Susan Shultz's Blog, page 11

What We Give

What we are worth is not in what we take

For what we’ve taken leaves another less.

If we have caused another to forsake

We must return that which makes us blessed.

We cannot be judged by that which we own

And what the world has come to view as worth-

The richest often find themselves alone

For nothing grows that’s not been sown in earth.

The truest worth is only what we give:

The joy and laughter, comfort in our arms.

What we have done to help another live-

The fire deep within that gives us warmth.

Today you give a gift that’s beyond measure,

Your worth is in your love promised forever.

Birthday

This birthday brings no joy.

I kneel before this stone.

Sorrow fills my heart.

I must celebrate alone.

Could I make your wish,

I’d close my eyes so tight.

No candles would I blow,

If yours could only light.

No presents wrapped in silken bows —

One gift have I to give

To you, dear friend, a promise —

In me, you’ll always live.

Loretta

For Lindsay

The cold rain fell on my windshield during the last hours I can remember before I met Loretta.

I sped down the New Jersey Turnpike on a Sunday morning in January, and everything was grey. Nothing says bleak like a cloudy winter morning on the New Jersey Turnpike. My car was packed with most of the clothing I owned, which wasn’t much. I left some things at my mother’s house before heading to my new job – caretaker and companion to a terminally ill patient.

That would be Loretta.

I wasn’t medically trained. Just there to read to her, spend time with her, bathe her, and generally care for her.

Not that she would likely appreciate any of it, because Loretta had been in a coma for six months. Although many believe coma patients can sense what’s going around them.

Loretta and I were the same age. That was where our common ground ended.

I grew up in a suburb of New York City. Middle class, large family. Strict Catholic upbringing and all-girl Catholic high school. I was a virgin until I was 20, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen cocaine outside of the movies.

Loretta grew up as the only child of a wealthy family in New Canaan, Connecticut. After leading a rather troubled, drug fueled middle school and high school career, Loretta’s parents paid off an exclusive small college in upper New England to take her despite her poor academic record.

She lasted a week before overdosing the first time. After her first year, Loretta was not welcomed back to college. She returned to New Canaan and lived a whirlwind social life for the next few years, adding a few arrests to her resume, including a DUI and marijuana possession.

Finally, she overdosed on a bad combination of drugs and collapsed at a bar in South Norwalk. She was resuscitated, but remained in a coma. That was six months ago. Over the last month, Loretta’s health took a turn for the worse, and the doctors gave her another two months, tops.

Loretta was 25.

The Merritt Parkway was a ghost town and I made great time getting to my exit.

A few more turns and I was driving down the longest driveway I’d ever seen, that ended at the biggest house I’d ever seen.

It was ominous and brick, imposing over me against the grey sky . The rain still continued to fall. I wished it would turn into snow. What a difference in dreariness cold rain makes, dripping on you like cold tears standing before a grave, standing before the inevitable.

I checked my face in the mirror. My plain brown hair was pulled back into a low ponytail. I adjusted my glasses. I was never a stunning girl. Not like Loretta I’m sure had been before she gave it up for drugs – one of her many sacrifices.

I suddenly felt very inadequate in my Gap dress and Nine West boots circa five years ago. I grabbed my bags and walked up the steps to the large wooden double doors, and rang the bell.

A middle-aged woman answered the door, drying her hands with a towel.

“You must be Ms. Sibley,” the woman said, without a hint of pleasantries.

“Yes, but please call me Melissa,” I said.

“I am Mrs. Young. I take care of the house. Please come in. They’re waiting for you,” she said.

Her tone matched the somberness of the day, as I dropped my bags in the hallway and hoped I didn’t look too messy. I probably would have felt informal in a ball gown in this house. Everything was pristine, marble, artwork, and glass. Everything was money.

Including Loretta’s mother. She was in her late 50’s, but still stunning. Graying blond hair swept back to the nape of her neck, a pale pink sweater over her white blouse, and neatly pressed black pants.

“Hello Ms. Sibley,” she said.

“Welcome to New Canaan,” Loretta’s mother said, hand extended.

“It’s Melissa, please, and thank you,” I said, shaking her hand timidly.

“Your room is set up. You will be next to Loretta’s room with an adjoining door. I thought that would be best for your duties. And there’s no issue with privacy given Loretta’s… condition,” she said.

