BARE CUPBOARDS TO VENICE: A story of reaching for Heaven

By Jane Stowe

Did you grow up believing in fairy tales of youth suggesting that you could have a "happily ever after" life story? Or maybe your experience was more along the line of someone telling you that you would have a wonderful life if you just (fill in the blank). Most people will say that disappointment in life is a common experience that we all share. Maybe it wouldn't really surprise you at all to find out that life is meant to be a test of endurance, filled with trials and tribulations that are specifically designed by a loving God meant for your benefit. Even so, there will be times when you will trip and fall just skinning your knees, while at other times, you may lunge straightforward into a dark abyss.

As someone who passionately believes that we all have a story to tell, Jane Stowe offers spiritual insight gained from her passage down a road of breathtaking brokenness into a life of gratitude. She carries the reader from her early years to develop a story that weaves excruciatingly through innocence, profound loss, confusion, and her own personal failures toward a heart-wrenching acceptance that all we can ultimately control is not what happens to us as much as how we respond to what happens to us.

Her desire is that you will see within these pages that her spiritual journey was assuredly blessed by God's grace and His love and that we can have hope that a happy ending is available to all. However, she also acknowledges that refresher courses may be required from time to time. Jane believes there are no coincidences in life, and perhaps even finding this book in your hands may have been assisted by divine providence.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Apr 23, 2024
• ISBN: 9798891305328

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BARE CUPBOARDS TO VENICE

A story of reaching for Heaven

Jane Stowe

ISBN 979-8-89130-531-1 (paperback)

ISBN 979-8-89130-532-8 (digital)

Copyright © 2024 by Jane Stowe

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Preface

Introduction

Part 1

Fruit Bowling

Beginnings

The Bishop

Life Elevated

Pure Michigan

Humble Bums

Green Mountain State

Eyes Wide Open

Ties that Bind

More Sharp Than Flat

Just Breath Through It

Answered Prayers

Changes of the Heart

Falling Down

The Inevitable

Part 2

Demons and Desires

Lost

You Can't Make It Up

Cut to the Quick

The Doghouse

Death by a Thousand Cuts

Monkey in the Middle

Well, I Had the Beamer

Fields of Muck and Stink

Something Wicked This Way Came

Liberation

Never-Never Land

Winning the War

Part 3

White Lace and Promises

Yours, Mine, and Ours

A Tale of Two Homes

A Life of Abundance

Floating through Enchantment

Epilogue

Some Final Thoughts—Look Up!

The Invitation

About the Author

Acknowledgments

My husband Dave, for without who's enduring love, courage, and support, I wouldn't have been able to find genuine happiness. I am also thankful for all he has sacrificed, allowing me the time and the solitude to write this book. I will not need or wish for any other partner for the rest of this exquisite journey called life.

My children, for coming home, for your forgiveness and teaching me what truly matters more than anything else in life: the sacred gift of motherhood and family. Your mere existence sustained me through the worst of my trials. You each have taught me so much about love, joy, patience, perseverance, and the necessity for prayer.

My parents for their love, sacrifice, and devotion to our family and for without whose generosity, I would not have been able to be at the place where I found my inspiration. I am so very grateful to have been blessed with an extraordinary family unit. I have been impossibly sustained through every member in this family at different times throughout my life. To have a family rooted deep in spiritual strength is truly a great blessing and, I might add, kind of a miracle!

To my siblings for their love, patience, and forgiveness toward me for being such a brat when we were growing up.

And finally, most importantly, to our loving and merciful God and Christ Jesus, who work through all of our brokenness with inconceivable patience.

