The
Storm Within
Spring of 1954 brought strong storms that seemed never-ending. With each new
report of rivers and creeks rising and spilling over onto the surroundings
fields and roadways, anxieties and apprehension ran rampant. Marge and Jake
found it harder with each passing day to hide their fears from 14-year-old Diane
and 9-year-old Jean.
The latest storm had woken Marge out of a sound sleep, her heart pounding, and
struggling to catch her breath. Was it the storm that
had woken her or a bad dream? No matter she had to try to keep her fears to
herself.
She slowly crept out of bed.
I hope I don’t wake
Jake.
In the kitchen she was free to pace, nobody would hear her now and maybe they
could all sleep.
Suddenly, the room lit up with the latest bolt of lightning as if it
was noon instead of three am. She jumped. Her heart froze in fear with the loud
crash of thunder that followed. Catching her breath, she stared out the
window. What is that? Is that Dad’s Willy’s? No it
can’t be. I must be seeing things. Dad said in his last letter he would be at
this construction site for another few weeks. Damn-it, why do I have to have
this connection with Dad?
Jake was watching her from the doorway. He made a noise so as not
to frighten her and walked up and put his arms around her and whispered. “You
thought you saw him again didn’t you? I‘ll make sure to get the mail today even
if it means walking through ankle deep water. He’s all right you know”.
“We don’t need newspapers with you here,” he teased.
Another crash of thunder woke the girls and they stumbled into the kitchen just
as the lights snapped and popped and went out.
Marge
fumbled around and lit candles. The room took on a strange glow with shadows
dancing eerily on the walls. She heated some coffee on the old stove and made
the girls some cocoa. Then she started pacing.
She walked over to the old oval picture of
her father standing with his arm around her biological mother, “Daddy I hope you
are all right.” She often talked to that picture as if they were really there.
Marge’s mother had died when she was only a few hours old. Talking to the
picture made her feel closer to both parents. She touched the glass and smiled.
Suddenly a small stream of water dripped along her hand where it had been
dripping down the picture. Marge took the picture down and wiped it off with a
towel and set it on the couch. Almost immediately a new leak started and
dripped over the picture again.
She caught her breath in fear. Something
is wrong with dad! It had to be an omen. That place on the wall had never
leaked before. Mother if you can hear me please keep him safe.
Jake got the girls ready for school. There
was still no electricity, so Jake fed the girls cold cereal and told them they
could bathe tonight when the lights were back on. And they left for school.
“Be back in a few minutes honey. I’ll get
the mail on my way back. I promise. Now you go and try to get some rest. I
won’t be long.” Jake said with a wave.
Marge was still tossing and turning when
Jake walked in with the mail. “Here is a letter from your stepmother,” he said
softly and handed it to her.
She tore the envelope open and ripped the letter out of it.
Your father is in the hospital in a coma from pneumonia, it read;
he is not expected to live.
“My God! How can you be in a coma from
pneumonia?” she exclaimed.
“I don’t know honey. Just get some clothes
on and we’ll go to the store and call the hospital and check on him.” Jake
responded.
A half hour and several tries later she
finally got to talk to a nurse at the hospital. “I’m really sorry. If you want
to see your father alive you must get here quickly. It just doesn’t look good.”
“We
live eight hundred miles away. I‘m not sure if I can make it in time.” Marge
sobbed. “Tell him to hang on! Muggins is coming!”
“He’s in a coma and can’t hear me” the nurse
responded.
“I don’t give a damn! I said tell him to hang on! Muggins is
coming!” Marge yelled and slammed down the phone. Are
my feelings causing the storm or is the storm causing a storm within me?
Jake spoke in a gentle but commanding voice,
“Honey we will get you there. Don’t worry we’ll get you on a plane.”
“I don’t want to fly. I don’t like planes.”
“That is the only way you will get there in
time. We‘ll send Jean with you so you won’t have to be alone and Diane can stay
here to help me. That way she will be able to keep up with her new classes.”
