Jolene P. Brown
Prof. S. Magagnini
ENL 178: Crossing Thresholds
18 August 2009
Growing Up
The bench was cold, smooth, and hard. The beige velour blanket I was sitting on kept sliding underneath me with each shift of my body, no matter how slight, and did not keep the cold from seeping into my skin. A metal toilet, exactly like I had seen in movies but surprisingly clean, was straight across and seemed to stare me down from across the cell. I knew I would have to go eventually—I could feel the my bladder filling up, or perhaps I was just paranoid—and there was only a short wall, three feet tall or so, as a barrier between what needed to be done and the huge safety glass window where I could see the sheriff officer completing their nightly paperwork outside. The thought made me sick again, as I threw myself towards the toilet expelling only a foamy greenish bile that had more to do with my anxiety than any of the drinks I’d had prior to that moment. I was in jail, but this still was not the worst day of my life. I remembered a promise and tears came to my eyes as I returned to the bench: would I be able to keep that promise I had made so long ago? At that moment I was so afraid but determined not to let one mistake ruin everything I had done so far.
May 28, 2003.
My twenty-second birthday. I was excited because my birthday is my favorite “holiday,” as I like to tell my friends as a joke. I took the day off and made plans with my two best friends to go out drinking, partly to make up for the terrible twenty-first birthday I had the year before. All my friends were busy, and my boyfriend at the time had forgotten, so my ‘big’ 21st was nothing but a big disappointment. My two closest friends, Rose and Noelle, had promised that 22 would be so much better—we knew where to get the best drinks for cheap, the best dancing, and karaoke more now than the year before. That and we were all now above legal drinking age so we could enjoy more of the fun together since the year before that was not the case.
I was sitting on my couch in the one-bedroom apartment that Rose and I shared. It was originally my apartment but when Rose was kicked out of her sister’s house for one too many parties, Rose moved in with me and we were in the process of looking for a larger two bedroom apartment. Rose was at work and I was planning out the night in my head while watching reruns of daytime television. My phone rings: Mom. I don’t want to pick it up—“what on earth could she want now? It’s my birthday…she can’t chew me out for something on my damned birthday!” I roll my eyes and pick up the phone.
“Hi, mom.”
“Honey, grandma Brown is sick.”
“What? What do you mean sick?” panic sets in to my voice.
“Apparently it’s a tumor. In her brain. She’s having an operation at the end of the week. We just wanted you to know, ok?”
“Uh…. ok mom. Should I come over?”
“No, there’s nothing you can do now. Just come over later this week. Dad will need you; he misses you and I know grandpa will love to have you around more. Just come by, ok?”
“Alright, mom.”
“Happy birthday, honey. We have a card if you come by.”
“Thanks, mom.”
I end the call and drop my phone on the floor. “What a birthday, already” I think to myself trying to keep myself from crying. Grandma cannot die; but what if she did? Right after my birthday? I try not to imagine the possibility but I continue to let the thought pervade my mind. Not knowing what else to do I gather up my bag and head over to another friend’s house to hang out until Rose and Noelle get off of work. No sense is letting such negative thoughts upset me on my birthday. That night, like usual, I went out with my friends and drank until I blacked out. Another day, another round of drinks, another shift at my awful job: just another day.
Three weeks later grandma has pulled through the surgery better than any of us had expected. When she went under the knife the doctor told us that we will be lucky if she can eat on her own, let alone walk, talk, or even remember her name. We brace ourselves for the worse but within three weeks grandma has made an almost full recovery. Not only is she eating on her own but she was talking in complete sentences, getting up and walking (with assistance of course) to go to the bathroom, and she had no memory loss whatsoever. Relief sets in and everyone is overjoyed, including my grandfather even though he had to be sent home because of pneumonia. He promised my grandmother as soon as he felt better he would be back to see her at the hospital until they let her go. The only evidence of my grandmother’s brush with death was her shaved head covered by a mass of white bandages, changed every few hours by the charge nurse. “Oh, what will I do about my hair?” my grandmother asked one day while in the hospital. “Perhaps we can get you a wig, mom, it’ll be like it was never gone and in the meantime the wig will cover everything up!” one of my aunts attempted to make her feel better.
As grandma got better and returned home, grandpa got worse. Ten weeks after her brain surgery grandma was driving again, though her doctor was not pleased about it, taking grandpa to see a doctor after doctor to determine why he was not getting better. What had started out as a pneumonia diagnosis in early June quickly turned into “we need to run more tests” and grandpa’s health was fading. My car broke down at the end of July and I was afraid to tell my parents that I did not have the money to pay for the repairs. My dad was a wreck, though he never once cried it was obvious that he was upset, and my mom cried at me every time I called. Rose was kind enough to let me use her car for just about all my errands, so we were taking each other work and the other would use the car for the rest of the day to do what they needed to do. My mom would call occasionally to update me on the status of my grandfather but I shrugged it off. “Nothing can kill grandpa,” I told a girl at work one day “he’s the strongest man I know.”
