by L. M. Reed
Chapter 2
Dear Diary,
I’ve been a jerk.
CeeCee
“I know you don't like driving the van,” Mom began as soon as I got downstairs, “so what if I drive today and you sit with your dad.”
“I'd rather drive,” I replied curtly.
As much as I hated driving that thing, I would rather drive than have to sit in the passenger seat and try to avoid the eyes of the man in the wheelchair. Since all of the seats, other than the two in the front, had been taken out of the van in order to accommodate the hydraulic lift and the fasteners in the floor for the wheelchair to ride securely, the van had been modified so that the front passenger seat was facing the rear of the vehicle.
Mom liked that because she could sit facing Dad the whole time, communicating with him; I hated it for the same reason.
He always looked at me so intently, as if he needed to tell me something, and it made me uncomfortable. Whatever it was, I was sure I didn’t want to know.
Perhaps I was in the anger stage, but I wasn't totally through with denial yet. I could barely handle my own thoughts and emotions, much less anyone else's. I had my doubts as to whether I would ever be “through” with any of those five stages; I didn’t care what the pamphlet said. I hated messy lists and that one was getting messier by the minute.
Grabbing the handles of Dad's wheelchair before Mom could reply, I headed him out the door. We had some modifications done to the front porch in order to have a ramp for the wheelchair, but it was fairly steep since there hadn't been enough room for the correct pitch. It had taken some doing, and quite a bit of extra money, but we were finally able to find someone who would build what we needed as opposed to what the city required.
The fact that the ramp was so steep, as well as my being so much stronger than my mom, gave me a built-in excuse to be the one behind the wheelchair pushing it, allowing me to avoid the dreaded eye contact once again.
I always had a reason for my seemingly inconsistent behavior.
After wheeling him onto the lift, I left him with Mom, and walked around to the driver side of the van. Mom finished loading Dad into the van, while I spent quality time adjusting my seat and mirrors, especially the rearview mirror. Didn't want to accidentally see anything I was working so hard to avoid.
Traffic was light, so we made the appointment in good time. While Mom unloaded Dad, I reached into my backpack and pulled out my MP3 player. Putting on my headphones, I cranked the music up as loud as it would go. That was my stop, all that I was required to do; I was done.
I would never—under any circumstances—go into one of Dad's appointments.
As soon as they were clear of the van, I locked the doors, reclined my seat, and tried to concentrate on nothing but the music. My only two musical requirements were loud and pointless. Anything else would necessitate thought, which I wanted to avoid at all costs. The ‘70s had been good for that, and had been my music of choice for quite a while.
My dad had kept some of the LPs and eight tracks from the ‘70s that he’d acquired while he was in junior high and high school, and once I figured out what they were, I kind of got hooked on some of the singing groups from that decade.
It was a big joke between my parents that Dad was a packrat, and kept tons of stuff from his childhood. My mom’s philosophy was the total opposite; if it wasn’t being used then throw it out, give it away, or burn it, depending on what it was of course.
They had come to an agreement, which pleased me greatly; for every eight track that Dad agreed to throw out, Mom would replace it with the CD. He flatly refused to give up any of his LP’s, but eight tracks tended to ruin eventually on their own, so he wasn’t really losing anything by agreeing to throw them away. I was excited to be able to use the CD’s on our computer in order to put them on my MP3 player.
I was in between songs when I heard a strange beeping sound. Taking off my headphones, I quickly sat up and looked around trying to identify it. The noise seemed to be coming from outside the van and to my left.
Two spaces over, a white minivan, also parked in a handicapped spot, was beeping as the tailgate opened all by itself. I felt a twinge of envy as I took in the sleek, new look of the van compared to our old monstrosity.
Fascinated, I watched as a man and a woman emerged from the front seats, and the sliding passenger doors rolled back automatically revealing a teenager and a young girl.
Now that’s a cool van, I thought wistfully.
The man moved to the back of the van and began unloading a wheelchair while the woman, who had been driving, came around to his side of the van presumably to help the young girl.
The van began beeping again as the tailgate closed slowly and the man brought the wheelchair to a stop as he reached the woman. From inside the van, the teenager was handing something to the woman, who in turn handed it to the man. It was some sort of oxygen container, connected by some clear tubing to the young girl who was still in the van.
The man hung the oxygen thing on the wheelchair by the shoulder strap. The woman moved out of the way while he lifted the young girl and gently placed her in the wheelchair.
The tubing appeared to be attached to her throat. She had one of those trach things the doctor had told us Dad might need sometime in the future in order for him to breath.
My stomach felt funny, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away.
Peering through the open door of the van, I could see the teenager’s door on the far side sliding slowly shut. I wondered grimly if, like me she was done for the day, having had enough.