Preface

I know many people, if not most people, don't like to write their personal or private thoughts and feelings down on paper. Chances are pretty good if you were to ask someone, they would say it's too risky. However, it has been said that it's cathartic to write down thoughts and feelings as long as no one ever sees it. My own husband, not my husband at the time, once pleaded with me to burn my journals. I took his concerns to heart, ceremoniously burning one of them. I felt regretful after I had done it, so I didn't burn any more of them. Thankfully, I think. My internal jury is still out on that as to whether it was necessary, and debate on the issue continues to simmer in my consciousness thought quite often. I may decide to shred most of my journals when I am done. I am not sure that I wish to preserve some of the thoughts that I held beyond the careful selection made for this book. Maybe the general consensus on the exposure of written thoughts come from the old days, the era before the onset of social media. Prior to these past two generations, people did not like to talk about their personal problems and illnesses. Perhaps the world was more tolerable before these current days where everyone was a victim of something or other and outwardly wears whatever that is as a badge of honor or courage. Social media has drastically changed that old-fashioned idea. With the invention of social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, we are now subjected to all thoughts, all opinions, all the time. But with this has also come many stories of regret, lives ruined by a momentary lapse in judgment posted on social media. One may be right to be hesitant. I know that I have gone through spells where I had to back off the idea that my views matter to the general public.

All that being said, it was somehow in my genes to write about my little world. My three siblings did not feel the need to do that, so I must have gotten that special gene. Or maybe it was because I had a very small, little world. I was a quiet kid, a goody-goody as they used to say. It wasn't that I didn't make an effort toward creating a ruckus or two in the family from time to time. I admit I was a bit of a tattletale which never went over well with my siblings. As a matter of fact, one of my brothers, who was in high school at the time, declared war on me when I was nineteen, and I am sure that I deserved that. I am happy to say thought that it was fairly short-lived until we grew up and became friends again.

During all of my school years, if I wasn't playing a sport of some kind when school was out for the day, I could be found in my room writing pen-pal letters and diaries. With the overwhelming abundance of handwritten thoughts I had put on paper, my story is basically already written. I have exhausted my thoughtful debate throughout the past thirty years as to whether I should write it or not write it. The nice thing with having the journals is that at this sometimes-forgetful age, I didn't have to lean on my memory. I have always been a prolific writer and not bashful regarding details, good and bad. I didn't see the point of creating any enhanced or a more flowery version of my life. There is no value in a life story if one leaves out the lessons learned.

At sixty-four years of age, I have come to the conclusion that a book might be a worthy endeavor. My life experiences kind of demanded it if, and it's a big if, I believe that I might be able to help someone in a life-changing way. I would like to be more of an evangelistic person, but that is not conducive to my personality. Like most people, I have steered clear of those blessed souls wearing the doomsday sandwich boards on street corners or at the beaches, which is where I usually see them. God bless them!

I have read stories of others that have influenced my life positively, so why not write my own? There must be some reason I obsessively penned so much of my life to paper. Quite honestly, I have found little joy in reading these journals. Many of my entries made me want to go back in time and slap myself! But I accept that we are meant to grow in wisdom as we move along in life. In an attempt to be fully transparent as they say these days, it is a humbling experience to read and share these journal entries, but I think it is reflective of the human condition and how fragile we really are. The world today is so full of sad, lonely, and hurting souls. So many people disillusioned, angry, and betrayed. I have felt all of these things and more.

I am not famous so my expectations are humble. However, I do know that if I make the effort, and God sees fit to do so, He may nudge one of those hurting souls in my direction. I believe with all of my being that this is how He works, and we all must do and can do our part when inspired by the spirit.

Introduction

One day you will tell your story of how you've overcome what you're going through now, and it will become part of someone else's survival guide.

—Toby Mac #Speaklife

Life is messy. Don't ever believe anyone who tells you otherwise. As I contemplate the thoughts and experiences that I wish to share in this book, a movie released way back in 1966 pops into my head, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly . Out of curiosity, I looked up information on the movie and found its trailer. A deep male voice speaks words coupled together with moments of silence between them for maximum effect: The good…the bad…and the ugly. What follows is a few Civil War film clips followed by the voice once again. The blue…the gray…the Civil War! It goes on: The questions…the answers…the showdown…the reason…the gold!

Okay, it is a bit cheesy, but if you think about it, isn't life kind of like that? If one reads the Bible, and I would highly recommend it, it seems as though this is maybe inadvertently an honest reflection of the life experience which has changed little throughout time. Listening to this trailer, I could almost hear a biblical version of it with the voice of God and scenes from the Bible with the faces of the righteous, the not so righteous, and of course, the devil. (I have a good imagination.)

