Barbara's Death - 1976: Memories and Reflections

By Lewis M.K. Long. PH.D.

In the late summer of 1975, Barbara Long highschool teacher, mother of four children, political activist, and the wife of psychologist Lewis Long, showed the first signs of an illness (cancer of the brain) that would lead to her death seven months later in the early spring of 1976. Barbaras Death-1976 is the story of Lewis Longs painful journey through those seven months and the weeks immediately thereafter. The authors descriptions of the events of that journey, and his responses, sometimes irrational, to the many things he faced are etched with a clarity, insight, and awareness born from years of experience as a husband, a father, a teacher, and a psychologist. Clearly Dr. Long was supported greatly by his own convictions and strengths, but he was buttressed even more strongly by the loving support and care he received from relatives, friends, co-workers, neighbors, and members of his church. After the death of Barbara (and after the eerily similar death of his second wife, Alice, also from brain cancer), Dr. Long found himself far more aware of the sufferings of his fellow human beings, and much more willing to respond to and help those in need.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Aug 5, 2011
• ISBN: 9781463443566

Lewis M.K. Long. PH.D.

Lewis Long is a senior psychologist, who, with his wife Barbara and their four children, first came to the Washington, D.C. area in 1963. His rich and varied professional life has included stints at the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Maryland and at St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington, D.C., together with a small, ongoing private practice. Dr. Long also worked for VISTA, Teacher Corps, the Peace Corps, and the D.C. Prison System. In his private life, Dr. Long has had a wide range of interests, including politics, sports, cards (especially poker), jogging (he has run several marathons, and still jogs occasionally and goes to the gym), theology, and ever increasingly, spirituality. The first ten years of his life (he is the fourth of five children born to American parents) were spent in Brazil, and he is a member of what has now become a very large extended family, with relatives living in various parts of the world. He helped to raise four children, and has lost two wives to brain cancer. Dr. Long is currently working on another book, "Bugiganga," which is the story of a magical country on the west coast of Africa.

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© 2011 Lewis M.K. Long, Ph.D. All Rights Reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 07/21/2011

ISBN: 978-1-4634-4354-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4634-4356-6 (ebk)

Printed in the United States of America

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DEDICATED

TO

HELEN AND MERRITT

DIETTERICH

PARENTS OF

BARBARA

PAUL

PHILLIP

Contents

Chapter One

Summer, 1975

Chapter Two

Fall, 1975

Chapter 3

Living with Steve

Chapter Four

The Painful Months

Chapter Five

Shall I Tell Mark?

Chapter Six

The Days That Followed

Chapter Seven

Susan and the Sewing Machine

Chapter Eight

Barb’s Legacy and Barb’s Gifts

Chapter Nine

Some Years Later

Chapter Ten

2010

Appendix A:

Appendix B:

Appendix C:

Dream Poem

PREAMBLE

At the suggestion of my sister, Edith Schisler, I hurriedly wrote, over three decades ago, the manuscript which is now the small book you are about to read. What you will read is what I wrote back then. Essentially, there has been no editing, and my often irrational and shameful behaviors are there for you to read. Chapter Nine was added a few years ago, and Chapter Ten was added in 2010, in an effort to bring the manuscript up to date.

Chapter One

Summer, 1975

Damn David! Here we are taking the first family photo in years and he is not cooperating, and this after my asking each family member to reserve time for this special evening. David is not only making it difficult for the photographer, but claiming he couldn’t wait much longer because of commitments to friends for the evening. And it was not even 8 p.m.! So as we were taking photos…. Damn David.

Photos have always meant a great deal to me. I spent the first ten years of my life in Porto Alegre, Brazil, where my father served as an International Y.M.C.A. Secretary, and photos were an important way of relaying information about changing images back and forth with our American relatives in the U.S. This pictorial family history meant something special to me, and to Barbara as well, and we had found someone special — Freddie Lieberman — who would come to our house and take pictures.

Freddie had just finished his collegiate program in photography at Southern Illinois University and was moving to Washington, D.C. to start his career. His brother Maury, one of my co-workers at the National Institute of Mental Health, told me Freddie had all the right equipment, was eager for work, and would come to my house to take pictures.

So one weekday evening in June, 1975, we had an early dinner and were ready for Freddie. Freddie and Maury arrived with loads of equipment. The lights and camera were set up in the living room, and almost immediately the temperature went up with the lights of the photo equipment as well as the moods of some of the participants.

This was Freddie’s first paid professional work in Washington, and he was both uneasy as a new professional and untrained on how to handle four robust young people, ages 15 to 20, our three sons and one daughter. First there was the energy, independence, and sibling interactions of the four Long children — Mark, Susan, David, and Steve. Secondly, David and Susan, the two middle ones, would not want to be photographed next to each other. Then Mark, the eldest, was the sneaky one in photos, and his siblings were reminding him of his previous behavior in earlier family photo shoots. Clearly there was some concern amongst his younger brothers and sister about what he would be up to today. Steve, the youngest, was being rather compliant to my forceful words to the children, but he was also making side remarks to Mark, encouraging him to try something and wait and see what Dad will do.