“That will be fine,” I said.

“Why don’t we introduce you to Loretta, and show you to your room,” Loretta’s mother said.

I followed her to the long staircase and we walked up together.

“This house is really too large for us,” she said.

“Especially since Loretta’s father died a few months ago,” Loretta’s mother said.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” I said.

“Don’t be. It was better for him to die than to deal with Loretta anymore. She killed him, you see,” Loretta’s mother said. Her voice was emotionless.

I didn’t know what to say to that. We had reached the second floor.

“She didn’t shoot him or stab him. But it would have been kinder if she had. Rather than slowly killing him with her reckless, embarrassing and selfish behavior all her life,” she said.

We had reached a closed door, and Loretta’s mother opened it.

“Here is your room,” she said.

My bags were already on the floor. It was a generously sized room, a neat queen sized bed with simple linens. It was much larger than my room at home. It looked comfortable.

“I think you will be fine in here. Let me know if you have any preferences. You have your own bathroom just off to the left,” Loretta’s mother said.

“And here,” she said, opening another door, “is Loretta’s room.”

The first thing I noticed was her labored breathing.

Then I saw her on the bed. I couldn’t believe this yellowed, skeletal shell of a human being was a girl my age.

“This is Loretta,” her mother said.

“I don’t like spending time in here, so I’ll leave you two to get acquainted. The doctor will be up shortly to go over what’s expected of you,” she said.

And she was gone.

I sat in silence on a chair at in the corner of the room, watching her. She seemed motionless other than her labored breathing. Her room had been stripped of personality. The remnants of poster hangings and photos on the walls were evidence there used to be pieces of Loretta there.

“Hello, Loretta,” I whispered softly.

After a while, it seemed pointless to sit there, so I went back into my room and started to unpack.

Her ragged breathing still was audible from her room. I thought I’d probably never get used to it. It wasn’t like I could close the door or put on headphones to drown her out. I was there to take care of her, after all.

The housekeeper brought me some extra towels for my bathroom and told me dinner would be at 6. I wondered how I was supposed to dress for dinner. Mrs. Young wasn’t very forthcoming, so I didn’t bother asking. I thought I’d just keep on what I was wearing and see how my first night went.

Loretta’s house was not a fun one so far.

I finished putting my clothes away in the neat dresser, put some of my books in the bookshelf and my bathroom stuff in there.

I was done.

I stared at the open door between my room and Loretta’s room, and started to feel uneasy about it. It looked like an open mouth all of a sudden – especially with that breathing sound.

“Awful sound, isn’t it?” a voice from my doorway said.

I jumped.

It was Loretta’s mother.

“It is,” I agreed, still looking at the door.

“It sounds painful. How does she get any rest?” I said.

“She doesn’t. She’s not really sleeping, you know,” Loretta’s mother said.

“She’s just physically shut down. Mentally, she could be totally aware. And in fact,” Loretta’s mother said.

“In fact, I hope she is,” she said.

“As my mother always said,” Loretta’s mother said, “there is no rest for the wicked.”

And with that, she left.

Poor Loretta, I thought. I hope she can’t hear that.

Thinking about mothers, I realized I hadn’t called mine to tell her I had arrived.

Natalie, my mother, was quite the worrier. She was the polar opposite of Loretta’s mother, and with each moment I spent at the house in New Canaan, I grew more and more grateful for what I had and had not growing up in New York.

“Missy?” my mother said.

“Yes Mom! I’m here. No traffic. No problems with the car. I’m all settled in. Seem like nice people,” I said, anticipating all of Natalie’s questions.

“That’s good, honey. Did you eat anything yet?” she said.

Oops. Missed one.

“Not yet, but dinner should be soon,” I said. As I was talking to her, Mrs. Young brought me a cup of tea set up on a small tray.

“And the housekeeper just set me up with a nice cup of tea,” I said, smiling at her. Maybe Mrs. Young wasn’t that bad after all.

That made my mother happy. It was something she would have done.

I said my goodbyes and opened my laptop. I was considering starting a blog about the experience. I thought it might be interesting later.

The tea was hot and I was enjoying it. It was the first warmth I had found in the somber household.

I guess I was more worn out from the morning drive and the day so far than I thought, because I drifted off to sleep after the cup of tea, to be woken by Mrs. Young knocking to let me know dinner was in 20 minutes.