Now, not every leading male is going to be as handsome as Clint Eastwood and not every bad guy is going to look, well, mightily unpleasant. And then ugly is, well, just ugly which really doesn't need a face because it's a good word for how much of the world has unfolded before us. As in biblical times, we easily persuadable humans have cycles when things are really good and we are blessed, and then we lose our way and things go really bad. If we are wise, we will question our choices when times are bad so as to learn from our failures. It doesn't hurt to learn from other people's failures either.

If you have never questioned life, there is surely something wrong with you. But thank God we have been given the answers straight from the Bible to guide us along in our daily life, even though we so often trip and fall our way through it. As I age, my heart aches for those who have no regard or curiosity of the scriptures. I cannot imagine what it would be like to not have faith, even if sometimes, it is unquestionably blind faith. Where would something so intrinsically dire as hope be found without faith in God? Even as a believer, I find I still get so rattled at times that I feel like I'm just clinging to hope. There was a very long period in my life when that was all that I did.

Back to the movie, there is no doubt a climatic and gruesome showdown. While I didn't actually watch the movie, I am fairly certain that the showdown in the movie is not even remotely similar to the one so darkly illustrated in the book of Revelations. Again, we go back to life. Real life. Not a Hollywood production. We can walk away from a movie, but certainly not real life. One of the few epiphanies that I have had in my life was the understanding that there is a very real battle raging above us for good and evil, and we can pick only one of the two sides. We either side with enlightenment or side with the darkness. I don't know if the events described in the last book of the Bible will happen in my lifetime; however, I do know we would be wise to prepare for it in case it should. Which brings me to the gold. What is the gold in our lives? What is it that we seek in our lives that is our treasure worth fighting for? Many years ago, I met a woman who referred to this life as God school, and I have never thought of living in any other way since. She nailed it perfectly. And so it goes. As we may have been bullied in school, we will likely also be bullied in this life. The truth is none of us get through it unscathed.

While preparing for this book, I noted that many of my journal entries ended with my handwritten directive: time to start writing my novel or this needs to be in my book. To be fair, these didn't start popping up in my writings until my life became an inconceivable soap opera early in my forties. Even though I lived every painful minute of it, I find that I still have to plow through immense research as if I was writing about someone else's life in order to create a hopefully riveting tale of two lives. A before and after if you will, for the demonstrative purposes of revealing God's abundant grace, mercy, and forgiveness. I wanted to show clarity of how someone who grew up having most of her needs met could lose it all and have to rebuild with nothing but grit and perseverance. From having unquestioning faith to questioning the mere existence of God.

During my brief sojourn in the Mormon Church, there was a great deal of emphasis on journal writing. I was way ahead of the game when I joined that church at twenty-one years old. Over the years, every entry got more intense, like a slow burn racing from a detonator to the explosion. But I had to wait for a period of time to when I could step back from the lingering echoes of anguish to begin. Until I could do that, I was not able to write with any empathy or genuine compassion. It is not easy to write fairly or even kindly about someone who has deeply hurt you and those you love.

I believe God has sent us here into this life that we are now living at the time of His choosing for a profound purpose, with the vast portion of that glorious plan being to help others along their life's journey when in the throes of darkness and suffering. None of us escape the refiner's fire. My personal experience has been that God answers our prayers by placing others in our direct path just at the critical moments when we might otherwise be swallowed up in grief and pain. How wonderful to think that some of these people might even be angels!

For He will command His angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. (Psalm 91:11)

With inescapable clarity, I have looked back to those who have come and gone in my life, and I know that God sent them at the most perfect moments to provide me with what I needed to make it through whatever test I was doing my best to survive. So many people, some good and some not so much, have come and gone in my life, and sometimes, some of them part in uncomfortable and difficult ways, and that is okay too because I believe that God's mission was fulfilled through each of them.

Life is an amazing journey if we can just hold on through the most difficult moments. I smile when I am reminded by what my husband once enthusiastically reflected to me, If and when I get the chance, I want to say to God about my life, That was awesome!"

It is my hope and prayer that sharing my failures and successes through tremendous challenges, from truly unfathomable darkness to the joyfulness of acceptance and gratitude, I may serve you in the way that God in all His glory, has asked of each one of us.

For there is no broken body that God cannot raise.

—Michael Youssef, Church of the Apostles

Part 1

I can't remember all that Merlyn taught me,

but I do remember this.