September 15, 2003.
“Lung cancer.”
The words hung in the air as everyone stood silently at the doctor’s words. We were in the waiting room at Mercy San Juan hospital waiting to find out the verdict of the “exploratory” surgery. My grandma’s hair had thinned substantially because of her brain surgery but she was not wearing the wig: it made her head itch. She, instead, kept it tightly trimmed, almost military style, since it had started to grow back.
“Lung cancer? You’re sure?” my dad asked the doctor; it was obvious in his tone he knew the answer already. The doctor only nodded his reply as my grandma did her best to hide her eyes filling with tears. Her lips became a straight line across her face as she asked the doctor “so what do you think we can do about it?”
“I don’t think there’s anything we can do about it; the cancer started out in his lungs and is now spread into his heart, kidneys and bones. There’s not much we can do except make him comfortable.” The doctor’s words spilled out around us as disbelief turned to reality. I felt a disconnect more than I had ever felt before. Grandpa, a man I had never seen cry, a man I never saw sick (even when he had to do chemo for prostate cancer 10 years earlier), a man who held our family together was dying and there was nothing we could do about it. Suddenly I felt sick to my stomach and told my parents I wanted to go home. My dad looked disappointed but hugged me and I left. I remember thinking on the way home: “It won’t happen. Not to him. He’ll pull through it and we’ll all laugh about this.” I have never been more wrong.
Sitting in the jail cell I remember doubting the proof of modern medicine. It seemed so simple to me that grandpa would just will himself over the cancer and it would just disappear. All my youthful naiveté was captured in my mind in that one internal conversation, convincing myself that miracles can and do happen, and one of my very own was about to occur in grandpa overcoming this horrible disease. Never mind his lifelong tobacco pipe habit—a smell I still attribute to him to this day—that was only circumstantial evidence as far as I was concerned. I sat staring at that dreaded metal toilet taking small solace in that youthful ignorance, wishing that it would return in that moment and I might forget where I was, what I had done, and escape the punishment I knew was to come. I knew what it meant then, as I did looking back on that memory, to live in blissful ignorance: not accepting evidence, ignoring facts and building a world of lies to protect myself from the awful pain to come.
After the diagnosis the next few weeks are a blur in my mind. I remember phone call after phone call as the news spread its way through the family, much like the cancer spread its way through my grandfather’s body. I received half a dozen phone calls a day from cousins, aunts, uncles, distant relatives and close family friends. I finally stopped picking up my phone, tired of hearing the same depressing story each time, and turned more and more to drinking as a way to cope. Rose was worried, even mentioning to me that I should lay off the bottle for awhile.
“It’s not good to drink when you’re depressed; I know I read that somewhere” she said casually while flipping through a magazine one night.
“Yeah, I’m sure it’s not. All the more reason I should do it, right?” I laughed at my own joke as she feigned a smile.
“I guess…” she flipped through another page of the magazine.
“Don’t worry about me, I’m fine.”
I grabbed the bottle of rum and went to the bedroom, the door accidently slamming behind me.
October 5, 2003, 4:30 pm.
Though it was expected, the news was sudden. On my way home from work, driving my roommate’s car, my dad called. My dad never called.
“Honey, where are you?”
“On my way home from work, why?”
“Pull over.”
“Dad, what? Just tell me, I’m almost home.” I knew what he was going to say before the words even left his mouth.
“Grandpa died. About ten minutes ago.”
“Are you sure?” I didn’t know what else to say.
“Yes, honey, he died. I have to go now, arrangements have to be made. Please come by tonight, ok?” I could hear my dad choking back tears. He doesn’t want to cry in front of me; not even on the phone.
I don’t say anything else and my dad ends the call. I pull into the median in front of a Raley’s supermarket. I sit there for a moment not knowing what to do. I take out my phone wanting to call someone flipping through my entire phone book. I don’t want to talk to anyone: I just want my grandpa back. I burst into tears in the car in the middle of road in front of Raley’s. I cry for ten minutes before I realize there is a car behind me honking. I manage to pull myself together enough to make the rest of the five minute drive back to my apartment, unlock the door and throw myself on the floor just inside. I cry for over an hour until my roommate calls me to pick her up from work. When she realizes what has happened she arranges a ride from a co-worker. She comes inside and hugs me on the floor.
