His son is lost in that slim body of his, forever so it seems, but his son is not mad or insane. He knows that for sure because Steve keeps stating the obvious as he knows it and if he wasn’t right in the head, how would he even know that? He is just lost in his world. Father asks Steve if he knows who the butterfly is and he does because he describes her as his own butterfly, not just a butterfly but his own. Steve’s eyes search the room but without even moving his head. He listens to a phone ring and then a soft voice answering it but his thoughts are focused only on the strangers crowding his brain and the people within the four grey walls that are hard and cold like the world he is in now.
Steve is looking feeble today, like a man who has lived a long fragile life and his face, grey, unshaved and cold hard stone like without any expression.
The white clock with a black lazy hand spends an awful long time to go around in an hour as if it is keeping the time as still as possible before the news. No matter how long they have together today, Steve’s head is not with his parents. He is almost not with himself, but deep down, somewhere deep down inside Steve maybe is totally and aware of himself and who he is or his identity. Steve is quite lost within his emotions but more so in his mind. It is almost as if he doesn’t want to remember and yet he can if he tries hard enough, as if he is lost but can be found. Someone could find him but his mind is controlled by the mentally troubled person and yet the body is controlled by Steve himself.
An hour has passed, visitors are told to leave, one by one so are the prisoners. It is heartbreaking for them, but it is the beginning which is better than the end or nothing at all.
The three come back into the waiting room as Mr Williams convinces Mother that he and his legal team will do all they possibly can to make sure that Steve gets the best help possible in any way or shape. He tells them that in a few days from now, Steve will be going into the local medical ward where he will be assessed and looked after properly by the mental team.
“Believe me, he will be in good hands and if you really want to try and get your son better you need to be supportive and work with the team. This is the only viable option and best option before it gets too late, because the later you leave it, the worse he may be.” Mr Williams continues, “At times patients can get lost or get worse and at times getting lost and so far from life can mean that there may be no return.”
Mother and Father both nod in agreement as Mr Williams reminds them that it will be and has been a very painful journey for all three of them, but optimistically speaking, looking forward is the only option. He tells them that this should have been straight away as it’s clear to see that Steve is certainly not himself and why the court or the hospital and the doctors have not picked it up or not willing to pick it up then, it is his role to get Steve help so that he can find the way forward. He reminds them that he will always act on their instructions but delaying anything is not a good step forward. He reminds them about his fees and his valuable time and how much that cost and how he will do all that is possible to make sure that Steve becomes the priority. They shake hands with Mr Williams and with the security watching their every motion, they all leave the building. Father and Mother get into the car as Mr Williams speeds away in the distance. Yesterday once more.
“It wasn’t a relief seeing Steve today, Stephen.”
Father nods politely as he hears her but he is still happy, at least they did see him with their own eyes which they haven’t in a while, spoke to him and even though he’s lost weight, at least he is alive and well under the circumstances. He is coping probably the best way he can and now, it is up to the parents to do all they can to make sure that Steve gets the best attention and treatment so that he can come home one day soon. Soon was a good choice for they continue with the only hope that they must put things right for Steve. Steve first at all times.
Mother knows that hope is the only thing she has to hold onto right now, it is good enough with her husband on her side and a son who will continue to get better and a home that he can come back to, a home that he knows as his own home with both parents who can be there for him. The way it should’ve been and perhaps can be again. She knows she has to have faith and trust in her husband and with him on her side, perhaps it can work out after all.
***
The legal team does their work and the parents try to live just one day at a time. It is the only way of coping and these are difficult times to say the least, so taking a day at a time is good enough.
Within a week of visiting Steve in the prison, the Smith family is allowed to visit Steve in the prison again. They continue to support him and support the legal team who work hard to secure a deal and soon he is transferred to the psychiatry ward in the big hospital not that far from them. The mental wellness clinic has a home-like feel for Steve and when Stephen and Mildred come to visit the ward one day as Mr and Mrs Smith, together, parents of Steve Smith, they feel that his environment is not bad at all. There is a big lounge area with a television and young and old sitting with thoughts astray but eyes fixed on the box. This morning the volume is a bit high but that is good to camouflage the feelings of despair amongst the patients here. Steve sits on the light brown armchair as if he is waiting to go somewhere, perhaps home.
Mother and Father both sit with him and there are many others here that have all kinds of issues, illnesses and annoying mental things going on, so it soon becomes apparent that patients don’t think much of it at all, but then they wouldn’t. They all sit there with their hot drinks in plastic beakers. Colourful and yet hard. This isn’t an old people’s ward, so why the plastic beakers? Everyone seems to be acting quite differently, loud, quiet and anxious and passive but all individuals and yet no one seems to be bothered. No one is looking at one another or bothered by anyone else, everyone just gets on with being themselves and doing nothing but watching television. A family almost. Mother feels happy that Steve is feeling at home but never wants him to feel too cosy here as she doesn’t want him to treat this ward as his own home. His home is waiting for him and with them, together.
