by Mark Lukach
I had run so many miles in this park and thought that I knew the geography pretty fluently, but this was new.
We plodded through the puddles and the mud, running our fingers along the wet, mossy bark. The grass between the trees was a green so vibrant that it pulsed. Clouds hung low over the hills. There wasn’t a sound besides the pitter-patter of rain and those that we made.
We walked farther and I said to Giulia, “Let’s make one of these trees our tree. We have so many places in this park, let’s make another one.”
“Sounds good,” she said. I could see from her face that she was in pain, that my interruption had pulled her away from a deep sadness.
We explored deeper into the field. Ten minutes later, Giulia said, “This is the one.”
The tree wasn’t any different from any of the others, but I agreed. “This is it. This is our tree.
“Did you hear that, Jonas?” I called to him. “This is our tree.” He was already exploring the perimeter, looking for California newts that might have wandered away from the nearby creek.
“We need to make it ours somehow,” I said to Giulia. “Let’s get some sticks and make a sculpture.”
“Sounds good,” she said again.
We gathered a few dozen sticks of all sizes, but I was hit with the sudden urge to climb. If this was going to be our tree, I had to see the view. I left it to Giulia to build something out of the sticks while I set off to climb the tree.
I heaved up on a sturdy branch and scrambled up a few feet before slowing down to pick my route more delicately. I didn’t get too high, about twenty feet. I found a perch and settled in.
Giulia had started to arrange the sticks into the outline of a heart. She dragged big logs for the base and reinforced them with the smaller branches we had gathered, and when those ran out, she gathered more.
Jonas ran through the grass and mud and was playing a game that only he understood. He leapt from one spot to another, to a third, then retraced his steps and did it again.
Goose watched them both and decided that he liked one of the logs that Giulia had laid down inside the growing heart. He started to gnaw.
I watched my family from a distance. I spent so much of my life in their midst, with a tendency to dominate the group. For the moment, I took myself out of the equation so I could see them for themselves, independent of me.
I watched Giulia, and I knew how much she had suffered. Even though she declared the third episode to be over, I knew it still weighed on her. She would never again be as carefree as before she was sick. I thought about how many times she had considered killing herself and how many times I had pondered her death. I had already grieved a life’s worth of mourning for her. I wanted her to survive her bipolar, but I knew that something, someday, was going to take her away. But that didn’t unhinge me anymore.
Up there in our tree, as the April rain breathed life into the thirsty grasses and trees, and my son stood tall, and my bulldog meandered through middle age, and my wife created the shape of a heart, all I could think about was death.
Giulia shooed Goose away from the middle of her heart so she could keep building. Our dog had been with us through all three hospitalizations. He was six now. I remembered when Giulia was pregnant, and when I thought about having a child, for some reason my mind always skipped ahead to the moment when Goose would die. I’m not sure why, but the impending arrival of a new life made me think of the lives we would lose. I could see us burying Goose and imagined that would be the first time that our child saw us cry.
Out beyond Giulia’s heart, still wrapped up in his game, was Jonas, my beginning and my ending. I had thought about his death, too. As a parent, your mind goes into dark places when feeling protective of your child—a car crash, leukemia, a bad accident at the playground. I hated imagining these possibilities, but they also felt important to consider, because they made each day, even in its most frustrating moments, feel like a treasure.
The only death I avoided thinking about was my own. I wasn’t afraid to die for my own sake. I knew that I lived a charmed life. My fear of death wasn’t for me. My life has been good. It will be nice if it is long, but it doesn’t have to be. I’ve already been given more than I deserve.
I didn’t think about my own death because it brought with it the fear of what would happen to the creatures below me, the ones playing with sticks in the mud. Who would take care of them? Could they take care of themselves, and each other, without me? It was a narcissistic fear, but a realistic one, given the past five years.
And so I sat in my perch and watched them be alone, if only for a few minutes. Jonas eventually saw me up in the tree and pointed and laughed, and I climbed back down, and I stood inside the heart with Giulia. Jonas wedged himself between our legs and looked up at us.
“This is the Love Tree,” Giulia declared.
“That’s a perfect name,” I said.
“Let’s come here when times are bad and we need to focus on us.”
“That’s a perfect idea, too.”
Jonas kept tugging on our legs, so we squatted down to his level and wrapped our muddy selves around each other. “The Love Tree,” Giulia said again.
“The Love Tree,” Jonas parroted, delighted with himself.
We stood up, walked outside of our heart of sticks, and trod back through the tall, wet grass to our car, our hearts warmed by the hope of our new sacred place.
As we walked away, Giulia promised our tree, “We’ll be back.”
Acknowledgments
This book has been in the works almost since Giulia was first hospitalized, when I wrote long e-mails at night to our parents to try to make sense of what was going on. There have been so many people who have touched and protected our lives and this book since those e-mails from seven years ago.
Along the way, three guardian angels have stood out: Bonnie Solow, Liz Weil, and Karen Rinaldi.
Bonnie, as I’ve said time and again, you are so much more than an agent to me, and I knew that was going to be the case when you agreed to meet for a hike and make-your-own-pizza at our house. You have given me the protection, advice, confidence, and friendship to believe that this was a book worth writing.
