The Blues

I had a brother who liked to say, when he was feeling down, that he was "blue". I guess I still have that brother, but most of his ashes are in the Elwah River and the rest of them are in the soil around a hydrangia bush that I brought home from his memorial service 6 years ago. He was probably an undiagnosed bi-polar person, what we used to call manic-depressive, and like an Irish poet, he loved his highs and lows. During high times he was charming, funny, wonderful to be around, his smile was radiant, and during his lows, his blue times, he cried and bellowed and carried on something awful--anyone in his radius was affected. He and I both loved the blues music, too, and today it's really all I want to listen to.

I am blue today. Though I am done crying and bellowing today, yesterday I reminded myself of my brother. Unlike my brother, I had something tangible to cry and bellow about. Maybe he did, too, but you never could tell for sure. What's making me blue is that our Angel Alyssa is no longer working for us. Yesterday around noon she came to my mother's house for her 4 hours shift. She began her duties, she was making pot roast for dinner and planning to give Mom a bath. She came into the living room where my brother presides over the couch and the coffee table, strewn with Rolling Stone magazines, cash, prescription medications for his various mental and physical ailments, glasses, coffee mugs, matches, catnip for his cat, and dust 2 years thick, and found him lighting up his pot pipe. I suppose he thought (???) she was such a dear young lady that she would be "cool' with it. He supposed wrong. She is an employee of a reputable agency with rules and regulations and as a respected employee with ethics she called her boss and reported that an illegal substance was being smoked in her presence.

That is when the shit hit the fan. Betty, from Abiding Care, called me first and reported that there was "trouble" and reported what the trouble was. She asked me to call my brother and tell him to put his pot away, which I did immediately. 30 minutes later she called to say that Alyssa wanted to complete her 4 hours, but that after that "service would be terminated". She apologized and I apologized to her for my brother's incredible stupidity. She replied that it was "because of his illness". I was already in tears. After I hung up the phone I screamed and shook for a half hour. I screamed all the things i wanted to scream at my brother. I didn't dare go to my mother's house--I was truly afraid that if I saw Stanley I would fling myself on him with a sharp instrument and end up in jail. He deserved it. Betty called him--I asked her to-- and told him Alyssa wouldn't be coming anymore. He called me shortly after and I hung up on him after he said, "Hello, Chris" in a serious tone, about to tell me what he had wrought. I already knew what he had done.

The rest of the day, which had started with blueberry muffin baking and enjoying the incredible Fall sunshine, I spent trying to figure out what to do. What my heart wanted to do was to never set foot in my mother's house again--to never speak to my brother ever again--to turn my back on the entire mess. My heart won over my brain all the rest of the day. I wanted to hand it all over to Stanley--let him take care of everything from now on. Let him do the grocery shopping, let him take Mom to the doctor, let him give Mom baths, do the laundry, comb her hair, clean her nails, adjust her braces. All day. But then toward evening my brain began to take over and I knew it would never work. I knew I couldn't leave my mother at his mercy--because he has no mercy. It is all about him. If I let him shop for the groceries with Mom's money he would abuse the situation. If I left it to him to give her a bath, do her laundry, comb her hair, clean her nails, fix her braces, none of it would happen. I would visit one day and she would smell bad and he would have used up all her money and would be asking for more.

My brain and I had a long talk, with the help of my husband, and I finally decided that I would continue to buy the groceries and to take Mom to the doctor and to do the things that are in service to her that I know my brother won't do. But I won't clean anymore, or get my brother what he wants to eat. The house will go back to the way it was before Alyssa and I cleaned it, the way both my Mom and my brother are used to having it, coffee grounds and fruit peels and stale bread all over the kitchen counter, fruit flies everywhere (though I bought some bug spray today), cat hair on all the upholstery, clothes strewn all over the house. I won't put my agenda anywhere near theirs--there is no percentage in that. There is nothing for it but to ignore what I can't stand, close my eyes, and go on. An old Irish prayer fits well: If God sends you down a stony path, may he give you strong shoes.

So today I am blue, like my brother, Dan, used to be sometimes. And I wish he was here, though I would have had to deal with his anger, too, and mine is big enough.