A few nights ago, around midnight, as I sat working at my computer, our home phone rang. Because that is hardly normal at such a late hour – and calls bearing good news almost never come so late at night – I was immediately on edge. On the other end was my oldest daughter, sobbing. After subduing my own panic, I learned what was wrong; her mother – my ex-wife – had swallowed a bunch of pills earlier that night in an attempt to end her life. Rachel was calling me from the ER waiting room and her call affected me in ways I would have never imagined possible. I’ll get to those changes presently but, for it to make sense, I’ll need to provide a bit of context.
You see, my ex (Chris) and I have not had an even marginally good relationship for many years now – and it isn’t the typical “battle of the ex’s” type stuff either. It has been decidedly one sided. Without going into the gory details, let me just say that she has made it a priority to make my life hell for nearly 18 years. Just for sport. To make matters worse, she didn’t hesitate to put Rachel in the middle of it if it suited her purpose. Over the years, each of her attacks added fuel to the burning hatred I had developed for her. And, when I say that, you should understand that I think hate is one of the most powerful words in the English language, and isn’t a word I toss around lightly, at least not where people are concerned. In fact, I would go as far as saying that she is the only person I’ve ever really hated.
And that hatred was fueled not only by her provocations, but by my own impotence to do anything about it; if I fought back, only Rachel would get hurt – Chris wanted a fight – and I couldn’t defend many of the lies she told Rachel about me because doing so would involve bad-mouthing her mother or telling her about events she shouldn’t know about. I’d vowed years ago I would never do that, and I hadn’t. So when, shortly after Rachel turned 18, Chris sent me an email starting her normal junk, the time-worn floodgates that had so long held back that raging hate finally failed. She no longer held any power or wielded any control over me through Rachel; Rachel was at an age where she’d figured enough of the truth out all on her own, so I no longer felt I had to make nice as I always had. I had never had any intent to go back and “settle the score,” but that snide email from her simply flew all over me. I had nearly 18 years of stored indignation and hatred; I was a tightly wound spring with a hair trigger, and she came stomping in. I wrote her a long email (and you know if I consider it long, it was long) telling her so many of the things I’d so long wanted to. I “vented my spleen” as the saying goes. I had to re-write the email about 10 times to get it as far as even remotely civil. It was still extremely sarcastic – I don’t think I am capable of suppressing that in a situation like this one – but factual and as close to civil as possible, considering the message. When I hit send, I was prepared for full out nuclear war – in fact, I think I was hoping for it. Instead I got this terse reply: “Now you’ve gone and done it. I’m going to have to send you a bi**hy reply.” (the asterisks are mine, she spelled it out); but that reply never came. She knew me well – she is one of the most empathic (though not sympathetic) people I’ve ever known and we had a long history – and she must have seen where I was. I suspect that she re-read my email again and realized that I was right, and that this was a fight she didn’t want and couldn’t win; she was right. I felt at least a little vindicated, but that changed nothing about how I felt about her personally.
As the following days turned into weeks and then to months with no further contact with her, the hatred I’d so carefully nurtured for all those years dwindled from its usual white-hot intensity to a slow smoldering ember, though it was no more likely to go out than before. I was glad to be done with her. In fact, as far as I was concerned I would be perfectly happy if I never got another email from her, never heard her voice and never saw her face again. I was done. I had even stopped to consciously count the occasions between now and when I died that I would have to see her again – Rachel’s graduation, her wedding, the birth of any grandchildren, etc – and, while anything greater than zero was too many, I decided I could live with it. I would have to, really.
The thing is, she has not been “right in the head”, for years. Her behavior had been self destructive for as long as I could remember. I didn’t realize it until that call came but, somewhere in the back of my mind, I’d been expecting it; I guess that deep down I always thought that is how she would die. It wasn’t something I’d given a single moment’s thought to, though, so I hadn’t really considered what, if anything, I would feel about it. If I had, though, I think I would have said that I would feel a mixture of pity and release; pity for what she had become, release from the sense that someday, somehow she would again find a way to attack me or my family – particularly Rachel. There would be no joy in it – I never wished even her dead – but no real sadness either. The only real sadness would be for my daughter.
