by Jessie Close
Six hours passed before a rescue team cut her loose. It was a miracle she survived. From her waist down she was cut and bruised. Her legs were shattered, but the worst damage was her traumatic brain injury. She was unconscious.
Scans showed that parts of her frontal lobe had been so severely injured that doctors warned her parents she might have a completely different personality when she regained consciousness. She might have little or no memory of the collision or her past. But when she opened her eyes, she was the same person she had been.
Megan went through dozens of painful surgeries and endless hours of grueling physical therapy. She had to relearn basics, such as how to swallow and walk. She fully recovered physically, but her TBI had permanently altered her brain, leaving her with limited short-term memory. She had to keep her daily routine written on a whiteboard so she could remember the rudimentary steps she had to follow each day, such as dressing herself, taking her medicine, and feeding her dog.
When I left dinner that night, she said, “I have trouble remembering names, but I will remember yours, Jessie.”
I almost cried.
My children were moving on with their lives. Sander had finished college, and Mattie was graduating from Bozeman High School. Seeing her walk across the stage wearing her cap and gown made me cry. I’d been unstable and drunk much of Mattie’s childhood. Yet Mattie had matured into a thoughtful and beautiful young woman who was wise beyond her years. I think she had coped so well partly because she always knew, no matter what I had said or done, that I loved her.
All relationships become journeys. I had made peace with myself and accepted my mental illness. I still needed to make peace with someone else: my father.
I’d always felt like an inconvenience to him. With therapy, I’d realized that my feelings of insecurity and abandonment were deeply rooted in my father’s decision to go traipsing off to Africa, leaving all us children behind to be raised by MRA nannies. He had put my mother into the impossible position of having to choose between being with him and being with us. There was a gulf between Dad and me, and even as an adult my conversations with him were always uneasy.
I blamed him, in part, for my inability to sustain a stable relationship with a man. Parents are role models, and my father had been an absentee dad because of his own wants and needs. I felt strongly that his wants and needs had not included me.
Had my father remained a distant figure, it might have been easier for me to accept his coldness. But after my father and mother settled in Big Piney, Dad had become a fabulous grandfather. He’d been eager to entertain his grandchildren, to take my boys fishing, and regale Mattie with stories about his adventures in Africa. He showed each of my children the love and attention that he had been completely unable to give my siblings and me.
It was time for me to confront him and to put my anger and resentment to rest. I decided to do it when he came to visit me in Bozeman.
Like most of us, my father didn’t like being criticized. His introspection was done in private, and as soon as I started talking about MRA and how I’d felt abandoned, he let out an irritated sigh, like a child waiting for a school bell to ring so that he could run outside for recess.
He believed he’d already acknowledged his “uselessness” by admitting in his autobiography that he’d felt more comfortable in a Zaire operating room or traveling with President Mobutu than being with us children. He’d published his mea culpa, writing:
Only years later did I realize that simply being there for your own children is more important than solving their problems. It takes time and hard work to become a doctor; fatherhood, I learned so late, requires at least equal, and often more, effort and perseverance.
Announcing in a book that you were a lousy dad is different from coming face-to-face with those you’ve hurt.
Dad sat quietly while I released my pent-up feelings. When I was done, he gave me a look and said, “Jess, how many times do I have to say I’m sorry? Do you want me to walk around on my knees and say ‘I’m sorry’ over and over until my knees are bloody?”
“Won’t you just say you’re sorry without being all dramatic?” I demanded.
“Okay, I’m sorry, and this isn’t the first time I’ve said that, either, I know that.”
I realized at that moment that I had to forgive him. There was no point in remaining hurt. He was who he was. It was as simple as that. A few days later, Dad sent me a note. It had always been easier for him to write about his feelings than to speak about them. He said that he was proud of my children and of me. He said he loved me.
Perhaps because I was by then a parent and realized how I had harmed my own children because of my weaknesses, that note melted any coldness in my heart toward him.
My father needed cataract surgery, and afterward he developed a staph infection in that eye. It was incredibly painful and also required him to wear a black eye patch to cover his now blind eye. In his early eighties, despite the pain and his failing health, he continued to make house calls around Big Piney, but only to the elderly and dying. My dad loved being a small-town doc. He also loved buying things. He had to have the best of everything, whether it was snow blowers or Dunhill pipes.
On January 15, 2009, Dad fell out of his bed late one night. A young woman, Deanne, whom my parents had hired to cook and look after them when necessary, rushed into his room and helped him back under the covers. A few moments later, Deanne heard him go into his bathroom. Then she heard him yell, “Oh, my God!” and heard the sound of his body hitting the floor.
Those were his last words.
A colon and prostate cancer survivor, he was dead at age eighty-four from a massive heart attack. I comforted myself by knowing that he had gotten all three of the things he had wanted when it came to dying. He had wanted his dogs with him—check; he had wanted to die at home—check; and he wanted his death to come quickly—check. He was as lucky in death as he had been in his adventurous life.
