The Only Life I Could Save

by Katherine Ketcham

  When someone dies before, say, age fifty, I start sniffing around the edges of the words, obituary hound that I am, trying to figure out if alcohol or other drugs were somehow involved in the death. Rarely are drugs ever mentioned, so it takes some sleuthing, but if a forty-five-year-old dies with no mention of the cause of death, I get suspicious and try to hunt out the facts by reading between the lines. These deaths weigh heavy on my heart, because if alcohol or other drugs are involved, I can’t help wondering if something could have been done to prevent them. If only addiction weren’t so stigmatized, if only people weren’t afraid to face the truth, if only treatment weren’t so expensive, if only people understood how many obstacles stand in the way of people trying to stay clean and sober. Lately there have been too many obituaries about young people dying in their twenties and thirties—even in their teens. I read these obituaries and feel a deep sense of loss, knowing that their families are grieving for them, too often in silence and in shame, and that losing a child is a grief that never, ever ends. As one mother whose son died of a heroin overdose told me, “I’m still breathing. That’s all I can say.”

  On another day, I open the paper to find two obituaries, side by side, almost exactly the same size. On the right is Neoma, eighty-eight years old, who married “the love of her life” and “in her younger days enjoyed sewing, golfing, bowling, snowmobiling, knitting, painting.” Neoma had seventeen great-grandchildren and seven great-great-grandchildren.

  The obituary on the left describes the short life of Sierra, age twenty-one, “a brave girl, full of courage,” who loved soccer and volleyball, dancing, music, funny television shows, cats, and being with friends. The photograph shows a beautiful young woman with a big smile and sparkling eyes. She died two weeks shy of her twenty-second birthday.

  I look from one picture to the other—Sierra so young and lovely, with her broad happy smile, to gray-haired Neoma, with the kind, patient look of one who has lived long and well. Carefully, I cut out the obituaries, my heart tight in my chest. I grab some toilet paper and wipe at my eyes, dry my nose. I can’t help wondering what happened to take Sierra from this earth and her family. I can’t help thinking that the trajectory of her short life could have been changed, if only we had the resources, if only we could have offered the family more help, if only we understood more, knew more, cared more. I feel the old outrage inside, the loss of this life, the pain of this family, the sister who is left behind, the grief that goes on and on and on.

  I wonder what I believe in. Every so often in the detention groups, we talk about God, a discussion that is stimulated by an exercise I hand out that lists eighteen “Life Qualities That Make You Happy”—faith, family, freedom, friends, fun, God, happiness, health, honesty, love, loyalty, possessions, pleasure, power, respect, responsibility, trust, wisdom.

  “Okay,” I say, “here’s what you need to do. Circle the top five qualities that are most important to you.”

  “I can’t pick just five,” someone always says.

  “That’s all you get,” I say. Slowly, thoughtfully, they make their selections.

  Then, one by one, they have to eliminate one choice. “You got arrested and spent a week in detention,” I explain. “So you have to take away something.”

  They argue with me. “I can’t get rid of anything. Why can’t I keep them all?” Reluctantly they put an X through one of their choices.

  “You were caught at school selling drugs. Take away one more.”

  And on it goes—they ran away from home, take one away; they overdosed and had their stomachs pumped, take away another.

  At the end of the exercise, they have only one “life quality” left. Three out of four kids choose “God.” The other favorite is “Family.”

  One day Michael, age sixteen, circles family, God, honesty, respect, and love. Rather than crossing anything out, he draws a line from God to each of the circles. When he hands the sheet of paper to me, he says, “God is every one of these. As long as I have God, I have everything.”

  Every once in a while someone in the group will ask if I believe in God.

  “I’m not sure,” I answer honestly.

  “How can you not believe in God? What’s the matter with you?” It seems they are truly concerned about me.

  “I believe there is a force for good in the world,” I say. “But I’m not sure there’s a white-bearded person up in the heavens. If God exists, I think He or She is most interested in what goes on here, between us, on this earth, in the way we care for each other and take care of each other. I think God might be right here with us in this room, listening when we tell our stories, interested in what we are thinking and feeling about life and our struggles to be a good human being.”