That happiness is a virtue. No one can be happy and wicked.

Triumphant perhaps, but not happy.

—King Arthur

Fruit Bowling

We all may have come on different ships, but we are all in the same boat now.

—Martin Luther King

Contemplating which shape might make it down the hallway the furthest, I knew the orange would probably work best, but one of my cohorts just took that and had started peeling it. Okay then, so it will have to be the apple. That will be a bumpy roll indeed, but should make it all the way if I do it right. The apple was small, smooth, and cool in my hand. Its little trip, a symbolic taste of freedom, was an escape from my self-imposed hideaway. At least the doors weren't locked. That was one floor down.

The laughter simmered into a mere chant, Do it! Do it! Do it!

Always the leader and never one to skip a good dare, I smiled at the apple in hand and looked down the long-curved hallway. I had to determine how much force to assure a pass through the double doors at the end. Under normal circumstances, I would never consider such an absurd stunt, but we had all just been given our delightfully calming, pretty-colored, pill-shaped cocktails in our tiny little paper cups. After the grueling confessions, followed by an anything was good dinner, fruit bowling was an idea I thought brilliantly funny. My posse of psychotic soldiers were in full attention behind me, shamelessly egging me on.

I aimed, considered the angle, took my best bowler's stance, and let her roll. Everyone was out of their seats behind me, watching as it disappeared around the corner along the wall. No doubt it would have to deflect off something to make it all the way. None of us geniuses thought about the fact that the route would take the apple past the nurse's station halfway there. She might see it and wonder what the heck was going on. But then again, where we were, she probably would not.

As we were enjoying the assumed success, whopping and hollering, I saw a nurse out of the corner of my eye heading our way and instantly warned my fellow patients.

Uh-oh! The nurse is coming! Sit back down!

We scattered all around the big table to sit, like the deaf playing musical chairs hearing no music. We all hadn't quite made it into a seat when she walked into the room and stood at the end of the table.

She spoke indignantly. What was that? Did I just see an apple rolling by the office?

We all looked at each other, trying to hold back laughter. No one said anything, but continued to look around at anyone other than the nurse, careless grins on full display. Surely, she didn't expect an answer to her question. A few shoulders shrugged, some eyebrows raised. We all might have some serious issues, and we all might be fully medicated, but we were not squealers. What could she really do, shake us down?

She sighed, resigned. Okay then. Let's get the table cleaned up. It's time for art class.

Well, at least she wasn't mad, but man, art class again? I guess it was noses back at the grindstone. Time to artistically express out our anger, frustrations, sadness, and fears.

I was told later that evening by another patient who wasn't with us for the event that the apple did indeed make it all the way down the hallway, beyond the double doors. I smiled. Of the many things I had already learned here, one thing was clear. It's the little successes in life that matter, as the saying goes. Maybe it was the just the nightly cocktails of drugs that made such a sad place so oddly charming. Here, I joined good people trying to expel dark madness from their broken souls. Not once, but twice. I found my way to a bed at Smith Four.

Smith Four was the psychiatric wing at the local hospital previously known as the University Health Center in Burlington, Vermont. One would not expect to come to perhaps one of the most calendar-perfect places in the world only to end up in a psychiatric ward. Being without my four young children was why I ended up here among these deeply lost and troubled souls.

Once admitted, medicated, and feeling the ground beneath my feet again, I began to walk that long, multi-door hallway to see if I could learn any of the stories that belonged to the gut-wrenching tears that I would hear every night while trying to sleep through my own tears. I learned quickly by my own curiosity and by carefully implemented programs that all of these people were voluntarily here. My fellow roommates were normal people who just couldn't find their way to a better method of coping with trauma. Our stories were all different. The death of a child and a mother who could not move forward out of her grief. The young man whose frantic girlfriend barricaded herself in his home and used his gun to shoot and kill herself, rather than give up and yield to the pleas from him and the armed officers outside his home. The young man who broke up with his longtime girlfriend. And me, someone who's life had suddenly collapsed beneath her feet, not fully aware that the foundation of my life was so remarkably unstable.