Splashing water on my face to wake up, I checked my image in the mirror. It was almost as if I had lost all color to match the rest of the house.

The dinner table, as expected, was set impeccably. Overdone, in my view, for the two of us.

But I guessed Loretta’s mother set the table that magnificently for herself every night. She wouldn’t have it any other way, I’d imagine.

I was served my dinner, some sort of chicken and vegetables, which smelled delicious, just as Loretta’s mother asked me, “So, how are you enjoying your job so far?”

“Well, I haven’t done much yet, but so far, it is fine. The house is beautiful. Everyone seems nice,” I said.

Loretta’s mother asked me about my background in New York. My family. Very safe, peripheral discussion, floating just above the earth without touching ground.

Fine with me.

Then she said, “So, I’d imagine you think I’m rather cold. Cruel. About my daughter.”

I swallowed something and stammered, “Excuse me?”

“Well, you’ve gone on about your family’s closeness, its warmth. Coming here, from what I have said about my daughter, I’d think you’d view me as heartless,” Loretta’s mother said.

“No, I don’t. What I think is I am not in your shoes, and I don’t know the whole story,” I said, putting my fork down.

“That you do not. And you hopefully never will. But let me assure you that Loretta’s life and actions have killed any motherly instinct in me toward her. And now,” she said.

She took a sip of wine.

“Now, I am simply waiting for her to die,” Loretta’s mother said.

I closed my eyes in bed later, thinking of those words.

Waiting for her to die.

In the quiet, Loretta’s labored breathing was magnified. I had a phone nearby to call 911, a bell to ring in alarm, the doctor’s number on speed dial.

And I wondered why, when it seemed all her mother wanted was it to be over.

I finally fell asleep, restlessly.

I awoke in the night, startled, listening.

Loretta’s breathing was louder than ever.

Rasping, in and out.

It must have been the dark, or my unease, but it sounded strange.

In the middle of the night, it sounded like a word.

“Hiisissss…..ssssssseeee”

“Missssss….sssssy”

“Misssss…..ssssyy”

I tried not to hear it that way. But once my brain processed it, I couldn’t hear anything else but the sound of her breathing my name, awfully, ragged.

It took a long time to fall asleep again after that.

After the first night, I started to get adjusted. I still wasn’t comfortable and the house was cold and miserable. There was no other way to describe it.

When I had a few hours off I’d walk into the quaint town center of New Canaan and get a cup of coffee, get some books at the library, do a little shopping for New England-y things to bring back for my mother.

I’d do a little shopping to find some brighter colors to wear in Loretta’s house, but all seemed to bleed of color once I crossed the threshold. Listening to her breathing as I put away my small purchases, I started to understand how Loretta’s mother felt.

I wanted this job to be over.

I wanted Loretta to die already.

It sounds terrible to say, but I was not enjoying my job, yet I felt wrong leaving. I felt compelled to see it through. As a caregiver, I never wanted to wish a patient dead.

Yet here I was, reading some Shakespeare sonnets to her, waiting for her rasping breathing to stop. Looking forward to it. At night, I still swore she was breathing my name. Her breathing sounded different. It was impossible of course. But still, I could hear it.

“Misssss….ssssssy”

“Misssss….sssy”

I even started to get through her baths by imagining shoving her head under the water’s surface until she was dead. Until we all were free.

One Monday morning, I was changing some of Loretta’s linens, moving her lifeless body from side to side, when I suddenly felt a death grip on my wrist.

Her bony fingers clamped tightly on me, and I tell you – I knew her eyes were open.

I knew her eyes were open before I looked at her face. Her bloodshot blue eyes fixed on me. Her rotted mouth open.

I screamed then.

“Let go of me!” I screamed, yanking my hand away, and Loretta fell back to the bed, her body lifeless once more, her eyes closed. Her rasping resumed.

My shaking hands were over my mouth, my heart was racing as I collapsed into one of the chairs in Loretta’s room.

I heard quick steps come down the hall.

“What is it, Melissa?” Loretta’s mother said.

“She…she…,” I said.

I embarrassingly felt tears form in my eyes.

“She..sat up. She opened her eyes, and grabbed my wrist!” I said.

“Oh, that is just a reflex,” Loretta’s mother dismissed.

“It WASN’T a reflex,” I snapped back. The tension of the house was close to breaking me.