  They look at each other, some more skeptical than others, but they don’t argue with me. It’s a new perspective, and they are open to thinking about it. I keep thinking about it, too—what do I believe in?

  I continue to work on the newspaper column idea, turning words around, creating a file of ideas, crafting a few sample paragraphs, then setting everything aside, afraid to jump back into writing. It’s always a push-pull sort of thing, because writing is plain old hard work, nothing glamorous about it. I have grave doubts about whether I am good enough or smart enough to keep putting words on paper and expecting people to read them.

  I hear my mother’s voice: “Chin up! Stiff upper lip, Kath!” A deep sigh. I pick up my pen and write the first column.

  Drugs. Addiction. Drunk drivers. Courts. Prison. Gangs. Suicide. Violent crime.

  Is this what you want to read about in your newspaper’s “Food & Family” section every other Tuesday evening?

  I hope to convince you in this and future columns that these are the subjects we should be discussing as our families gather around the kitchen table. For these are the subjects that affect every individual in this community.

  If you are 13, 40, or 75, male or female, rich or poor, college professor or migrant worker, your life is both directly and indirectly affected by what is euphemistically called “the drug problem.”

  Our children are exposed to alcohol and other drugs on a daily basis—at school, on the streets, in the parks and recreation areas, and in their own homes. More than half our nation’s middle and high school students drink alcohol. Fifty-four percent of 12th-graders have tried an illegal drug such as marijuana, cocaine, methamphetamines, or heroin; 25 percent have used in the last 30 days.

  After promising to write about gangs, prisons, drunk driving, prevention, education, treatment, twelve-step groups, spirituality, current research, the stigma of addiction, and real-life stories about people, young and old, in recovery—really, is anyone going to want to read this stuff?—I end the column with more talk about the dinner table.

  Drugs and the problems they cause—for you, for me, for our community and our nation—are not the stuff of normal dinner table conversation. I believe that’s a big part of the problem. I hope this column will be part of the solution.

  Ugh. I read those paragraphs and wonder why anyone would want to read this stuff. My own family is sick and tired of these dinner table conversations; why do I want to inflict them on my community?

  Seconds later, I answer my own question. People need to know what is happening beneath the surface, beyond their awareness—in detention centers, county jails, juvenile institutions, and prisons. Behind closed doors, in church meeting rooms, in treatment centers and homeless shelters. These are not just other people’s children. They are our children, our neighbors’ children, our teachers’ children, our ministers’ children, our children’s friends and fellow classmates. They are not “losers” or “lost causes.” They have taken a wrong turn, and they need our help to find their way back.

  I remember what Matthew, age seventeen, said in group: “Don’t look at kids and say they’re bad. Everyone is a good person. They’re just lost. They’ve taken a detour.”

  “Yeah,” Evian, age fifteen, added. �
�Don’t give up on your kids. Never give up.”

  The Juvie stories are ripping me apart. They are just kids—children. Maybe they had family problems. Maybe they were abused or neglected or introduced to drugs at an early age by their parents, siblings, cousins, friends. Maybe not. But still, before drugs, they were just kids. After drugs, everything changed, inside and out. Life went to hell, and all thoughts of childish things evaporated.

  I hear their longings, and they mirror my own. “I want to be nice, not mean.” “I want freedom.” “People who listen.” “People who care.” “People who understand me.” “Gratitude for what I have.” “I want to be with my family.” “I want to be left alone.” “I want a fresh start.” “I want to listen to music.” “I want to go fishing.”

  I am too deeply connected to their grief and their longing. I’m absorbing it; it’s becoming part of me, part of my own experience. I watch my own children reading books, playing with the dogs, jumping on the trampoline, throwing the Frisbee, on vacation at the beach; then, hours or days later, I am in this other world, listening to boys and girls their age talk about the things that are hurting them. Feeling worthless. Hurting other people. Being judged. Life.