Barbara, in such circumstances, was less effective in maintaining order than I was. As a mother, she had been a great organizer and stimulator of the children while they were young, much more patient, subtle, and thoughtful than I was in providing them with purpose and direction needed during those growing years when children thrive on structure and activities to organize their time, thoughts and lives. During those earlier years Barbara was the more involved, strong, and creative parent. As the years progressed, however, and the children became very verbal and started moving outside of our house, Barbara felt less effective. It was at this time that I became the strong parent in words, involvement, and action.

As parents of four closely spaced and planned children, Barbara and I worked quite well as a team. We discussed and organized family outings and vacations together. We rejoiced in the small and large steps our children took. We shared common goals, attitudes, and interests between ourselves as well as for our children. We enjoyed our children and readily told everyone about them. We each had parents who enjoyed hearing about their grandchildren. For Barbara’s parents, Mark was their first grandchild and Susan their first granddaughter, and they had made special trips to see them in Boston. Grandmother Helen Dietterich, in fact, had come to Cambridge both in 1954 and 1955 to be with Barbara during those important first days after Mark and Susan had arrived in this world.

But tonight in June, 1975, both Barbara and I were fuming, Barbara in her quiet way and I in strong and loud words. David had his own agenda, and wanted to leave to be with his friends—all with long hair, of course. We finally managed to take some formal photos in the living room and some informal ones in the bedroom. Freddie, with all of his hot lamps and patience, was able to take enough shots so that we had both formal and informal poses, the latter to use for a Christmas card and the former for the Long family photo archives.

But Damn David! The photo session did take longer than expected with all the moving of equipment, but David’s lack of cooperation made it last longer still. Why did he cause so much grief? He wasn’t an easy teenager to handle; he had his own ideas and his long-haired friends. Barbara could no longer guide him, and often times I found it hard to inspire him. Books did not turn him on, church activities touched him only peripherally, and there seemed to be but a few ways we could still be in touch with him and his life. David had energy, moved fast, and was often on the banks of the Potomac, a block away, fishing. Or he was at the community pool. Or working on mini-motorized bikes his friends brought for him to fix.

As a youngster, David had been an easy child to handle. He had a chubby face, and his countenance was usually graced with a smile. Our neighbors in Little Rock loved having him about because he was jovial, playful, and kind to his playmates. Deedee Smith often phoned to see if she could borrow David to come and be with her son, her fifth child and only boy. But now, as a teenager, David was no longer round and compliant. He was a slender, six-foot plus teenager with his own mind; he knew what he wanted and didn’t mind expressing his viewpoints. His emotions were also quite open, and he could readily become angry and just as readily be happy again. How to handle such a free and unique spirit?

Part of the problem of being liberal parents and wanting your children to grow up to be independent and creative is that your wish might come true. Barbara and I often discussed and disagreed on the subtle points of how much room you give healthy and robust children to express themselves — to you as parents, to people in the community at large, to neighbors, and to friends. Our parental work had helped create two rather unique and independent children, Susan and David, who fulfilled our wishes of being very independent and, in the process, compounded our daily administrative chores in running a suburban household where six people tried to co-exist in some order and harmony. Mark and Steve were good children; why couldn’t Susan and David be like them?

It wasn’t always easy trying to defend David with his grandparents or even with Barbara. It seemed like an endless struggle, for example, between Barbara and David over his long hair. For many parents during the mid-70’s, long hair was associated with drugs and anti-social behavior. Barbara did not like David’s long hair and received a great deal of support from many people in her desire that David should keep it shorter. I would have liked to have seen his hair shorter also, but I felt stressing his hair over other daily issues was a fruitless endeavor and one that went against our ideas of allowing our children to make decisions in their own lives. David, in turn, kept pointing out to his mother that she didn’t tell his Dad how to cut his hair, so why should she demand that he (David) cut his? The issue had become one involving so much passion, I thought that we were no longer looking at David, only his hair. Behind closed doors one day, Barbara and I spent the last of many hours on David’s hair. I thought it pointless to continue to hassle David about his hair, because it would only further separate us from him. In an amicable fashion, Barbara and I agreed to disagree about his hair, and to no longer bug him about its length. It was a beautiful head of hair, and David kept it clean and combed. Someday, I was sure, when the fashions changed and his peers were not as influential in his life, he would be setting his own standard about his hair. But right now it was important to keep relating to him about his present plans and visions for his future. Bugging him about his hair would not help us in staying close to him. Also, in three months he would be off to college and hopefully that experience would add values, friends, skills and visions for his own life. It would be best for all of us to