“She looked at me!” I said.

“Impossible. I realize you are startled, but this happens sometimes,” Loretta’s mother said.

“Well, it would have been nice if someone had warned me,” I said.

“I’m sorry you were frightened, Melissa. I’ll have Mrs. Young come up with a cup of tea for you and she can finish the linens. Why don’t you go sit down in your room for a bit,” she said.

It was the first kindness I’d seen from her. And I was relieved, because the last thing I wanted to do was touch that bed again.

The tea helped soothe my nerves once my hand stopped shaking enough to drink it.

Later that night, after dinner, I once again tried to drown out my name from Loretta’s room.

As I drifted off, the last thing I thought was that Loretta’s mother was wrong. Loretta saw me. She looked at me. I saw the knowledge. The awareness in her eyes.

And there was one more thing there, I realized.

Hate.

Loretta continued to live her rattled, lifeless existence. I marked time until I could leave this place.

I slept poorly every night, often startled out of sleep by a random noise from Loretta’s room.

One night, I awoke more frightened than ever. Not from the sounds. But the silence.

I reached for the light, and stopped short.

There was a shadowy form standing in the doorway between my room and Loretta’s.

I didn’t breath for a minute. Waiting. Waiting. My hand on the light. Too terrified to turn it on. Frozen.

Quietly, I heard a sound.

“Missss….ssssyyy.”

I screamed and ran from the room. The shadowy shape made no move to stop me.

“Mrs. Young, Mrs. Young!” I called, running down the hall.

She came to the door in her robe, her hair messy from sleep, and her glasses crooked.

“What is it? What’s happened?” she said.

Loretta’s mother also came down the hall.

“Loretta…she’s out of bed…she’s standing up,” I said.

We walked back to our adjoining rooms, and Loretta was back in bed, breathing in rib-cage rattle rhythm.

“I swear. I swear she was up,” I said.

“I believe you,” Loretta’s mother said.

“Many years ago, before this happened, Loretta was a horrible sleep-walker,” her mother said.

“Her father and I would wake up and she’d be sitting at the foot of our bed, talking nonsense, or sometimes coherent sentences, angry statements, telling us she hated us,” Loretta’s mother said.

“And when we turned on the light, it was obvious her eyes were unfocused, still asleep,” she said.

“Perhaps, now, as her death looms closer, that habit has returned,” she said.

Great, I thought. As if this wasn’t an awful enough job.

“Listen,” I started.

“This isn’t the type of situation I signed up for. I’m starting to think…” I said.

Loretta’s mother stopped me.

“Please, Melissa. Give us a few more days. It is almost over,” she said quietly.

“I feel it,” she said.

The next morning, exhausted from a restless night of sleep, I made a new set up for our rooms. We got a baby monitor so I could listen, but locked the adjoining door.

That night, I felt much more comfortable sleeping. Though I could still hear her rasping my name, as she always did at night, through the crackling speaker.

Once again, I awoke with a sense of unease. I heard…sounds…coming from the monitor. Shuffling. Raspy breathing.

Then another sound.

It took me a minute to identify it, but once I did, much like making out my name in her breathing, I couldn’t un-know it.

It was the sound of Loretta’s IV cart being rolled across the floor. I could hear the wheels creak.

My hands gripped the blanket tightly. My heart pounded. Waiting. I couldn’t breathe.

“Misss…..ssssy,” she breathed.

And then the doorknob.

I could see her bony, yellowed hand in my mind, on the other side of the door.

The doorknob shaking and twisting against the lock.

“Open the doooor,” she hissed.

It was the first time she’d ever said anyting other than my name. I thought about what Loretta’s mother said about her speaking in her sleep.

“Misssy,” she said. Less raspy. More speaking.

“I’m dyyyying, Missy,” she said.

My hands trembled. I was frozen. I should have called someone. But I did not.

I imagined her skeletal form slumped toward the door. Her ragged blondish grey hair hanging limp. Her rotted mouth forming the words.

“I’m dying,” she hissed through the monitor.

“I know you can hear me,” came her poisonous voice.

“I’m dying, and I know you will be glad,” she whispered.

“You will be happy when I’m dead. So will my mother,” she whispered.

“But when I’m dead, I’ll still….,” she took a deep, rasping, rattling breath.

“I’ll still hate you,” she said.

