Mom's Stories

4/28/2024.  My mother is about to enter hospice.  Dementia has ravaged her and its clear that she has declined to the point of 'no going back' from the disease.  As I've been preparing for her funeral, I have come across things like this that offer an unedited glimpse into her and my relationship with her growing up.  There are actually many other stories that she used to tell...but for some reason this one (where she threw water on nurses at their stand) stands out.  Dated 11/28/1998.

     Mom was leaning over the nurses’ station one day, acting bipolar and manic when one of the female nurses said to her, “Harrington, you need to chill out!”  Offended at this, Mom devised a plan to ‘get even’.  She walked down the hall to her bathroom, which was near her isolation room, retrieved a blue basin which she remembered had been there, ,filled it with cold water,  marched back to the nurses station and said to the nurse, “No, YOU need to chill out !” and proceeded to throw the water in the poor nurse’s face.  Others standing with her, including a doctor, were hit.  Water was all over the counter; pens, paper, computer terminals, and keyboards became saturated too.  While someone called security, patients who had heard the commotion filtered out into the hall.   All of them started laughing and cheering her on.  “You go girl!!” , “Way to go Harrington !”, they were yelling.  Soon, a skinny male nurse and some security guards came through some push-through doors and towards my mother.  They took the bowl away from her, restrained her, and locked her in isolation.    Isolation was not very fun.  They had to bring food to her and she could not roam the halls freely.  Most of the time she was surrounded by four pink walls, except when needing to use the restroom or take a shower.  Probation lasted one month.  A couple of years later, the nurses told my mom that they were not mad at her over the incident; they were just stunned.  One told her that she got her butt wet from sitting down in a drenched chair.  A doctor, who thought he was funny, later asked my mother in greeting, “So Susan, have you baptized anyone lately?”  For myself, I never knew whether to laugh at this story or wonder why Mom was so strange.  What do you tell the kids at school when they ask you “How’s your mother doing?” or “So what does your mother do?”  “Oh, fine.”, I’d sometimes say, not really knowing what to say or maybe  “She’s in the hospital.” and they’d show some concern which never was enough.  No one ever knew what I was going through; they didn’t have to cope with it.

     Whenever Mom came home from the hospital, she’d tell Dad and me funny stories like the one about the Nurses Station and the water.  This was the story that meant most to her and it is the one I remember the most.  She would usually tell it to us on the way home in the car, or at home.  It was a dinnertime favorite as well.  She told my wife and others the story too. Whenever she told the story, her eyes would glow and she would become giddily happy about it.  If you could imagine a little child with a lollipop in her hand, just dying to tell her parents a story about what happened to her at the amusement park, jumping up and down, tugging at your sleeve, going “Oh…oh…oh!!”, then you could imagine my mother’s excitement when she told us this story.  She’d always lean forward too, and if you interrupted her, she’d become offended.  Later, she would forget that she had told us all the story and tell it to us again.  When we’d tell her that we had already heard it, she’d say, “Oh, the shock treatments must have made me forget!”  Sometimes I’ve thought that this phrase was an excuse to tell her friends so that she’d appear ‘normal’ somehow; she knew she had a disease and she had to have some way of explaining it to those around her.  Of course she’d also admit to being ‘better than normal’, if there was such a thing; the word ‘normal’ never had a clear definition when I was growing up.

      Mom always found a way to make herself known, to stand out, and be different.  She’d wear clashing clothes, black leather jackets, and at one time even wore Harley Davidson boots and collected knives—which my father took away from her as soon as he found out about them.  She’d change clothes like the seasons or like her mood, sometimes wearing big-beaded jewelry or garage-sale-special jerseys or sweatshirts.  One time she even decided to become a volunteer firefighter, which lasted about two weeks – her boss got mad at her, she took it very personal, and told him to “shove it, man.”  Mom was good at taking things personal and defending herself.  She had to protect herself somehow, being that she was unstable; she was not whole.  She had to protect what identity she could, and seek attention and acceptance of those around her, even if it meant being a little rebellious.

     Most of all she was always either too happy or too sad.

   The doctors used to say Mom had schizophrenia, and lately they’ve said that my mother’s condition has improved to a manic-depressive state.  My mother is a disabled veteran--frankly, I think the marine corps screwed her up.  When she had graduated high school, she felt the need for some kind of adventure, and she thought she could find it with the Marines. Many Marine women were treated unfairly, were called BAMS (broad-assed marines), and some suffered mental illness because of the extremely strict Marine life.  These facts are nice, and they’ve somewhat helped me cope.

     There were times growing up when I felt that I didn’t have a mother.  Somehow I never knew what to think about my mom’s behavior and mental episodes.  There were times that I didn’t know what to think about her not being at home because she was in the hospital so much.  There were times when I didn’t know what to think about not being involved as much in after-school activities because I had to go home and take care of her.  Sometimes I’ve wondered why I grew up so sensitive about others and so sensitive myself.  I didn’t have a brother or sister when I was growing up, so I had to fend for myself.  I remember times when I was a teenager and had to act like an adult because my mother acted like a teenager.  Dad was there sometimes, but most of his attention was on mom.  Many of my physical needs were met when I was growing up, but not so much of my emotional needs.  There were times when I could have used a hug or a little extra encouragement, but it wasn’t there.  My parents had their own problems and I don’t blame them for this.  Through everything though, I would say that stories like the one my mom told have helped me look beyond her flaws and weaknesses, that were really not caused by her, but by her illness.  Mom throwing water in the nurse’s face showed me  that she was bold and daring, adventurous and comical.  It showed to me a side of Mom that I have come to understand, talk about, and see in myself.  While many of the qualities are positive ones, I still cannot forget the neglected, sensitive, burdened child that I was.