That day and many more besides are full of optimism and hope. Every day just seems the same, wishing for a breakthrough but still no progress, no change. Visits to the ward to see Steve sitting, looking at his surroundings and not talking much to the patients, the doctors or the parents. No one is going anywhere or even giving up. Everyone is continuously trying to do all they possibly can. Patience is the game and time is a big factor. Time, they all have from winter time to springtime and as the days get longer, lights are turned on later, and the heating isn’t on so much. The sun makes more of an appearance, thank goodness. Springtime bulbs are shooting up as the spring flowers pop up bright and beautiful, an amazing array of colours right outside the sitting room of this place.
There is a black hole with a certain space that some people with mental disturbance often visit and revisit and everyone knows about it whether you’re in a home or in your own home. Mother has seen that black hole in Steve many times and occasionally in her own thinking; however, she’d never admit to it, she has seen that look before quite a few times, as far back as when Father rocked the sailing boat.
Mother is often scared for him but the light that never gets turned on, the tunnel that never has light at the end or even cliff tops with no railings, that is quite a despair for her as well, so she can’t tell him but knows what he is going through. She doesn’t know enough to do anything about it. Steve seems on a downward spiral all the time, self-destruction almost, but even though it seems quite selfish, she isn’t so far from it herself. Father found his escape, Mother did survive somehow but Steve, the vulnerable child, suffered in silence for so long, a little bit too long. As if he’d been rotting away.
Long time, long prayers before going to bed, long waiting moments for Steve to get better and that now seems the only thing that this family is waiting for. Steve is still waiting for w
hat, no one knows and no one can get through to him, no one really can get into his head to find out. Springtime flowers all in a row as Mother walks past them and in admiration, she gently strokes them.
There is no great smell seeping out from the small flowers. It’s not summer yet, the hyacinths are oozing with scent, they are all certainly beauty to her eyes. Flowers are always a pleasing sight. She smiles and ponders why life can’t be beautiful always. White little daisies and yellow buttercups plentiful and Mother remembers how she would take a small bunch from the garden and put them in some water in a small glass and place it on the table, how beautifully it lit the room. Mother can see them through the open window as she walks inside with Father.
“Don’t the flowers look beautiful, Steve? Look how lovely they have spread out.”
Father takes Steve’s hand and leads him to the window with Mother following. They all look out together standing tall like three wallflowers. They need not to watch the outside any longer because suddenly, a few minute flies swarm in through the window.
“As soon as it gets warm, flies do tend to pop up from everywhere.” Steve is looking exhausted as Mother looks on but then his eyes and ears seem to get wider and pleasing and open up for the very first time in months and months.
He starts to smile quite widely and slowly he starts looking attentively at them. He starts to settle his hair and wipe his sweaty forehead. Mother and Father both start looking out of the window just to look at the miracle that has just taken place.
“Steve, you’re smiling?” says Father.
“Butterflies, Father, butterflies, but the beautiful butterfly Gabriella Valente, remember, Father? These butterflies have chased away the dark clouds, Father. I’ve found my Gabriella, my beautiful butterfly.”
Steve starts talking about butterflies and watches their every move and every flutter as they move their beautiful colours around the spring mild air. Steve feels alive once more. Father cannot believe how long he has waited for Steve to speak, today is just that one perfect day. Mother is gasping for breath, she tries so hard to hold back the tears, uncontrollable tears of joy. Today is a definite joyous miracle.
This day is the day that they all have waited and worked towards, it took a long time coming, now what’s the writing on the cold doors that have been shut for a long time? Gabriella Valente, the beautiful butterfly and the obsession come back into Steve’s life to wake him up. The fog is lifted from today’s sky and in his mind, everything is a little clearer. Is the hurt and the pain all gone to sleep forever as he plays and admires them at great lengths, as they playfully run in and out of the window?
It is still a tiny bit chilly but it is beautiful springtime when new things are born again. As the butterflies move their yellows into whites with black tinges twinned with orange and so forth, so do Steve’s words as he retells all. The dates of him watching the fascination with butterflies, to the obsession of wanting to capture and then set them free to the days when he was growing up and the tension between the parents made them grow in distance. He started to want and need Gabriella, the only one who really gave a damn about him and his needs and his feelings. She befriended him and he needed that, someone to talk to, someone who cared, so he thought in his mind.
The more the time went by and the parents fell apart and he felt out of this family circle, the more he found himself isolated, the more his days felt in the past with the thought that he needed and wanted to get to see her once again. Somewhere at some time, the mother of all days came, as Father left and the black hole swallowed him up like a suction in a vacuum cleaner. He carried on to live in a routine because life was uncertain, the bar needed attending and that is what he did. No one else did! So long as the punters brought themselves in, he had something to do, a purpose, it felt that life was worth holding onto until Father returned. The black hole came, made a space and slowly swallowed him and it was fine during the day but at night, he had to make sure that he stayed awake for as long as possible as anything could happen. He says that he felt that if he closed his eyes, something or someone took control over him. Keeping his eyes open was the only option.
