined, sent my heart pounding and I just knew he was coming after me. There is something pure and simple about fright like that. It’s there, it’s horrible, and it is hard to take. But, it’s not real, and you know it. The awful fright fades, finally leaves, and you can breathe again.  The relief of it being over feels so good. Or is it over? When I least expect it, something triggers that memory and I’m in junior high at the movies again.

This is how it is with my hole-digging and demon-burying ritual. Something will trigger a memory and I’m once again visiting that hole where my devil is a coward hiding in a bottle. “Come. Swallow me. You know you want me,” he whispers. I see the promise in his eyes and feel the warmth of his elixir on my lips. Again and again, I am living with the memory of those dark days when I was a drunk, in a hell of my own making.

And so it was that the first five years of sobriety were the hardest. My burden then was to bury my demon every day. Surprisingly, Guilt served a useful purpose at first. But soon His demands also became unbearable. The longer I avoided the devil’s liquid lies, the stronger was Guilt’s hold. Once a proud and reliable talisman, he became my worst tormenter. I became obsessed with this irony. I’ve been digging them up, my demons. I keep revisiting the awful truth, the pain, the guilt, and the experience becomes so real to me. I want to stop myself. Dig an even bigger hole and bury my burden of guilt deeper still.  It’s all so ludicrous to be fighting myself this way.

Sitting in the Baja sun, feeling the breeze against my face, this breeze that tosses my grey hair into my eyes and mouth, I imagine my life without the dance at the edge of all those holes. Surely, my original assertion—I’ve learned and grown stronger in direct relation to those many bouts—is my own bitter, sweet truth. It is my truth to embrace, to wrap around my shoulders, a truth to relish as I once relished my own youth.

Putting an end to my insane ceremonial, cerebral act is the reward I seek. I must be strong enough to satisfy purposeful growth while rallying enough magic to eliminate such powerful and debilitating hurt. After all, this is the game of my own making. I long for the courage to change the rules. Guilt, the most fearful and powerful of all my torments, is residing in my one remaining hole, and it is my very own arm that holds the knife that haunts me.

Sitting on the beach with the reflection of the gold hotel on the water, I beg the sun to bake into my heart an understanding and acceptance so sweet that I may stand taller and move with the quickness and strength required to dig up the worst of my demons, face him, fight him, and walk away to claim victory. I seek redemption. Every night, in the quiet time before I succumb to sleep, the question hovers in the doorway: Will these self-inflicted wounds forever bleed? Looking down, I see blood swirling at my feet, and I reach desperately for the white curtain to break my fall.