Marge realized that there was no way she
could make it in time by driving, especially through this weather. The whole
eastern half of the U.S. was having this weather. Out of pure necessity, she
overcame her fear of planes and made reservations for herself and Jean.
Jake dropped her off at the house to pack while he went to the
school to pick up Jean. He explained to the principal what had happened and was
given a list of schoolwork for Jean to do while gone.
The storm raged on making visibility so bad that it took nearly an
hour to drive the ten miles to the airport. Thank goodness the flight had been
delayed.
Neither Marge nor Jean had ever flown before so they were both apprehensive and
excited about the prospect.
There were five plane changes on the way to New York. Each one was
smaller than the one before. The storms continued. With each change of planes
there came a bumpier ride, more airsickness, and whiter knuckles from fists
clenched with fear.
Marge kept taking out the letter from her stepmother and rereading
it, surely there must be more than this! I guess not! As she was
setting it aside, resigned to the fact she would have to wait to get her
questions answered, a little note from her baby sister fluttered out onto her
lap, “Daddy is in the hospital, he got shot in the head,” was all it
said.
By the time they landed at the rural N.Y. airport, Marge was almost
frantic. She and Jean took a cab from the airport to the hospital thirty-three
miles away. When she rang the bell at the hospital entrance, a nurse met them
and led them to her father’s room. Jean was told to wait in the family room.
Marge
entered his room and tears welled up as she saw her father lying there so pale
and gaunt. Tubes and machines were connected to him everywhere.
She
leaned over to kiss his forehead; he opened his eyes and squeezed her hand.
“Are
you George’s daughter from the Wisconsin?” She heard from behind her.
Marge nodded.
“I have to apologize. I didn’t tell him Muggins is coming like you
asked. Then he started to look like he was going to leave before you could get
here. I felt guilty and started telling him to hang on Muggins is coming. I
never saw anything like it. From that moment on we saw a change. His vital
signs stabilized and his improvement was dramatic! You were the one who made
the difference!”
“Thank
you” Marge said with tears in her eyes as she glanced down at Dad. His eyes had
tears in them.
“I’ll be right back Daddy. I just want to ask a question.”
Marge
stepped out of the room and asked if the nurse could shed some light into what
had happened. The nurse who befriended her “Sandra” handed her a newspaper
telling the account of the incident:
Fifty year old
local man
shot while moving a rifle from one room to another. It
may have been a suicide attempt.
Marge
returned to her father’s side. “Did you try to kill yourself Daddy?” she asked.
He
averted his eyes. He couldn’t speak as yet but appeared to understand what was
said.
“Blink
once for yes and two for no.” Marge said. There was no response from her
father.
Sandra
came in and touched Marge’s shoulder. “You have to leave now. Go get some rest
and come back in the morning. You can talk more then.”
“Goodnight daddy,” she said as she kissed him again. “I love you.”
Marge and Jean took a cab to the house ten miles away. She pounded
on the door to wake Pat, her stepmother and her sister Lila.
“Mama,
why did you tell me Daddy was in a coma from pneumonia? Why didn’t you tell me
he got shot in the head?” Marge demanded of Pat.
“I’m
sorry Margie; I just didn’t want you to blame me. We were arguing and he was
putting things away. He moved the gun and it went off.”
I have to think
about that for a while “Well,
we WILL talk about this later when the girls are asleep. Jean had gone off
with Lila to bed.
Recuperating was a long and slow process. George was left with
seizures and part of his brain missing. In order to save his life they had
removed part of the frontal and left parietal lobes of his brain. There was an
indentation where the skull was removed.
George
became despondent and more frustrated each day. He could tell
anyone
how to do any construction or carpentry project, but no longer had the
coordination to do it himself.
Jake and Diane arrived a few weeks later to pick up Marge and
Jeannie back home. What they saw was a shock. I know they told me what to
expect and how things were but this is something else!
Jake
asked, “Would it help Mom, if we took Dad back to Wisconsin for his recovery?”
