As soon as David went missing, I played his favorite music in my home: Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, John Prine. David understood and felt the power of words more than most, and somehow, listening to the anthems of these men helped me feel again. It hit me hard one day when I was preparing for an onslaught of David’s family to arrive. I’d put my iPod on shuffle, and the song “Forever Young” by Dylan came on. I stopped in my tracks, remembering the nights we played and replayed that album in the Utah desert. We’d hike all day, drink tequila, and eat from the garden at night, with Dylan in the background. Hearing it again, the sobbing took hold of me so violently I had to lie down on the bed. It lasted long enough to swell my eyes, clog my nose, and puff up my face again. David had always loved what I considered to be the highest musical form, artists who didn’t pander to sentimentality or bow to commercialism. He’d chosen the music that moved him, and now, it moved me to a softer, more forgiving place.
The house filled up. David’s sister Adele returned from Montreal with her estranged husband in tow and her two beautiful daughters, willowy and fresh-faced, reminding me of what Sophie would look like in another five to seven years. They brought wine and bags of Trader Joe’s snacks: Cheetos, potato chips, crackers, pretzels—none of it appropriate for a meal. I laughed to myself, remembering how David had told me, “I am living proof a person can survive two years on junk food alone. I did it when I lived with Adele.”
His mother arrived again from British Columbia, sullen and hardened, barely acknowledging me when she walked through the door. “We won’t be staying long,” she said, referring to her children and grandchildren. “We’ll be getting a hotel tonight.”
Of course. Of course she needed someone to blame for her son’s death. I reached for her hands. “Alice, I loved David. I hope you know I tried.”
She pulled away and immediately went to the hardwood cabinets where we displayed David’s travel treasures. “If you don’t mind,” she said, “I’d like to take this with me.” Alice held up an antique miniature bookcase David had said was a family heirloom.
“Of course,” I said. “Take whatever you like.” She gathered a few more of his things and left for the hotel.
David’s nephew arrived with a friend and a trailer. I’d told him he could have the tools David used for carpentry and woodworking. There was tens of thousands of dollars worth of equipment in the garage—it would be of no use to me. Luke thanked me and then loaded the trailer until it overflowed with enough equipment to start his own woodworking business. David’s family would need something to remember him by.
His sister Jill arrived with empty boxes and asked for David’s books. I swallowed, hard. This was my fondest memory of David, his love of literature. We’d built the bookcases downstairs together because we’d filled up the library upstairs. We had loved some of the same authors: Bukowski, Carver, Gilbert, Hemingway, Kerouac. I wanted those books we’d both dog-eared, the ones we both loved. She was already filling the boxes when I resigned myself. He was gone. The books would not bring him back.
“Go ahead,” I said.
Sophie was sitting in her bedroom the day before David’s funeral, reading a book. I sat down next to her and asked, “Is there something of Daddy’s you’d like to keep for yourself? Something to remind you of him?”
We walked together into David’s room. She pulled out the third drawer, where he kept his boxers, and pulled the green pheasant shorts from the pile. “I think I’ll keep these,” she said smiling, “and I’ll always remember that dance he did when he first wore them.” That was it for Sophie. A pair of green boxer shorts, the ones that had made her dad laugh.
I tucked away a few of David’s treasures for her: his family’s signet ring, the compass he’d used on long canoe and camping trips, a pair of binoculars they’d both loved, his driver’s license, and his cell phone. I packed those things, along with every photo I could find of David, and put them in the pine chest he’d built for Sophie when she was born. One day, I knew, she would treasure those things.
The day of David’s funeral, in December 2006, Portland was hit by a freak ice and snow storm. We’d expected temperatures in the mid-sixties, but when I stepped outside to pick up the paper, there was a thin sheet of ice on the deck. My butt slammed against the deck and my elbow hit the ice, opening a small cut that bled quickly. I winced and then paused. The winds howled through the huge oak trees around our home, reminding me of David’s habit of running straight into the wildest weather imaginable, his coat open, hair tangled and messy. This was his kind of day.
On Portland’s black ice days, when the streets were impassable, David liked to chain up and drive around, like Mad Max, the Last Man on Earth. On many of the storm days, neighbors would see him slipping through the streets and ask him to pick up milk or eggs, or drop a sick family member at the hospital. He loved the drama of it all, him against the ice, his truck slipping this way and that. When the town was paralyzed, it was David who could move.