I was surprised to see her coming around the van to stand by the wheelchair, a book in one hand and a cup with a lid in the other. The teenager handed the cup she was carrying to the young girl who smiled her thanks. The teenager lovingly smiled back.
While the man was buckling the seatbelt on the wheelchair, the woman reached back into the van and brought out a big, dark blue bag. He added that to the back of the wheelchair, hanging it on the handles and then both adults began carefully rearranging the oxygen tubing between it and the back of the wheelchair. The oxygen tubing came loose from the little girl’s neck while the man and woman were adjusting it, and fell to the ground unnoticed by the parents.
Panicked, I quickly debated whether to roll down my window to tell them about the run-away tubing, when I saw that the older girl had seen the same thing I had. Handing her book to the younger girl to hold, she took the end of the tubing that had come loose and gently reattached it to the little girl, calmly taking her book back when she was done.
How can she do that, touch that? I wondered in awe. Didn’t she want to run screaming from them in horror?
Totally unaware of what had just happened, the woman reached into the van once again, hauling out a huge maroon bag, handing it to the older girl who took it without complaint. I was angry for the teenaged girl who looked to be only a couple of years younger than I was. Hadn’t she done enough? There were two of them, two adults, why were they making her do any of that?
The man and the two girls moved toward the sidewalk while the woman pushed a button on her remote closing the sliding door. A couple more beeps locked the van and they were all moving as one on the sidewalk in front of me towards the hospital.
Watching them, I felt like I was watching a well-rehearsed play; it was obvious they had done the same thing many times before.
The teenager said something and they all laughed together, even the child in the wheelchair, the picture of a happy family.
I searched their faces desperately as they passed no more than five feet in front of me, looking for the signs of stress, anger, and resentment that I knew must be there, especially in the teenager. I found none.
How could that be?
The child had probably been in a wheelchair her whole life with no hope of ever getting rid of it, plus a lot of other medical problems
, yet they could actually laugh. At least Dad had been normal for most of my life; at least I had that. What did they have? They were acting like it was all normal, like she was normal.
That was not normal!
My parents returned after about an hour, an hour I spent pondering what I had witnessed earlier, uncharacteristically forgetting all about my MP3 player.
I watched dispassionately, as my mother wheeled my dad towards the van. I hadn't noticed before that Mom was looking tired…exhausted actually…and had lost weight. She used to have the same happy laugh and vivaciousness I had seen in the woman’s face.
My dad used to be able to lift heavier things than a wheelchair without batting an eyelash and suddenly he couldn’t even lift himself out of a wheelchair. I hadn’t seriously looked at either of my parents in a long time.
Mom had always been…curvaceous was the word that sprung to mind…and at 5’6” and around 130 pounds, she had the weight distributed in all of the right places. No one would have guessed that she was over forty years old.
It irked me that I took more after my dad than my mom. Instead of Mom’s blonde hair, I had gotten Dad’s brown hair. Instead of Mom’s curves…Dad’s angles. The fact that I inherited Dad’s green eyes was some compensation. Mark was the one who had inherited Mom’s gorgeous blue-eyed blondeness. What a waste. He didn’t care what he looked like; not like I did. I guess it was a girl thing.
Looking at Mom, I could see that her face was thinner, and her clothes were a little baggy. She was still beautiful, but instead of her usual healthy glow, she was pale and definitely wearing more make-up than was normal. Hiding dark circles under her eyes maybe. I felt an uncomfortable pang of conscience.
Mom had been debating about whether to get a summer job as soon as school was out to bring in extra money, but decided to stay home with Dad all day and save the money that she insisted on paying Mrs. Murray during the school year. Mrs. Murray told Mom she was fine with whatever we needed to do, she would have helped us out for free if Mom had allowed it.
I guess I had been so busy avoiding Dad that I hadn't been paying any attention to Mom. She looked so…sort of fragile. She had never been the robust athletic type like the rest of us, but she had always looked so animated and alive. The contrast between her and the woman from the other van was marked.
How had I missed a change that big?
Since she was with my dad most of the time, avoiding him was the same as avoiding her.
I felt like a rat; a sewer rat; a selfish, uncaring, insensitive, irresponsible, sewer rat.
I stuffed my headphones and MP3 player into my backpack, got out of the van, and helped Mom maneuver the wheelchair onto the lift. When mom smiled at me, grateful and weary at the same time, I decided I was lower than low.
How could I not have seen how very worn out my mother was becoming. She was always so bright and cheerful for everybody. I had never even seen her shed a tear over Dad's predicament, although, knowing how much she loved him, I suspected that the tears were close at all times. I supposed that she felt like she had to be strong for all of us. I sure hadn't been any help to her.