Five days before he died there was a huge family gathering at my grandparent’s house. Relatives came in from as far away as Missouri to see my grandpa for what we knew would be the last time. His once huge frame had dwindled down to nothing more than bones covered by skin, flaps of which hung under his arms and on his chin. His bright grey blue eyes were dull now, and he would wince in pain each time he coughed. There were more than thirty people packed in to their tiny house, and my aunts tried to get people to leave and return later but my grandfather would not hear of it. “I love to have the family around again, it’s like old times!” He laughed, would cough and wince, though he would try not to show it. He took each of his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren in his arms telling each how much he loved them and not to cry. It was my turn as I was one of the furthest away and my grandfather was asking for me. I went up to him and he grabbed my hand pulling me close. He put his arms around me and told me how much he loved me. But then, whispering, he said
“Jolene, you’re my smartest grandchild. I want you to go to school. I want you to do well for yourself and I know you will. I have so much faith in you. I love you. Don’t forget that, and please go back to school.” He had tears in his eyes as he said this and I tried not to cry.
“I’ll go back, grandpa, I promise I will.”
Five days later he was gone.
I called in sick for three days, the longest they would let me call in sick without a doctor’s note. Then I burned through about a week and a half of vacation; all I had. After I was out of vacation I know I went to work but I don’t really remember much. I don’t really remember much of those weeks at all until just before Thanksgiving when Rose finally called my parents to tell them that I would not leave my bed except to go to work and all I would do is cry and drink until I would pass out: she was worried about me and told my mom she was afraid I was going to kill myself. My mom came over one day, picked me up and took me home to my parent’s house; I don’t even remember getting into her car. I remember waking up on my parent’s couch with the worst hangover of my life and my mom sitting in the easy chair watching me.
“How are you feeling?” my mom asked.
“Like shit,” I answered.
“You need to see a doctor. You’re depressed.”
“Really? Really, mom? Wow, thanks for the evaluation,” as usual I used sarcasm to deflect the pain. I held my head and got up to get some water. “I’m fine, promise. I’m just having a hard time with this. Death isn’t easy, right? This is just how I’m coping.”
“My mother had a drinking problem; I never told you that but it’s true. She went to AA meetings when I was young. Alcoholism runs in our family. I should have told you sooner.” Her confession struck a chord with me as I tried to piece together the events since my grandfather’s death. “I want you to see a doctor. I want you to get on anti-depressants. Your dad and I both want you to stop drinking. Please. We’ll do anything we can to help.”
I stood at their kitchen sink, looking out of the window into the front yard. At that moment it occurred to me that I had to keep my promise to my grandfather, no matter what I may have to overcome to do it. I realized that he never saw me reach my full potential, he never saw me do anything except screw up: I barely graduated high school, I fought with my parents constantly, I lived paycheck to paycheck in a tiny apartment I shared because I worked at a crappy job where I was underpaid and overworked, and I had dropped out of college failing two semesters in a row. I began listing off my failures in my mind one after another until, instead of making me feel worse, I started to feel better. If I could overcome all that and still be standing here at this sink, with my parents who still believed in me enough to offer their help; with my grandfather who still called me his “smartest” grandchild; if I could do all that, then I must be good for something.
“Ok, mom. I need your help.”
She hugged me and together we planned the next steps. She called Rose who threw out all the alcohol in our house. My mom made a doctor’s appointment to get started on anti-depressants and she went to all my doctor’s appointments with me, and my dad fixed my car. All this and all I had to do was ask for help.
How, then, did I end up in this jail cell? One party, a few drinks, after nearly a year of school, no drinking and doing my best to stay out of trouble. I did not hurt anyone and I did not get into an accident. A simple traffic stop for a “wide right turn” and here I was sitting in a concrete slab dreading the use of the metal commode. I cry, remembering all that I had done, all I had overcome, and I know my parents will be disappointed. Why am I here? The answer seems so obvious that I do not grasp it at first. I call up a friend and who bails me out of jail. I call my parents, break the news and though they are upset, they forgive me.
“What did you learn?” my mom asked.
I forgot for a moment how important it was for me to be responsible. I grew up a lot that year between August 2003 and August 2004, really grasping what it meant to be an adult and make adult decisions. I learned to ask for help when I needed it and I learned to trust those I love. It took me losing someone I cared about to realize my full potential, and every new achievement I make I think back to my grandpa and him pulling me close and encouraging me to take that next step. Not a day goes by I wish I could step back into that moment, just for a minute, and tell him all the things I’ve done.
He would be so proud.