Each word lit up the monitor like a warning.

“I’ll…still…,” again, the breathing.

“I’ll still hate allllll of you….,” Loretta said.

And I believed her. More sincere words have never been spoken.

The hand on the doorknob twisted once more, and was silent.

I did not sleep that night.

It was only at the first light of day that I was brave enough to move. Because, sometime between 4 and 5 a.m., it was silent on the monitor.

The raspy breathing stopped.

I went to get Mrs. Young, and she and I checked Loretta’s room, and then went to tell Loretta’s mother.

I stayed one more night to help prepare for the services, and fell asleep quickly, exhausted from the ordeal of the last few nights.

Sleeping in the blessed silence.

Silence.

But something woke me.

I’d left the monitor on, and I heard a door close quietly in the other room.

At first, I convinced myself it was Loretta’s mother, perhaps trying to finally mourn in her daughter in peace. Mourn what they never had.

I thought those peaceful thoughts and tried to fall back to sleep.

Until my doorknob started to twist and rattle again.

But this time, there was no breathing coming through the monitor, the silence more terrifying than that death rattle.

I screamed then, and Mrs. Young and Loretta’s mother came running.

I was till wrapped in bed sheets and so terrified I could do nothing but point at the doorknob.

My shaking hand just pointed.

“It’s all right,” Mrs. Young said.

“Melissa, it was just a dream,” she said.

Loretta’s mother nodded.

“Yes, just a dream,” she said. But no one offered to check the room, and Loretta’s mother did not mean what she said.

I did not sleep the few remaining hours of the night. Instead, I used the time to pack up my room and prepare to leave that damned house of cold, misery and hate.

By 7 a.m., my car was packed and ready.

I hugged Mrs. Young, who’d turned out to be the warmest thing I’d found in New Canaan.

And then said good-bye to Loretta’s mother.

To my surprise, she hugged me, and when she pulled away, she had tears in her eyes.

“Thank you for all you have done here to make our lives better through this difficult time, Melissa,” she said.

“I am sorry for what you’ve gone through here. I wish I could explain more. But perhaps if Loretta had been a little more like you, or I’d been a little more like your mother, things here would have been different,” she said.

“But long ago, I stopped blaming myself for Loretta, Melissa. Some children are just born the way they are. Just full of hate. Wicked,” Loretta’s mother said.

As I pulled out of that driveway and headed for the Merritt Parkway, I thought about that.

Are there actual ghosts that are spirits not at rest? Or are those afterlife experiences just the strong emotions felt by the dead that linger…love, sadness… and hate?

I’d seen movies and read stories that talk about all different theories that explore those theories, but never experienced it in my life.

By the time I’d pulled into my driveway back in New York City, back to the house a quarter of the size of the one in New Canaan, with aluminum siding instead of brick, and a welcoming glow coming from the windows, a warmth I’d been missing, I had drawn no conclusions on the truth about the afterlife.

The truth about ghosts. And how long a black hatred can live beyond death.

But as I prepared for bed that night, back in my old, cozy room, I knew I’d learned two things after meeting Loretta.

I’d never go to sleep without locking my door again.

Because there’s no rest for the wicked.

The End.

The Morning After — response to W.B. Yeats ‘A Drinking Song’

W.B. Yeats’ A Drinking Song:

Wine comes in at the mouth

and loves  come in at the eye

That’s all we know for truth,

Before we grow old and die.

I lift the glass to my mouth,

I look at you, and sigh.

My response:

The Morning After

Wine’s taste tingles on the tongue

and love’s lingers in the mind;

Both sweeter when you’re young

and quickly left behind —

Now I’m older, and hungover —

From which, I can’t decide.

The Muse’s Bitch

“Kiss of the Muse” – Paul Cezanne

The muse’s bitch, she wipes her face

and pounds her pain in letter keys

Her work emerges, groans and gripes

As she reports of her disease

The muse’s slave, another day

With shit her only compensation

If his disdain was worth a dime

She’d live in wealth from her frustration

The muse’s fool, she lacks a spine

Resolved to take no more and then

When facing battle, backs away

To yield to him once and again

The muse’s bitch, she lives to serve

And what she gives, you don’t deserve

The muse’s heart, it’s buried deep

The joy, the beauty long-forgotten

See, now, what work that you inspire,

Acidic bile, and fruit that’s rotten