“Mom…um…” I hesitated “if you want to drive, I'll sit with Dad,” I offered.
Surprised but pleased, Mom smiled gently at me and said, “I think your dad would like that.”
I handed her the keys and opened the passenger door, while mom walked around to the other side of the van.
“So, uh, how did the…you know…appointment go?” I asked tentatively, as Mom started the van.
“It was good,” Mom replied. “The doctor decided to change up some of his meds, try something new.”
“Oh, okay…that sounds good.”
I wasn't quite sure how to reply so I just stuck with a generic answer. I was out of practice making conversation, not that I had ever been any good at it to begin with.
I turned around to look at Dad to make sure he was okay, and I saw something that just about did me in. There were huge tears welling up in his eyes.
For a second, I thought he was in pain, that something we had done while helping him into the van had hurt him. Never having helped before, I hadn’t really known what I was doing.
I was about to panic and yell for Mom to look, but then I noticed his eye movements. He almost looked like he was watching a tennis match. His eyes were slowly moving back and forth between Mom and me, as if he needed me to understand something, something important. I watched uncomprehendingly until it dawned on me that I was the reason for the tears…it was something I had done.
Reviewing the past few minutes frantically in my mind, trying to figure out what I had done or, more likely in my case, what I hadn’t done that I should have, I drew a blank. What could I have done so wrong while I was helping Mom…what?
That was when it hit me, it wasn’t something I had done wrong that was causing the tears…it was something I had done right for once. I had finally done something for my parents without being asked.
Glancing back at Dad again, and seeing the gentle, loving look in his eyes, I suddenly saw quite a few things in a different light. How stupidly selfish could I be? I did one semi-kind-of-nice thing for my mom, and my dad was eternally grateful. I had made him cry. How sick was that?
How in the world, could they have put up with me for so long, living in my own little world ignoring…no…even worse…going out of my way to make sure they knew I was ignoring everything and everybody but myself.
The difference between me and the helpful teenager from the white van was like night and day.
Selfish…selfish…selfish…I couldn't even find the words to describe how horrible I had been. The most galling part was that my parents didn’t blame me.
They should have.
Maybe not in the beginning, but after I’d had time to assimilate what was happening, I should have been held accountable for my behavior. They loved me, and were hurting for me too much to do anything other than try to make things easier for me.
Suddenly, I could see everything through Dad's eyes. With his personality, that of a giver…a protector…he would have a hard time accepting all of the things other people were doing for him…especially my mom.
He had always been the one to take care of her, to shield her from anything that could possibly hurt her, and he was the reason she was hurting. That had to be killing him. I knew without a doubt that she was the most important person in his life…knew that he would have done anything for her.
And there he was, having to accept all kinds of help…not only from my mom, but from other people.
Besides the caring, selfless devotion of my mother, there was the hard-working, never complaining attitude of my brother, who would have, at a moments notice, dropped out of college and come home to help us if my parents would have let him.
On top of that, there were the kind, generous people at church; our sweet neighbor, Mrs. Murray...the list of wonderful people was unending.
Guess what. I wasn't on it.
No problem accepting anything from me, I wasn’t giving.
With startling clarity, I realized that my dad was not worried or upset about the way I was treating him, his only concern was how my behavior affected my mother. He understood how hard it was for me to see what he had become, and I knew he didn't blame me for feeling the way I did, but it pained him to see how much my behavior had been hurting my mother.
All of that made me realize that I had been blaming my parents for the twist my life had taken, as if it was their fault. Talk about unfair. Instead of helping the situation, I had made it a hundred times worse.
All of that flashed through my mind, and I saw recognition in Dad's eyes that his spoiled-rotten child—my words not his—was finally getting a clue. I saw Dad's face move just a little bit and I knew that if he could he'd be smiling.
With tears in my own eyes, I silently mo
uthed the words: I love you. One long slow blink and I knew Dad was saying “Ditto Kiddo”. That was what he always used to say to me. Whenever I would say, “I love you, Daddy,” he would always reply “Ditto Kiddo”.
I missed hearing that. My dad had never been much of a talker…I guess I inherited that from him…but whenever he had spoken, it was always important.
By that point, I just hoped to make it home before I totally lost it and started bawling. Mom wasn't the only one who hadn't allowed herself to cry over the past few years, and I was afraid once I started I wouldn’t be able to stop.
I decided that looking at Dad was not conducive to dry eyes, but I didn't want Mom to see me crying either. We had just gotten on I75, which was always an accident waiting to happen, and Mom needed all of her concentration to drive.
I shot Dad a teary-eyed apologetic smile then bowed my head to stare down at my hands. I didn't know where else to look. Gazing out of the windows on my side of the van or out the back tended to make me carsick, and my parents were both on the other side of the van so I couldn't very well stare out that side.