God school had brought me to Smith Four. Like anyone else really, I had no idea that life could ever be this bad. To put it mildly, this isn't what I had anticipated. I had followed all the rules. At twenty-one years old, I was a virgin bride who never drank alcohol or tried drugs. I did my best to be a good daughter, wife, and mother. I was not so much a good sister until I grew up and decided that I really liked my brothers and my sister. But apparently, being a minister's kid wasn't enough spirituality for me. Of course not. I always had a steady flowing undercurrent of never feeling good enough. Not good enough for who, I don't know. It just was. Or maybe, in reality, it was just the teenybopper crush on Donny Osmond and his brothers. Like so many young girls in that bubblegum music era, I had fallen into the delirium of the perfect family. A processed, beautiful presentation of the Mormon Church and what could be. That was what I wanted. I just never realized what the cost to me would be.

How Can This Happen

It was a warm, late afternoon in the summer of 1994 when I, semi voluntarily, admitted myself onto that fourth floor. A handful of Nortriptyline and David number 5 and number 6 put me there for what would become a three, nearly four-week vacation from my normal life, which had become a living hell. Throw in a sour twist of two professors and a ski bum to make a perfect mix of mental illness. As the two nurses ushered me down that long hallway to my room, I felt an unexpected wave of nausea come over my body. I stopped walking, fully lost in the moment, and was instantly swallowed up into a memory from the last time I had walked by these same walls on this same floor six years earlier. On that day, I was pulled kicking and screaming away from my life of illusion. The repugnance of that day came rushing through my mind, denying me no escape from reliving that wretched day again. It came to me like people describe a near-death experience. So much sterile white all around me, running past the same nurse's station, my legs seeming to get heavier to lift with each step I took. Tears bled clear, wet fear. It was like the desperate slow-motion forward movement only in your nightmares. You scream, Move! but barely creep along. My urgent pleading came from someplace within me that I had never been before. I was trying so hard to get out of that place.

Go help him! Go help him now! I screamed.

I saw a nurse run out of the office door in the other direction from where I had just been. By that time, I had made it past the floor's ugly utilitarian heavy doors, which would soon be closing for the night. I didn't stop moving until I got to the nearest elevator and slammed the Down button. I stared at the light as if it would somehow bring the elevator more quickly. I slammed the button again. And then again. My state of mind was in such a whirlwind that I felt faint. I closed my eyes for a moment to focus on slowing down my rapid breathing. Finally, the door opened. Oh no, too many people! It should have been empty. I cannot be looked at. I shielded my face with my right hand and pressed for a corner in back. I tightly closed my eyes and felt the comforting darkness. When I opened them again, I noticed the many sad but sympathetic looks on the faces of those sharing that elevator with me. Of course, they would look that way. I had a steady stream of tears flowing down my face. How could they help it? People look at car wrecks too.

Quickly, I lowered my head and tried to wipe away some of my embarrassment and sucked it up. That's what I was supposed to do. I was not one to lose control in public. Ever. I was looking at my feet. For such a short ride, three floors, time seemed suspended. I could feel all the eyes on me as if they were burning into me. I was sure they must know what a pathetic loser I was. The woman who had been so excruciatingly rejected, all these years. A woman who was such a fool that she had three children with this man! Wait. How was that possible? I couldn't think straight. Straight. Yeah, what a laugh. I squeezed my eyes shut again as it felt like I had a huge, white, burning spotlight directly on me. I felt humiliation fall over me like a monumental brick wall. So painfully and fully exposed. It wasn't tears due to someone who had just gotten a bad diagnosis of some sort, although to some degree, it was a diagnosis of a difficult marriage for the rest of my life or, perhaps more likely, a pending divorce in my future. It was the crushing realization that my husband of eight years was not the man that I thought he was. The father of my children was a fake. A phony. A liar!

Strange how everything around me now looked different. The colors all muted, the air smelled suddenly foul. The ringing in my ears. And then, laughably, in the fleetest of moments, I noticed how good-looking the male intern was standing before me in the too-close confines of the elevator. My thoughts betrayed me and went right to pondering what would it be like to have sex with him. A real man? Mercifully, the door opened an instant later, and I ran to my car. I needed to hurry home. To my safe zone, although how could it ever feel that way again? To my children who were being cared for that evening by a friend. Instead, I felt like I needed to be with a friend. Someone I trusted to catch me as I fell. When I arrived forty minutes later at my closest church friend's home, I didn't even remember driving. Suddenly, I was just there. I collapsed at her feet.