When the call came, however, I would have been proven wrong, and not by a small measure. The reality is that, quite unexpectedly, I had an almost visceral reaction. It was like a desert flash flood ripping through me. It wasn’t a sense of loss like you would feel for a loved one; rather, it was a profound sadness for what could have been; what should have been.
Instead of the 18 years of torture, my mind was filled with vivid, almost palpable, memories of long before. The kind where you aren’t so much remembering as re-living; where you can actually feel that long ago wind caress your face and smell the faint scent of pine carried on it. Memories of that very first time I met her; of that 13 year old girl that I (also 13) eagerly followed up Pine Mountain on the youth outing her grandmother had brought her to (and how I’d deliberately followed and not lead because the view was better, God bless Pierre Cardin and his jeans). Memories of the many thousands of hours spent on the phone talking about everything and nothing – as often as not, just listening to each other breathe – through which we would build a deep, abiding friendship. Memories of eager anticipation of her trips to town (she lived 100 miles away) and how excruciatingly slow time seemed to pass during those waits. Memories of that first date, and of that first kiss out by Spring Lake, and of the hours spent sitting together in the edge of the woods overlooking that same lake just being together. Memories of how she smelled and how I would keep the shirt I’d worn the day she’d gone back home, unwashed so it would still smell like her, stashed away until the next time I saw her. Memories of the girl I grew to know and of the young woman I fell so impossibly, deeply in love with. Memories of the beautiful young woman I once stood at an altar, before God and family, and swore wedding vows with all those many years ago. And memories of the woman who had borne my first child – and of the shattered plans and dreams I once had for my young family.
If it sounds like I was secretly still in love with her in some way – and I could see where it might – that couldn’t be farther from the truth. I guess any love for her had been bleached from my bones as the years passed, and I am very happy with my family as it is now. I love my wife completely, and can’t even imagine that not being so. And, though I’ve always wished I could have given Rachel a “normal” childhood – whatever that is – and have always more than a little guilt that I couldn’t, I’ve long since passed the point where I could even imagine life as it might have been. But I guess what I am trying to convey is that, in that moment, I was transformed in some way; I was able to remember the person I once knew and loved, and I experienced the years worth of stored up sadness that she no longer existed for me. I was able to wonder how things could have been different and wonder what I could have done differently that might have saved her from the tragic arc she set out on so long ago. Regardless of how I might have felt about the Chris that currently existed in my world, the Chris(tie) from that time was worth saving. And I mourned her loss when I got that call because certainly something of her still existed in the woman who had taken those pills. With her death, what little remnants remained in this world would be gone from all but my memories. Forever.
Without ever realizing it, I had been poisoning myself with that hate for her over all those years, but it was a bit like taking a little cyanide each day and hoping it would kill someone else; It didn’t hurt her at all, but it hurt me a great deal. I had let that hate for her consume me to such a degree that it redefined me. When I was younger, I was almost always happy. I expected the best from life and was surprised when life didn’t deliver, but, over the years, I’d become jaded – I expected, and got, noogies, wedgies and swirlies from life – and that hate was the catalyst; it had been the transformative agent in my life. And, while I’ve long recognized how jaded I’ve become, I never realized how much it was driven by that poison that I had not only allowed, but invited into my life. For whatever reason, that flash flood of unexpected feelings washed it away, leaving me feeling as scoured and bare as a desert dry wash. I’m just left to sort through the rocks.
I was left feeling profoundly sorry for her – not in the way she wants everyone to, but for what she has become – and completely devoid of any traces of those burning embers. The net effect left me unsettled for a couple of days, but feeling as if a weight had been lifted off my chest.
In the end, she was unsuccessful in her attempt to end her life. She was brought to the hospital in time to prevent any lasting harm – at least to her – and was released to go home the next morning. From what I’ve heard from Rachel about her behavior since her release it appears that, as unlikely as it seems, her attempt to end it all changed everyone in her life but her which is terribly sad. I will keep her in my prayers and sincerely hope that one day she finds whatever it is she is looking for.
And, while am anything but glad that she attempted to kill herself, I am grateful for the relief I found as a result of it. In the seconds before that call came, I had no idea such a fundamental shift in my life was so imminent – I suppose that is how many life-altering events are – but who would have thought a call so late at night could be a wake-up call? And yet, for me, that is exactly what it was.
/g