  I don’t know how to reconcile those two worlds—one full of joyful events and unconditional love and the other a place of loss, fear, grief, guilt, and shame. As my own children grow up and became increasingly independent, I find myself gravitating toward the Juvie world, where I feel I am needed and can make a difference. I want to give Robyn, Alison, and Ben space to be independent, because that is clearly what they need and want. Even Ben is gently pushing away, with school, sports, friendships, video games, and books (the Fear Street series is his current obsession) filling the bulk of his days.

  I can’t hold on to them forever. I wish I could. I remember when the kids were little, and Pat and I would go away for a weekend, leaving them with a trusted babysitter. Within hours, my hands would hurt—literally, ache—because I missed touching them, holding them, hugging them. Now they do not want to be touched so much, although they let me hug and kiss them, and we always say goodnight with the traditional Ketcham ritual, “Hug, Squeeze, Big Fat Mooch.”

  “But face it, Kathy,” I say out loud. They are leaving you, and you better find something to fill your time, people to care for who need or want at least part of what you might have to offer. Buck up. This is life. Figure out where you fit and belong. How you can be productive. How you can help. What you want to be when you grow up.

  I’m having a spiritual crisis, no doubt about it. It feels like a thickness in my throat, as if I have an obstruction there, making it hard to breathe. My chest hurts. My eyes ache. I walk in circles; I go to the kitchen to find something, stand there, turn around, ask out loud, “What am I looking for?” I go back to the living room, remember, “Oh yeah, scissors,” go back, hold them in my hand, and wonder why I needed them. All my senses are clouded, dulled. I’m all fogged up.

  I remember, it seems like just yesterday, walking Robyn in the stroller when an older woman, probably my age now, stopped me. “What a beautiful baby,” she said. “How old is she?” In my memory, Robyn was a newborn, just eleven or twelve days old. The woman reached out to touch my hand. “Hold onto these moments,” she said with great intensity. “Don’t let them just slip by.”

  At the time, I thought this was an odd encounter, a stranger approaching me and offering me such heartfelt advice—in words that I had heard so many times before, they qualified as a cliché—but I haven’t forgotten one detail of that moment. We were walking past the prescription counter in Payless Drugs. Robyn was wrapped up in a blanket in the light purple stroller, a baby shower gift. I was wearing jeans and sneakers; in my mind, I can still imagine the rubber soles squeaking on the store’s freshly waxed linoleum floor.

  It was such a happy time. Pat was taking classes for his PhD in geology at the University of Washington. That evening, Robyn and I would pick him up at the bus station. We lived in an old one-bedroom farmhouse on ten acres that we rented for $200. Nellie, our golden retriever, had twelve puppies when Robyn was four months old. A rickety barn on the property was filled with owl pellets, which Pat, ever the paleontologist, picked apart to unearth the tiny bones of field mice, moles, and an occasional squirrel. Horses and coyotes shared the neighbor’s field, and my sister Billy’s dog, Blue, would sometimes romp around in the tall grass with them. It all looked like good fun—but I was afraid the coyotes would turn on her. They never did, though they did feast on two newborn lambs early one morning at a nearby farm. We had a wood-burning stove and spent hours splitting wood and chopping kindling.

  Hard as I tried, as many photographs as I took (dozens of albums stuffed full), the moments, months, and years blew by, and here I am in Walla Walla with the girls in high school and Ben in seventh grade. I’m off-center, out of balance. I try to figure out what’s wrong with me, why this gloomy melancholy when I have so many good, wonderful, amazing things in my life—my writing career, my gentle husband, our three healthy children, lots of good friends. We live in a beautiful house in the country with big windows and views of the Blue Mountains, pheasant and quail wandering through the backyard, and doves cooing in the spring and summer when Pat and I drink coffee on the back patio. We have all the books I could ever want to read, all the roses and flowers I could ever dream of having (and, I have to admit with a hefty amount of guilt, neglecting).