I needed time to think. Even though, to an outsider, what just happened might not have looked like much, to me it was actually life changing.
I wasn't sure where to go from there, how to redirect my life, but I finally realized that something had to change; and that something was me.
How did I go from being me to being the teenager from the van who had obviously accepted that life wasn’t fair but somehow managed to find happiness and contentment anyway? I knew it wouldn’t be easy to make that big of a change, but I needed to find a place to start.
Traffic was a little heavier on the way home since it was lunch hour traffic, making the trip a bit longer than usual, so, needing something to concentrate on, I spent the time making a list in my head of things that I could do differently.
1. Help Mom around the house more.
2. Communicate with Dad.
3. Figure out the hydraulic lift.
4. Spend more time at home.
5. Go to church.
6. Try to be friendlier to people in general.
Number 5 was going to be harder than the others were, because I was pretty ticked at God for allowing bad stuff to happen. I had a lot of anger, and I needed somewhere to direct it. God still seemed the most likely candidate for that.
The last one was going to take a lot of work because silent and sullen with an occasional glare thrown in had become a semi-permanent part of my demeanor.
I was not going to be able to go into any of Dad's appointments, but I could try to make them easier for Mom by helping out with more things and by being supportive. I thought of how that teenage girl, without saying anything, had been able to let her parents know that she was there to do whatever they needed her to do, even if it meant just being there for them emotionally.
She hadn’t even drawn attention to the fact that she had done something amazing and that, without her, the young girl would have been without oxygen. I decided that as soon as we got home, after I helped Mom as much as I could with Dad, I would go write my list down, and perhaps add some specifics.
Mom never talked when she was driving in major traffic, which was pretty much all the time in the DFW area, and I was certain that Dad understood why I only glanced up at him every once in a while. I still wanted to be able to check on him to make sure he was okay, but I had a lot of thinking to do, and didn't want to have to deal with any more tears; mine or his.
By the time we arrived at home, I was more under control.
I helped Mom unload Dad and get him into the house. Instead of immediately running upstairs to my room as I usually did, I stayed downstairs and fixed sandwiches for lunch while Mom took Dad into the bedroom to take care of some ‘things’.
I had to draw the line somewhere. It was hard enough fighting my natural instinct, which was to escape, run as far and fast as possible, there was no way I would ever be able to help with those ‘things’.
Hearing the doorbell, Mom called out from the bedroom “CeeCee, could you let Frank in please?”
“Okay,” I answered willingly…that was something I could do.
Frank was huge; there was no other word for it. I had heard Mom tell Mrs. Murray one time that Frank was a former pro football defensive lineman—I remembered feeling sorry for any quarterback unfortunate enough to have to face him for four quarters—but injuries had forced him to quit after a couple of years.
My mind boggled trying to imagine anyone big or tough enough to take him out of the game. Ironically, he was one of the nicest men I had ever met. There was always a grin lighting up his dark face, and he was one of the few people who could actually make me want to smile.
“How’s Coach doin’ today?” he asked as I stepped back allowing him to enter.
Once he found out that Dad had played UT football in his college days and had coached for years, he had begun respectfully addressing him as Coach.
If he was surprised that the hermit from the attic had answered the door, he hid it well.
“He had an appointment today,” I replied. “Mom said they were going to try some different meds. They’re in the bedroom, you can go on in.”
“Thanks,” he grinned at me and I grinned back in spite of myself.
I heard him knock and enter the bedroom, beginning his customary running monologue on the future possibilities of the different college and pro football teams by saying, “Hey Coach, did you hear the latest news about that stupid trade the Cowboys made?”
Frank shut the door and his voice became a constant humming noise. Every once in a while there was silence and Frank would then let out a roar of laughter. A few minutes later, Mom came out of the bedroom. She looked at me in surprise.
“I thought maybe you would be hungry, so I fixed some chicken salad sandwiches,” I explained a little embarrassed.
Mom didn’t reply…just walked over, hugged me, and sat down to eat.
After a bit, she seemed to recoup her energy and began chatting about nothing in particular: the weather, school, Felicia, whatever popped into her mind. She apparently needed an outlet, so I nodded and murmured appropriate responses occasionally.
Eventually, Frank opened the bedroom door and whispered, “He’s out like a light,” to Mom. “Gotta remember that new joke he tole me; the guys’ll love that one.”
She smiled and, getting up, walked him to the front door. I could hear them talking in low tones, but couldn’t make out what they were saying.
I put the dirty dishes in the dishwasher and snuck out the back door. That was all I could handle for one day. Everything was going to be harder than I realized, but I knew I had to make an effort to rejoin the family. I couldn’t continue hiding from life, no matter how much I wanted to do just that.