We’d decided on an outdoor amphitheater at Hoyt Arboretum for the funeral. He loved to picnic there, lying on his back on the tables and looking up at the soaring pitch of the timbered shelter. I’d ordered twelve large overhead heaters, just in case it was chilly. Now, as we got out of our cars, I realized temperatures had dropped into the twenties. A friend showed up with huge piles of big, fluffy blankets.
A musician friend of mine sat inside the amphitheater, playing soft acoustic guitar. Her fingers looked cold—when she saw me she smiled so warmly I blew her a silent kiss. Dozens of people dressed in long coats, scarves, and gloves filed in and huddled close together. We’d expected seventy-five people or so, but the chairs filled quickly and then the park benches, and by the time the funeral started, the entire amphitheater was filled with people who came to pay their last respects to our family.
The amphitheater looked out on hundreds of ferns and oak, pine, and cherry trees. Ice hung heavy on the branches, distorting the trees into fantastical creatures. The lawn appeared crystallized, frozen and still. I smiled to myself, knowing how much David would have loved this setting.
Sophie saw three of her friends sitting in the third row and asked, “Can I sit with my friends?”
David would have said yes. Her buddies put her in the middle of the pack, one on each side holding her hand.
David’s friends were, by nature, great storytellers, and one by one, they came to the podium to share tales of his humor and his great penchant for haphazardly planned adventures. One friend, Matt Palmer, told a story of a river trip in which all of them nearly drowned because David insisted on taking a Category 5 route, one of the most difficult types of rivers to navigate.
“He just kept telling us we’d be okay,” Matt said. “And we were. Until now.”
Another told a story of one of David’s fishing trips, when he’d promised to take care of the food and drink. “When we opened the cooler, there was beer, bacon, and bread. I’d never been so constipated, or so happy, in my entire life.” The audience had tears in their eyes from laughing, not crying.
Colin had asked if he should come, and I’d said no—I thought it would be uncomfortable for everyone, especially David’s family. But now, witnessing this outpouring of love for David, I wished Colin could be here, if only as a fly on the wall, to hear the stories of the man I’d fallen in love with. Colin only knew David as a person with a mental illness. He was so much bigger than that.
A friend of mine opened his Mac to start a slide show he’d put together for our family. He’d shown up days after David’s death and offered to go through my carefully organized pictures, picking out ones that captured David’s life. It was one of the most generous offerings in the days following his death. The musician played “Forever Young” as the images flashed before me.
There he was, smiling broadly, his oversized hands holding Sophie up to the sun at the beach—pride beaming from his face. I’d forgotten she was only two weeks old when we took her to the beach for her first stroll. The next photo was David feeding Sophie blended veggies in the highchair, him making a funny, wincing expression as she ate another spoonful.
There were several photos of him deep in a book in the corner. I’d remembered, when we first met, how I admired his ability to excuse himself at parties and family gatherings to read; toward the end of our marriage I’d resented the hell out of it.
Every indicator of David’s illness, however subtle, had been there in the beginning for me to see—yet I’d embraced the exuberance and rejected the depression, never understanding why he could be so mean and irritable on the heels of so much charm and enthusiasm.
My mother handed me a Kleenex. She’d loved David always, knowing he was not the man in the pictures, but someone far more conflicted. She also understood why I stayed with him—my loyalty to family, our history.
PRIVACY RIGHTS AND THE CAREGIVER’S RIGHT TO KNOW
The Federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, often frustrates parents and caregivers of troubled adult children. The law restricts release of personal medical information for anyone eighteen or older. It is helpful for patients wishing to protect their confidentiality, but for caregivers or parents of people with a mental illness, HIPAA places numerous roadblocks to accessing information regarding the care of a mentally ill patient in need. For example, it prevents doctors from talking with family members in detail about a loved one’s treatment plan.
The challenge for many families is to communicate with both their mentally ill loved one and their care team. Our family had very little information about David’ diagnosis, his care plan, or his ongoing suicidal ideation. We would have benefitted from more information, more updates, and a clear assessment from his psychiatrists and social workers.
Other families encounter the problem of noncompliance—patients who refuse their medication because they believe the side effects are more harmful than the treatment. It is extremely common for patients with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia to become noncompliant because of the belief that medication dulls their senses. Parents and caregivers are often helpless against HIPAA in demanding medication compliance.