  I coauthor books with people I respect and even, over the two or three years it takes to finish a book, come to love. Reviewers, for the most part, like the books, and from the online reviews, it seems that readers appreciate the information. People have told me that the books saved their lives. I’ve probably heard that a hundred times. Pat read Under the Influence just after Alison was born, when he was thirty-two, and decided to quit drinking because he knew he had a genetic predisposition from his father’s side of the family—his only symptom was a high tolerance (he could drink a lot and still function) and a real love for the stuff. After reading the facts about the disease, he didn’t like his odds, so he stopped, just like that.

  I make money writing books—advances, foreign sales, and small royalty checks coming in twice a year—although I couldn’t support a family on my income. But it’s not about material possessions, is it, Kathy? It’s not about prestige or reputation or moving ahead in this world. It’s about connection, community. I hear Ernie Kurtz’s voice and remember the words we wrote almost a decade earlier. Get beyond yourself!

  He’s right. I’ve been thinking too much about myself. I pick up our book, The Spirituality of Imperfection and search for a favorite passage. It’s easy to find because of the flagged page.

  Spirituality is that which allows us to get beyond the narrow confines of self . . . to get beyond the self to a place of interior peace where we are not obsessed with thoughts of material possessions, to get beyond the immediate concerns that dissipate us, we must first learn to put up with—to accept—our selfish, impatient, often recalcitrant human nature.

  I am impatient, for sure. Recalcitrant, stubborn, obstinate, headstrong—absolutely. Selfish . . . well, that is harder to admit and accept, but yes, okay, I can definitely be self-centered. Am I obsessed with thoughts of material possessions? Crap, I hate this. Yes. I had to have the big house in the country with the view of the mountains. I like cars, and even though we can’t really afford them, I talk Pat into getting a new car every three or four years. Toyotas and Hondas are fine with me, but once we bought an Acura SUV, which Alison then rolled in a ditch trying to avoid a coyote and her pups walking across the highway. The car served its purpose—it saved her life. I buy more rose bushes than I can possibly take care of, more groceries than I can possibly eat, more clothes than I can possibly wear.

  The thing about spirituality—at least this spirituality of imperfection that Ernie immersed me in—is that it forces you to look at yourself honestly, without flinching or trying to escape the truth of yourself
. It hurts as much as it heals, and it seems it heals in large part because it hurts. I keep thinking about the line from William James’s book The Varieties of Religious Experience, in which he talks about “a form of regeneration by relaxing, by letting go. . . It is but giving your little private convulsive self a rest, and finding that a greater Self is there.”

  I wonder if that is what is missing—a greater Self. But if I am to believe William James, before finding that Self, I have to give my “little private convulsive self a rest.” I don’t know how to do that. I don’t like the image of “convulsive,” but there is truth there, too, for I am restless, constantly squirming, shifting, and relocating. It’s rare for me to walk into a restaurant and be led to a table without requesting a different spot, maybe by the window or in a quieter corner of the room. I knit scarves that I never finish. I read four, five, six books at a time. I keep switching seats in movie theaters and channels on the TV. I skip steps in recipes, often forgetting key ingredients and botching the whole deal. I go to weddings, baptisms, and funerals, sit down in one chair, feel uncomfortable, and move to another. And sometimes another. Pat knows to wait before he sits down, standing off to the side a bit, hands in his pockets, until I’m settled.

  I can feel the energy building inside as the restlessness roams around, looking for a place to settle and sink in. The Juvie stories keep building up inside me, seeking an outlet, a home, and one morning I wake up and know what I need to do—I need to write a book about them, be their mouthpiece, tell their stories. People need to know about the drugs out there and the threat to our children—not just other people’s kids but our own as well. If the drugs are “everywhere,” as the Juvie kids tell me, and even elementary school children are exposed to them, then parents need to be educated about the threat. I’ll call the book Teens Under the Influence. Maybe it will make a difference. Maybe it will help even one child, one family.