The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Lancet, and the London Times, as well as the local Kemmerer Gazette, which served Big Piney, published flattering obituaries. The New York Times described my father as “a man with a take-charge personality” who had played a crucial role in helping stop the spread of the deadly Ebola hemorrhagic fever in 1976, when it broke out in central Africa. My father had used his position as President Mobutu’s personal physician to fly investigators from the US Center for Disease Control (as it was then called) into the epidemic’s hot zone.
My dad had told us about an African priest who had wiped the bloody tears from a woman’s face with his handkerchief while she was dying. He later used that same handkerchief to wipe his own face. That priest had died ten days later. My father had been there in the thick of the outbreak without any show of fear.
All of us gathered in Big Piney for Dad’s funeral. We agreed this would not be a religious affair, although we did have one short prayer. Dad’s experiences with MRA had turned him against organized religion, although he had started going to church later in life and frequently prayed with his patients.
All of us wanted to play a role in his memorial service, which we called “In Celebration of the Life Force That Is Doc.” Glennie became our director, helping choose which role each of us would perform. Mom picked out a reading from Winnie-the-Pooh that she wanted to read because my dad loved that story and often would quip: “Silly old bear!” quoting Christopher Robin.
Two doctor friends were chosen to speak about his professional accomplishments. Sandy, along with Tina’s son, Keir Campbell, gave eulogies. I joined Tina, Calen, Sander, Mattie, and Glenn’s daughter, Annie, in reading a poem entitled “The House by the Side of the Road.” Our “adopted” brother, Tambu, flew in from his Sacramento home to participate too.
Glennie and Sander chronicled my father’s life through family photos and his favorite music in a professional video that they later posted on the Internet. It’s difficult for me to cry in public, but each time I watch th
e video alone on my computer I sob for him.
Among the most poignant words were those spoken by Keir, who said:
What are we to say of such a man? To him, too much introspection was “navel-gazing.” A solid person was a “good egg.” And his mantra before entering any fray was “Do your homework.”
A complicated simple man. A technophile who opposed gadgetry in medicine. To him nothing could replace hands-on care.
He was a man of indomitable will, an indefatigable fighter of great integrity, empathy, and tenderness. He loved unconditionally the underdog.
When I think of him words come to mind like: endurance, persistence, optimism, self-discipline, and compassion.
To say he touched people’s lives is an understatement. He inspired and motivated and changed lives. He saved lives. He rallied those around him to fight with and against what he saw as humanity’s true enemies: sickness, oppression, apathy—and any kind of bullshit!
If we are to take anything from his full and wonderful life, it is to view the world with your eyes as open as possible. And when you encounter apathy, cruelty, sickness, and pain wrapped in a cloak of normalcy, complacency, or bureaucracy, do not step aside. Do not walk past. But stand and confront it. Oppose it. Attack it. With persistence and optimism, grit and heart.
During Dad’s funeral, I scanned the crowd of about two hundred people. There were prominent doctors alongside Wyoming cowboys with mud on their boots. My father had fallen into the habit of not charging people who couldn’t afford his services. Many of the sick whom he visited were grateful because they had no insurance and little money. They repaid him with home-cooked pies, casseroles, and enduring friendship.
After the funeral, our family retreated to my folks’ compound, where Glenn’s husband, David, set off fireworks, lighting the sky with burning stars that burst and then faded.
I was happy that Dad and I had made our peace.
Life continued after my father’s death, as it always does. I was not surprised when Calen announced that he had asked Megan to marry him. Both had tried to return to college but simply couldn’t. My mom had built Calen a studio behind his remodeled chicken-house apartment. It was large enough for his woodworking tools, an airbrush booth, and a painting room. He began making furniture and continued painting.
Megan had been angry and bitter after her accident because she’d felt it had cheated her out of her future. She told me that she’d changed her mind after she got a job at Eagle Mount, a therapeutic program in Bozeman, where adults and children with physical disabilities can swim, ride horses, camp, fish, canoe, and take part in other Montana outdoor activities. Megan began to see herself as an “ambassador of hope” who could relate to kids with disabilities in ways that others couldn’t because of her accident and brain injury. Both she and Calen found silver linings in their challenges.
They were married on September 4, 2011, at a historic site called Springhill Pavilion, a dance hall that dates back to before Montana was a state and was featured in the movie The Horse Whisperer, which seemed fitting because Megan worked as an equestrian therapist.
I made it through the wedding without becoming too anxious or feeling the need for a drink, even when they had their Champagne toast. I was becoming more and more comfortable with my emerging new and sober self, and now that Calen and Megan were married, Mattie was going to be leaving for college in Portland, Oregon, and Sander was settled in San Francisco, I decided it was time for me to go to the home where I had always felt the most secure—my Mouse House, by North Meadow Creek in McAllister.
I was about to start yet another new chapter in my life, one of sobriety, hope, and purpose.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Glennie was on the phone, asking if I would “out” myself.