He couldn’t bear his father’s voice that kept ringing in his ears and even though he knew that Father had left them, he wanted to hear the voices but not be shocked by them. He wanted his body to be swallowed over by the big duvet, so he slept under the bed where at times he remained asleep. Is was harrowing enough to wake up at night, crying and opening the front door because he thought he could hear Father calling out to him, his own son. His eyes would search in the spare room to the kitchen and the sitting room and the outdoors but his heart and his mind were looking at the dead-end. That was very scary and this happened often and so the demons got the better of him. Steve admits that he got to the point where he barely knew what the truth was compared to what was all made up in his own mind. Life was dark.
Steve admits that the worse his ordeal got, the further he got away from Mother, and the more the voices started to take over and convinced him that she was the route to why Father left. That is why, he says, he was convinced that she couldn’t have been his real mother, he admits that he did feel that she was not his real mother. She had to be someone else, so he ended up calling her the woman from upstairs.
“You see, everything came and went like Father, his voices, his customers, the drinks and the crisps and the nuts and days and nights. In came the seasons and months and weeks and days, but Mother, she stayed constantly all of the time. She was the only thing that was there twenty-four hours a day. There was a time when I thought she was the one who was trying to scare me at night and why would she do that if she really was my mother? I’d often as a grown-up man would feel that this was not right, the way that she had been treating him and me. I was wetting the bed but then I hid under the duvet and that’s why I made sure that the duvet kept me safe all over me and my self. That was my escape without any real escape from my own world.”
He continues, “The man inside became a frightened child and I was free of these butterflies and so was Gabriella but I was on the losing end of life. I had convinced myself that if I didn’t get Gabriella, I would kill myself or leave the house in search of Father and I had to do something. I’d try to find him but I didn’t know where he was or anyone who knew of his whereabouts. I let all of the black hole take me at times to the place before the walls. I stopped being me and Steve remained my name but my mind was changing all of the time. In my mind, I didn’t know who I really was. One minute I would be laughing in my sleep, but the next I would be crying and then there would be silence, total silence was the worst of all. That was the worst part. I was scared, it was as if there was a balloon and I was in it with butterflies around me and then it would pop and all the air, all the life with me, would die including me, the butterflies and Gabriella.
“Gabriella always brought me hope of Father and Mother. All I wanted was a friend, a companion, someone to talk to me but some adult conversation and someone who was happy like she was. I wanted to be happy and that’s what I thought on that night. All I wanted to do was talk and she wouldn’t talk, so I thought I’d take her down into the cellar just to talk and she fell downstairs and banged her head. It was a pure accident, I promise I did not push or do anything bad to her.
“I couldn’t hurt her. It was by accident and I swear that I never knew that anything would happen to her. Then Mother, of course, called the law and they took her away whilst she slept. I think she was still asleep and now they are blaming me for her murder when all I ever wanted was to talk to her. Why is that a crime?”
“You are better, Steve, that is all that matters to me, Son. Would you be able to tell the cops what you’ve just told us?”
“Of course, Father. Of course I will, I have to.”
The police are called at the ward where Steve is interviewed by himself then they speak to the parents individually a few
times. Voices are recorded and tapes played and replayed, pens and paper and tired worn out fingers and tired eyes from lack of sleep.
Days have passed and then Steve is allowed out to come back home and stay with his parents, days go by rolled into months and the parents have tried really hard to stabilise their not so empty lives.
This time has been spent on making and presenting a good court case to show how sorry Steve is and more so the fact that it was an accident. His parents are optimistic about Steve’s mental state. They have an account of a prison sentence for which he has already spent time of as well. Time waiting for new evidence and fact finding and Steve is now looking forward to his time with his parents to get better, to spend an ordinary life day and night with parents and son with psychiatrists, therapists and counsellors. Mentally it is a burden but the new life that he knows can at times be exactly what he had hoped. It was the first thing he found and focused on. Hope, even though it is a life without Gabriella, he can still have butterflies in his life because they exist now and in everyone’s life, naturally.
His parents are just happy that finally their only son has some closure but awareness of his mental health and more so, that he wants help. They make sure that they do what they can to work together as a family and try to meet the needs together of one another. They spend quality time as a family and support Steve in all of his quests and soul-searching, living through the difficult times together.
Father and Mother somehow do find a way of finding some happiness and mental understanding and try to show empathy with his condition. It is not an overnight thing or a short struggle but his new lease on life is optimistic and they are all working as one team. Perhaps they will get through this as a family and learn from the experience. But for now, they learn to live every day as it comes, together and only a day at a time, for so long and as they have each other, they are willing to work through tough times.
In My Mind Page 11