Back to Smith Four 1994

That horrible memory was six years ago in the spring of 1988, and yet the mere flash of it passing through my mind was so powerful, it felt like a vise grip tightening around my heart. I had to stop walking, lean on the closest wall, and find my balance again. Now, six years later, it was my turn to feel grossly undone. I am surprised that I made it that long before reaching the brink of sanity. Here I was again at Smith Four, but now I was the patient.

That first night, I was given sedatives and promptly put to bed. I was so depressed that I was more or less sleepwalking anyway. The next morning, I awoke from terrible nightmares and a wicked headache, which had both become my most consistent companions those days despite the medications. My nightmares had me forever chasing my children and never reaching them or trying to find them, to hold them, to kiss them, and to keep them safe. My first impossible effort each morning was to walk out into the hallway and see if anyone was using the public phone, which was our only lifeline to the outside world. I had noticed that it was little used by those of us who were hiding behind these protective walls. I desperately needed to hear my children's voices so they would know that I had not abandoned them because I was scheduled to see them soon. It was clear even to me that I would not be getting out of the hospital for quite a while. I had tried and failed to talk with them from this very phone throughout the previous day. The phone was often free first thing in the morning, but my attempts went unanswered. The second and third attempts went unanswered. No doubt, they were being withheld from me. Being here made that all too easy for their father to shut me out. Why couldn't I be stronger than this? Why did I fail so badly as to end up in here?

I shuffled my way back to my assigned bed. Pushing out my grief, I changed course in my head, reflecting on the mandatory classes I had attended yesterday. I thought I had some answers today. Maybe, maybe not. When my nurse came in to take my blood pressure, I was depressed and told her about my dreams. Always chasing shadows in the darkness. My separation from my children was the main reason I was here. The behavior of both their father and the man I had foolishly fallen in love with coming in as a close second. The fact that this was true added to the enormous guilt that hung around my shoulders, burdensome as a ball and chain. It felt safe and reassuring to have my floor nurse Linda there to talk to. I explained how good I had felt yesterday with all of the joking and laughter that had led to the fruit bowling incident. I understood the concepts of the codependency class that I had attended, the idea of the family within each of us. The parent, the adult, and the child. When the doctor showed us how to use a circle-structured graphic to express how we feel, not surprisingly, my inner child was the smallest circle. Not only the smaller circle, but a minuscule circle. The parent within me had always been naturally critical and moralistic from as far back as I could remember. I had artificially placed so much moral judgment and guilt upon myself driven to be a good daughter, member of the true church, wife, and mother. When my siblings were exerting the expected rebellion of youth, in my misguided mind, I had to be even better to make up for it. My mother had once told me I was too straight. She was not wrong in the sense that I was a self-centered, self-righteous jerk to my siblings. Seeing that with honest vision was an additional unpleasant burden. My little inner child circle was being crushed. With my husband's betrayals, she was buried even deeper away. The church came in and took its place as my parent omnipotent, requiring of me to achieve perfection that could not be achieved in order to stay in my marriage. There was no room in the eyes of the church for leaving even an unforgiving marriage. How many times did I hear the admonishment that our vows were taken for time and all eternity? So why was it okay for him to break those vows, over and over, and I to be the one left with the guilt and shame for an inevitable divorce?

When I spoke to Nurse Linda about my disillusionment with the one true and living church upon the earth, I spoke of how it suffocated me. When I explained the apple incident, she laughed and considered that for a moment before she said, So what do you think about Adam and Eve?

I understood the analogy that she was making, Eve taking the apple from the tree of knowledge and understanding and giving it to Adam. Perhaps she was correct in the idea that I threw the apple (religion) down the hall, in a way of ridding myself of religion to search for my own feelings and understanding, thus allowing me to then fit in to my authentic life. I loved the idea, and it worked for me, lifting some of my depression. I considered the thought that moving forward in my relationship with Dave number 6 (more about him later) not to be a rebellion but maybe a process. Maybe this is what we were both looking for. I wanted to share the temporary euphoria I was feeling at this discovery with him, but he had already pulled away from me, again. Things were too messy, and there were so many lives intertwined in the creation of us. The staff on this floor may have been supportive without moral judgment, but on the outside, there was only hell to pay. No one believed he would be here for me. I wasn't sure either.

