By Ann Lewis
From ear to ear, I smiled as I walked under ‘London Bridge,’ so proud of my brother.
The Boy Scouts formed an archway as we entered the First Presbyterian Church.
I didn’t understand Tommy was not coming back
even after I witnessed his casket disappear in the ground at Westview Cemetery.
He died on my sixth birthday.
I plotted to dig him up and bring him back until the dream:
I was whisked away to desert sand dunes,
a picnic red and white Arabian tent, men in turbans.
The leader explained that beyond the flowy fabric stood Tommy,
but I wasn’t allowed to hug or touch him.
I passed through the draped dimension to find
a head-dressed Tommy behind a large wooden table.
The lighting soft behind him, he almost glowed.
“Ann, it’s your turn to take care of Mama.”
Tommy was Mama’s favorite--
decades later one of her kindest delusions
was him sitting on the tweed couch watching cartoons.
She described the scene once in a telephone call.
My sister was her first born. And I was the fallback.
Touching down in the US after years in South Africa,
I found myself in my sister’s car speeding to the Thomasville Crisis center.
Its cinder block walls of white and hard gray plastic chairs
witnessed the darkness that shrouded Mama’s eyes
as the dimestore psychiatrist explained
that she could no longer be alone.
Within seconds, Mama found her rescue:
“Then Ann can come live with me.”
But I didn’t. Into an assisted living facility, battling hope,
is how she lived out her days, looking forward to any escape,
often in the form of weekly jaunts for crab cakes and mani/pedis.
We laughed some, walked a little and regularly bought cartons of Winstons
and boxes of ramen. She was haunted, speaking to and sometimes
reprimanding antagonists only she could see.
It was a Thursday night in December. Only two weeks before
Mama and I had Thanksgiving-ed at my farmer’s table.
Tired, I had canceled our standing Saturday appointment.
I can still hear the let down in her voice.
A promise of mani/pedis the following Saturday lifted her spirits.
But the temperatures dropped, gusts of wind howled, turkey chili simmered,
and I got the call that she finished her Winston 100 and crumbled.
Paramedics were doing their best to revive her I was told.
I drove to the hospital, crying out to my brother
that it was now his turn.
Copyright 2023 Inside Out: Meet Mama Schizophrenia.
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