I drove a long way to work each day in the late nineties and early in the twenty first century. I was the Magnet Coordinator at Revere Middle School which was a good thirty miles away from my house in Southeast Houston. I had to rise early and fight traffic for an hour just to get there. I had followed my principal to the school after he asked me to come help the faculty just as I had at South Houston Intermediate. I quickly learned that there was a great deal of suspicion about why I was there. The teachers either embraced me or pushed me away in fear that I was more about threatening their jobs than actually assisting them in their work. It was difficult to be disliked because I had always had excellent relationships with my teaching colleagues. I knew I had to prove myself by first learning about what is it like in a large urban school district.
There always seemed to be some kind of turmoil in progress in Houston ISD and within the walls of Paul Revere as well. I was working longer and harder than I ever before had. On Friday afternoons I picked up my mother for dinner and shopping. We usually had fun together but she was beginning to be more and more anxious whenever I met up with her. At first I thought that she was just dealing with the stresses of being retired and living on a rather small fixed income, but soon it became apparent to me that she was devolving into a psychotic state.
When my mother was working her boss would call to warn me when Mama was showing signs of needing help. Now there was nobody to keep me apprised of her daily habits and she had sadly become incredibly ill. When I tried to make an appointment for her to see the psychiatrist that had kept her well for so many years I learned that she had left his care and was relying on her primary care physician to provide her with medication which she apparently had not been taking. Her psychiatrist told me that he was too old to deal with a noncompliant patient and despite my pleas he refused to see her. I had to find someone willing to take her as a patient quickly, but that proved to be an almost impossible task.
I found out the hard way that the state of care for mental health in Texas is chaotic at best. I literally spent days in my office at school with the door locked and the blinds drawn calling one doctor after another hoping to find someone willing to see. her. Some wanted only cash for their services, on Medicare, no insurance. Others specialized in younger patients. Some had practices that were full. I followed one lead after another only to be turned away again and again. I ended up sobbing uncontrollably while talking with yet another doctor who had insisted that he would not be able to give my mother an appointment. He kindly talked with me for over an hour until I was once more in control of my emotions. He provided me with the names of two more doctors that he thought might be willing to help. Sadly neither of them had opening for my mother but one of them gave me one more name, Dr. Jary Lesser, head of geriatric psychiatry at the University of Texas Mental Health Institute. It was there that I would find the miracle worker who would make my mother whole again.
Once I had an appointment for Mama it would take me and both of my brothers to coax her to see the doctor. She was paranoid and manic all at once and fought us with everything she had, even threatening to run naked down the street if we did not leave her alone. With the help of one of her neighbors who told her that she should trust her children to take care of her and the quick thinking of my brother, Pat, who got her into his truck, we managed to get her to Dr. Lesser who finally diagnosed her illness correctly and provided medications that made her seem like the incredible mother who had sacrificed so much for us when we were children. She would live with my brother, Michael for a time while she recovered.
Not long after that terrorists flew into the Twin Towers in New York City and chaos ensued at our school as parents worried that there might be attacks all over the country. it was a crazy time when I watched the beginnings of fissures and distrust in our nation. Those same things were present on a small scale in our school as well. Everything felt just a bit more difficult but the bright light was Maryellen’s announcement that she was once again pregnant. This time it would be twins.
Immediately after her call I reached out to Catherine. I knew that she had been trying desperately to have children and I sensed that Maryellen’s news would compound her worries that she was never going to be a mother. When I called her she burst into tears. She had been seeing a fertility doctor, giving herself painful injections, working so hard to conceive and carry a baby to term. She was inconsolable in her fear that she would never have a successful pregnancy. There was so little that I could say to make her feel better. I knew not to try to give her false hopes. I only told her that I understood her concerns and that it was too early to give up.
When the time came for Maryellen’s twins to be born Catherine surprised her sister by flying home overnight after working until midnight at the hospital. The two sisters embraced and cried when they saw each other. Soon after I had two more incredible grandsons, Benjamin and Eli who looked so much alike that Maryellen would have to dress them in different colors for people to know which was which. Ben would always wear blue and Eli would be donned in green. They were set to become more incredibly delightful that any of us might ever have imagined. Catherine would learn from Maryellen the art of successfully mothering two babies at once. it was something that she might need in her future.
All It Takes Is A Little Love 