Later in the evening, after my visit with Nurse Linda, dinner, and a visit from one of the rotating doctors on staff, I called my children and finally got through. The anticipated result was not forthcoming. There was another family over to dinner with them. I could hear the kids all laughing. To my great distress, I allowed my emotions to beat me down even more. My children seemed just fine without me. I felt profound sadness. Why did I come here?

Not My First Rodeo

April 23, 1994

Another new chapter in my life. I'm on Smith Four for two days. I remember Smith Four from when David was here five and a half years ago, nearly the same month. I visited him and never thought that I would be a patient on this psychiatric floor. Ellie brought me to the crisis center when I couldn't stop crying. Gavin called me this morning after I had two bad nights without my calls. I'd confessed to him that I had a bad night, and he wanted to fly me out to NYC and meet him, go to dinner, and spend two days with him there. I just wanted to know why Dave isn't calling.

*****

Months earlier in April 1994, I had made my first brief appearance to Smith Four. It was far more a dramatic scenario, and I did not come voluntarily. My life was in a tailspin from so many directions that all it would take was one more situation to lose control for me to simply crash and burn. That came in the form of a refusal to speak to me by the man with whom I had become too emotionally attached. He and I talked on the phone every night, but suddenly, those calls had stopped. I had been longing for him, waiting to hear from him and found him at a Staples store very much by chance. He would not speak to me when I approached him. I asked him several times why he was not talking to me until he finally took a pen from his pocket and scribbled a note on his Staples receipt. The message was simply I promised I would not talk to you. Follow me. After he handed me the note, he took off quickly and got into his truck and sped off. I aimlessly followed him in my car until he had begun to drive erratically. His speed increased, and when he started passing on hills, it became very apparent that I could not safely follow. I didn't understand what was happening, and all I could do was pull over to the side of the road and cry in shameless pain. I waited, expecting him to come back. When he never came back, I went to the church where I knew a friend was attending an AA class. I took her out of her class, giving her no choice by the disturbance I had created. She, in turn, took me in her car and promptly drove me to the hospital and had me admitted against my will. In all fairness, it wasn't so much against my will because it was my erratic behavior that left her no choice. I wasn't of sound mind to understand how awful that was for her. She had done the proper thing in that circumstance. I was completely despondent when I arrived. I cried uncontrollably, was given Valium to calm down, and promptly threw that up in a nearby garbage can. Then came the seizures and passing out when my blood pressure dropped dangerously low. I woke up in a bed, not knowing where I was or why I was there. After a mental acuity test, an intelligence test, and several blood tests, I had settled down and come to grips with what had happened. I was so embarrassed. Even though my tests showed me to be of above average intelligence, I was still not in control of clear thought two days later when Dave number 6 came to visit me, begging me to check out and leave with him. He was apologetic and said he would not abandon me or stop talking to me again and that I didn't need to be there. His promises broke through the barriers and reached that inner child to bring her out of her dark corner. The doctors made it abundantly clear that would be a mistake. I didn't listen. I simply signed the statement that I was leaving against their orders. Even with the limited therapy I had received, all it ended up taking was his pretty and promising words for me to give up the help that I so desperately needed.

*****

To my shock and surprise, Dave came just before visiting hours began with flowers and a card in hand. He sat and hugged me so tightly. He even had gone to a doctor to get medication. The best thing that had come out of this was that he said he wanted me to be his wife! He had left his wife. No one ever understood our relationship. Everyone said he would never leave, but I clung to hope. Now I was stuck in here and had to work my way out. I felt healed already, but I had to be seen to get out of here. Being here was so interesting. I didn't think I belonged here, but perhaps, I was here for someone else. I wanted to go home. Dave and I had worked things out to be together, and that was what I needed. Hearing screaming and crying and seeing security to calm someone down was alarming. I realized many here had problems far worse than I do. I'm learning compassion—again. It's good for me though. I could always use these lessons.

*****

Six years ago, I had