My sister was following through on the desperate plea that I’d made a few years earlier, when Calen had suffered his mental breakdown. I’d begged her to do something about the stigma that Calen—and now I—faced.
As always, Glennie had gone about it in her own way and on her own schedule. Her research had eventually led her to Fountain House, a Manhattan peer-to-peer program whose roots date back to the 1940s, when a former patient at a state hospital and a hospital volunteer began meeting in a New York YMCA with other people who had been hospitalized for mental illness. They believed they were capable of helping each other and didn’t have to depend on “the well” for their care. Initially, the group called itself WANA, an acronym for We Are Not Alone. Over time, that group became Fountain House and helped pioneer what’s known as the “clubhouse” approach. Fountain House programs are governed by its members, all of whom have mental illnesses. In addition to providing housing, food, and educational and vocational programs, Fountain House also oversees a unique job-sharing program. Knowing that some members want to work but can’t handle the strain of a full-time job, Fountain House pairs members who perform the same job during different hours. For example, four members might share a forty-hour-per-week job, each working as many hours as they can tolerate during a day. Fountain House gives people who are often viewed as outcasts a home in a supportive environment where their voices can be heard. It gives them dignity and purpose.
Glennie had learned about the Child and Adolescent Bipolar Foundation, too, and had met Garen and Shari Staglin, a California couple who’d founded the International Mental Health Research Organization after their son, Brandon, had become ill.
Having familiarized herself with the mental health landscape, Glenn decided to found a nonprofit organization to specifically target stigma and misunderstanding. She named it Bring Change 2 Mind. The hitch was, however, that she wouldn’t do anything unless Calen and I were willing to get involved. I agreed, then Calen agreed. We really didn’t know what we were getting into.
Glennie wanted to do something to help. After she telephoned Calen and me, she began to raise money to create a website and pay for the filming of a public service announcement that would be aired on network television.
Glennie planned to officially launch Bring Change 2 Mind in October of 2009, and she wanted us to participate.
“I want you to be part of the PSA—if you are willing,” she said, explaining that the advertisement would be released on launch day. When she added that Ron Howard had agreed to direct the spot, I was doubly impressed.
“Are you kidding?” I replied. “I’ll do whatever I can to help!”
Glennie arranged flights for Calen, Mattie, and me, as well as Snitz, who had become my service dog, accompanying me everywhere. We flew from Montana to New York, where we stayed at Glennie’s house. Annie joined us. With the exception of Sander, this was clearly going to be a family affair.
Ron Howard was to shoot the PSA inside Grand Central Terminal’s massive main concourse in midtown Manhattan. It is a beautiful, majestic place with an ornate 125-foot-high ceiling. When you look up from the lobby floor, you can see a sky that has been painted “backwards.” The artist had wanted to show what God sees when he looks down at the constellations rather than what we see when we look up at them.
Glennie had hired a New York advertising agency called the Watsons to write a script. They’d entitled it “Change a Mind About Mental Illness.” The PSA would begin with a commuter train pulling into the station and hundreds of passengers scurrying through the crowded lobby on their way to work. One by one, individuals dressed in white T-shirts would appear in the crowd. The first couple would be Shari Staglin and her son, Brandon, who had been a student at Dartmouth College in 1990 when he’d first become ill. Written in blue letters on Shari’s T-shirt would be the word MOM. Brandon’s T-shirt would bear the word SCHIZOPHRENIA.
Another couple in white T-shirts would appear next, coming down steps inside the station. Their shirts would read POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER and BATTLE BUDDY. From there, the camera would pan to commuters exiting a train and a young couple wearing shirts that said BETTER HALF and DEPRESSION.
During the entire PSA, si
nger John Mayer’s haunting song “Say” would be heard in the background, with its beautiful chorus, “Say what you need to say,” being repeated over and over.
Glennie and I would appear in our white shirts about two-thirds through the PSA. Glenn’s shirt would state SISTER. Mine would be printed with the word BIPOLAR.
I’d been on movie locations before to watch Glenn, but this was different because I was going to be in front of the camera. As we were waiting for our turn to be filmed, I became aware of the noise. Sounds were echoing inside the cavernous lobby. Calen heard them, too. Repetitive and loud noises make me anxious, and the throngs of people, the electricity of the crowd, the chatter and excitement and activity started to get on my nerves. I slowly backed away from the action and found a deep armchair, where I curled up with Snitz and calmed myself.
Glennie found me when it was time for us to be filmed. She shot me an encouraging smile. “You ready?”
My heart was pounding, but she seemed completely at ease, of course. She was in her element.
I think most people believe they can be actors, but I soon found that it is much more difficult than it appears. Our scene called for Glennie and me to walk toward the camera while a swarm of commuters hustled around us.
Everyone took their places, and the camera assistant snapped the clapperboard. I was so nervous that I wasn’t certain whether Ron Howard yelled out “Action” or something else.
Glenn quickly breezed through her line: “One in six adults has a mental illness.”