The Big Divides
Nothing could have prepared me for the unimaginable trauma of my husband’s brain injury. It was a lightning bolt of devastation. Not only separating life into before and after—but totally redefining the meaning of “after.” Long held hopes and aspirations instantly became smoking chars.
The first time I experienced an event that split life in two was President Kennedy’s assassination. I was only nine, but I knew things were different before and after.
That morning there was safety and security. That afternoon there was fear and uncertainty.
All normal activities were suspended. Adults were crying. “Bereft” was not yet in my vocabulary, but it perfectly described countless Catholic schoolchildren just like me.
Every life has a number of big divides. Something happens, something’s lost and there’s no path back.
The next time I sensed nothing would ever be the same started on a carefree summer afternoon in late July 1967. Coming back from a day at the lake cabin of family friends, we noticed black smoke in the distance as we approached the city. We’d soon learn that large parts of Detroit were in flames.
In the days that followed, National Guard tanks would ride down our street announcing an 8 p.m. curfew. Gunfire was within earshot. There was no return to untroubled evenings lounging on the front porch while listening to the transistor radio.
The following spring Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed in Memphis. I was attending a well-integrated all girls Catholic High School. We were taught by Immaculate Heart of Mary nuns, an order committed to social justice. In the weeks before that dreadful day they told us about the importance of the Poor People’s Campaign that was in the works.
The morning after Rev. King’s assassination we had a special Mass and I noticed something that I’d never seen before in our school. All the black girls were grouped together. Many were crying and consoling each other.
The murder of MLK was a life schism for me because it marked the change from the naïve belief that matters of race could be healed through simple goodwill to the more profound understanding of the roots of inequality.
Just weeks later, the good sisters allowed us to leave school early to wait for the arrival of Senator Robert F. Kennedy who was running for the Democratic nomination for President. It was a hot day in late May and our uniforms, wool skirts and sweaters, were stifling as we waited patiently for the motorcade the pass.
The crowd was multiracial, multigenerational, and fully hopeful. Everyone a wanted to believe it was possible to have peace in Viet Nam and win the war on poverty at home.
As his car turned the corner, the surge of supporters was tremendous—people reaching out and small children being lifted. Through the frenzied rush to touch, RFK and visibly pregnant Ethel smiled and touched back.
In just a few moments, they moved on. An old Polish lady in a babushka shook her head and said to me in broken English that he shouldn’t be riding in an open car. “He be killed like his brother,” she said. “Don’t worry,” I reassured her. “Don’t worry.”
His death split many lives in two. For me, it was the event that caused me to doubt my faith. I prayed so hard for his recovery in the hours Senator Kennedy lingered.
When they weren’t answered, I couldn’t accept that a merciful God would allow what might have been our last best hope to becoming a more perfect union to die that way. I stopped taking Communion and didn’t worry any longer about the mortal sin of missing Mass.
The sixties gave way to a new decade, and I was a sixteen- year-old ready to face the future. On a Saturday night in early January 1970, I went to see Easy Rider with one of my girlfriends. It was a little too adult and violent for me, and, frankly, a bit upsetting. But I didn’t let on.
When I got home at around 10:00 p.m., my father was already in bed reading. I poked my head in and said, “I’m home, Daddy.” He smiled and patted the bed beside him. “Come on, sit down, tell me about the movie.” I gave him a quick plot summary and said goodnight.
Early the next morning the phone rang. It was a friend of my father’s and when my mother reached over to hand him the phone, my dad was nonresponsive and a sickly blue color. She screamed. My sister tried to give him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. The ambulance came. He was dead on arrival at the hospital. He was 47 years old.
The next life dissection didn’t come for another 40 years. Oh, of course, there were lots of depressing milestones along the way, but they didn’t upend life as I knew it. The murder of John Lennon, I correctly surmised, would always tinge happy Beatle memories with sadness. Breast cancer left a forever scar. A beloved pet had to be put down rather than suffer. People I knew and liked and loved left this world—some in accidents, some from illnesses. The horror of 9/11 brought apocalyptic despondency.
But, ultimately, getting by was just putting one foot in front of the other, secure in the knowledge that even the lowest lows would be balanced by wonderful highs.
When fate lowered the boom on that horrible morning in October 2010, though, I couldn’t be sure of anything anymore. If I knew that a decade in the future a “wonderful high” would be Dennis remembering how to microwave popcorn, I probably wouldn’t have had the wherewithal to carry on.
In the time since then there has been one more big divide in my life. The realization of it came quietly, though—not from an announcement on a crackling PA system or a news bulletin on TV, not from sirens or the scream of horror from an adjacent room.
One day, several years into our post-brain injury reality, it occurred to me that I had completely stopped dreaming about the “before” Dennis. The raconteur and helpmate who supported me in every possible way didn’t visit me anymore.
Now, when he comes to me in the night, he needs me to be in the driver’s seat. I need to take care of him and guide him through simple tasks even in my subconscious.
It was a long goodbye, but in the fullness of time yet another curtain was drawn.