Liz, we never quite pinned down what exactly your role was in this—editor, book doctor, mentor—but I’m okay with that because no title would do justice to how critically you shaped this book. You turned a wordy, overly detailed mess into something that I am so proud of. I can’t imagine writing without you by my side.
Karen, I’m so grateful you took a chance on me, a high school teacher with a magazine article, and coached me through writing this book. You pushed me in ways that I’ve never been pushed, and I grew as a person and a writer through your guidance. I’m so grateful that you believed in this story enough to want to share it with the world.
Besides my guardian angels, I have been lucky enough through the sheer coincidence of being a surfer in San Francisco to meet some amazing writers who fed me opportunities to grow and expand as a writer, especially Brian Lam, Jaimal Yogis, Tom Prete, Matt Warshaw, Mat Honan, and Zach Slobig. Beyond my beach friends, I’m so grateful for the professionals who accepted my pitches, especially Dan Jones, Meg Bowles, Amanda Hess, and Maria Streshinsky.
The team at Harper Wave has been so amazing to work with. Hannah, you are a godsend to me, and have been so patient through my cluelessness. Thanks to everyone for making this such an exhilarating experience.
I want to acknowledge the many people who have spent their lives caring for the mentally ill. Whether as a professional, family member, or friend, your patience and courage helps to inspire us all. I’ve been fortunate enough to get to meet some of you, but there are a lot more of us out there than we realize.
I had so many friends reach out and help me through these years of caregiving. I have been given wisdom, companionship, milkshakes, and hugs from so many people, especially Jean, Allison, Brian, Austin, Nicholai, Jaimal, Jamie, Chris, Paul, Eric, Drew, Ad
am, Hovey, Molly, Fr. Martin, Scott, and Willy, just to name the tip of the iceberg. And then to the many people who offered their love to Giulia: Briana, Jan, Sachi, Nan, Abby, Megahn, Vanessa, Joya, Heidi, Leah, Hanna, Carel, Annie, Nancy, Fio, Sarah, Danielle, Sophie, and Cathy.
Cas, Leslie, Bron, and Blaize: you changed my life when you invited me to dinner at your house. You expanded that generosity to Giulia, then Goose, and then Jonas, and have shown us what friendship really is. And what homemade vegan food really is. Point Reyes is our sanctuary because you are our sanctuary.
Thanks so much to our siblings, our best friends. Carl, Jeff, Cat, Alex, Matt, Grace Ann, Pietro, and Charlie—I can’t believe how lucky we are that we all have so much fun together. And our parents—Mary, CJ, Mariarita, and Romeo—we wouldn’t have made it without you guys. You stopped your lives to take care of us, and we will spend the rest of our lives trying to earn all the love and support you have given us. We’re all in this together.
Our dog Goose has been at my side through all of this. And while it might be ridiculous to thank a dog, I wrote most of this with Goose sleeping at my feet. You’re our rudder, Goose. Seriously, people, if you’re going through a tough time, get a bulldog. They are the best.
Jonas, you give me more joy than I thought possible. I can’t believe all that you are already capable of. I’m excited for you to read this one day when you’re old enough.
And most important, my lovely wife Giulia. This is a big deal. None of this has been easy—the illness, the writing about it, the book publishing. This is our story but there is no story without you opening yourself up to the world like you have. Thank you for trusting me to tell this in a way that honors your bravery. You always say that we both got stronger because of your illness. I agree, and I think this book has done the same.
About the Author
Mark Lukach is a teacher and freelance writer. His work has been published in the New York Times, the Atlantic, Pacific Standard, Wired, and other publications. He is currently the ninth-grade dean at the Athenian School, where he also teaches history. He lives with his wife, Giulia, and their son in the San Francisco Bay Area.
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Copyright
The names and identifying characteristics of certain individuals have been changed to protect their privacy.
my lovely wife in the psych ward. Copyright © 2017 by Mark Lukach. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
first edition
“The Dress Looks Nice On You,” by Sufjan Stevens. Administered by New Jerusalem Music/ASCAP.
Cover design by Sarah Brody
Cover photograph by Carl Lukach
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Lukach, Mark, author.
Title: My lovely wife in the psych ward : a memoir / Mark Lukach.
Description: First edition. | New York, NY : Harper Wave, [2017]
Identifiers: LCCN 2016049549 (print) | LCCN 2016052977 (ebook) | ISBN 9780062422910 (hardback) | ISBN 9780062422934 (eBook)
Subjects: LCSH: Lukach, Mark. | Lukach, Giulia—Mental health. | Psychiatric hospital patients—Biography. | Mentally ill—Commitment and detention. | Husband and wife—Biography. | BISAC: BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Personal Memoirs. | MEDICAL / Mental Health. | FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS / Marriage.
Classification: LCC RC450.G7 L85 2017 (print) | LCC RC450.G7 (ebook) | DDC 362.2/1092 [B] —dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016049549
International ISBN: 978-0-06-269839-1
Digital Edition MAY 2017 ISBN: 9780062422934
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-242291-0
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