Jake
and George drove to Wisconsin in Jake’s car and Marge and the girls drove
George’s car hauling his little twenty-foot travel trailer behind. The hope was
that he would improve enough to drive someday, and by taking his own belongings
with him he would not feel so frustrated.
His once beautiful smiling blue eyes had become shadowed, dark, and
mournful. I never thought life would end up like this!
Once home again, things settled down to normal, but not for long.
George’s mood swings and seizures became more frequent. He was violent with Jean
at times making her petrified much of the time.
He
began sneaking out of the house and wandering. Marge and Jake were frantic with
worry, he had left the house three hours before and they could not find him.
The neighbor came running over calling, “There is a phone call for you from your
mother in NY.”
Marge ran to the phone. “Hello,” she said breathlessly, “What is
wrong? Have you heard from Daddy?”
“No,
but the bus company called because they thought he was acting strangely and the
only identification he had with him was his address here. He left there this
morning for here.”
“That is a relief; at least we know where he is. Thanks”
This didn’t seem to satisfy George either. He made four more trips
like this in almost as many months. It was very unnerving. The last time he
left the house, Marge found several cigarette burns in his mattress and while
cleaning out the dresser she found a stash of the medicine he had not taken but
hidden in the drawer.
Marge began having vivid dreams of the house burning down or Jean
getting a hold of those pills. What in the world am I
going to do? I know that I didn’t
clean
that gun last year after target practice and that is probably why the gun went
off. But I can’t subject the kids to this much longer.
That
was her last thought before Jake found her out cold on the kitchen floor.
“Marge Honey, are you OK?”
She stirred and woke up. “We can’t go on like this any longer! I
am calling Mom and telling her she has to keep him back there. He is going to
burn the place down.”
A few
months later, the family took the trek back to check on “Grandpa”.
When
they got there they were in for a shock. He had lost seventy more pounds and was
now nothing more than a skeleton. He hung onto the wall and chairs to move from
his bed to the table. His eyes had become sunken dark pieces of coal.
“I can’t see. Everything is double” he mumbled. He leaned over and
sipped his coffee without lifting the cup because he didn’t have the strength to
lift it. He ate the one slice of peanut butter bread he was allowed each meal.
“What in hell is going on here?” Marge asked Pat.
Lila responded in her stead, “All Daddy can eat is peanut butter
bread and coffee. He can’t help at all to get anything else.”
Pat just cried. “You have not been around to know what’s been going
on.”
“Oh, I think I know!” Marge said angrily, “been starving my father
to death! That has got to stop!”
“Well take him back with you then.”
“I
can’t do that, but I can do something else.” Marge stormed out of the house and
to George’s Drs office. I am going to see what the
hell we can do!
Dr Johns
said, “I wondered what was really happening. He shouldn’t have lost that much
weight and he’s missed the last two appointments. All we can do is have him
institutionalized.”
Jake
squeezed Marge’s hand and spoke, “I don’t know how you could have left this get
that far. It has only been a few months since he left us and then he weighed
180 pounds and could at least get around without help.”
With
that Jake and Marge left the Doctors office and went to see a lawyer.
“The insurance money is gone. If you
can’t afford to place him in a facility or nursing home, so he can get good
care, you will have to have him declared incompetent. That will make it
possible for the state to step in. I’m sorry.”
“Can we do
that without my stepmother’s permission?”
“Yes, but it will take a court
hearing. I’ll arrange it for as soon as possible.”
After many tears and feelings of
guilt, the storm within Marge’s heart and mind was put to rest as George entered
the State Hospital where he would be well cared for.
There still
were feelings of guilt for many months to come, but with each new letter from
George telling her he could now see and write again, and was gaining weight, the
feeling of guilt started to diminish. Then, finally one day her reward came in
a letter that said:
“My darling daughter, you have
always been my champion and my joy. If it weren’t for you, I would not be here
where I have friends around me. Maybe I would not be alive. They have made me
the warder for my unit and I am feeling so much better. Thank you my child for
helping me to finally be at peace.
Copyright © 1997
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Last modified:
March 28, 2006
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