Christmas 2014 in QUOTIDIEN

Several weeks ago, I received a phone call from my daughter. She was in school - and clearly distraught - in tears.

“Mommy…“

When your 15 year old tearfully reverts to calling you ‘mommy’, your heart stops in your chest for a second as you cast about for something to hold on to.

“…I have a serious problem and I need your help. I’ve been using drugs, and I want to go to rehab. NOW please, mommy.”

Devastation and pride can co-exist, I learned that day. Removing ‘self’ from the equation, I saw her as a hurting wonder! Lost yet self-aware enough to recognize her own need, on her knees yet strong enough to reach out. She is a phenomenon!

Her resolve waned a bit as we made plans for her inpatient care, which would take place 50 minutes away from home. Though the rehab program is 60 days, we tentatively planned for 10 with a solid promise to continue out-patient care upon her return home. We even made arrangements with the family to celebrate Christmas on the 13th as she would be admitted on the 16th.

“I’ll do what it takes - but only for 10 days”.

As I drove home, those words rang in my head…over and over and over again. A call within the first 48 hours finally pierced through the enabler in me, and had me realizing that the depth of help Anne-Marie needs cannot be achieved in 10 days. Over the phone, and with two counselors in the room, the news was announced. Anne-Marie was furious. I was the betrayer. A de-natured mother. A selfish woman. Why did I hate her? Don’t I trust her?

I let her vent. I held my own tears. I bit my tongue…my lip…my nails, but I let her have her say. And then quietly, I told her that I loved her - and that I trusted her enough to believe when she told me she had a drug problem and that she wanted to get better.....and that this was precisely what I was doing. My job - as a mother.

‘It’s too hard. Too cruel. I hate it. They hate me. I’ll be good. I’ll only smoke pot. Take me back. Love me.’

I nodded, and let her have her go - again, before I told her that if I insisted on picking her up every time she fell, she would never learn to stand on her own. And it’s the truth. I will make her weak by not allowing her the effort it takes to get back up, and move forward.

Christmas was a lonely affair, for me. The actually day, that is. I shut myself in, spend the morning in my pj’s and bed. That afternoon, I went to a Chinese restaurant (ill-advised given my Meniere’s Disease) with a friend from church, then beat her twice at Jenga before it was time to come home.

Before bed, I poured myself a small Tanq and Tonic, took two sips - and the phone rang. It was 10:45pm....from the facility.

‘Mrs. Gibson, this is James. I’m calling to let you know that there’s been a situation. Anne-Marie was in group. Sometimes these things can be an emotional thing.’

My body goes into alert mode. I’m breathing deep - getting in all the oxygen I might need were I to suddenly need to sprint 3000 feet or something. The muscles in my neck and spine are bunched, and I realize my butt is quivering with the effort of squeezing hard enough to turn coal into diamonds. I ask if Annie is okay.

‘The entire group let out. I was administering meds to one kid, and Anne-Marie asked if migraines could be caused by stress. When I turned to answer her, her eyes rolled up, and she collapsed.’

Collapsed - a trigger word. It’s what my husband did. He also collapsed.

‘Is she alright? IS SHE ALRIGHT?’

‘She was taken to the hospital by ambulance.’

And I lost it - the filter that is usually in place to insure diplomacy disintegrated.

‘Sir - SHUT UP AND LISTEN TO ME. YES OR NO! Is she okay?’

‘Mrs. Gibson - I’m so sorry!’

The floodgates opened, and the tears came in a wash. My heart beat so hard and fast, the front of my shirt fluttered, and a feral noise worked its way past the knot in my throat in a burst.

‘James - IS SHE ALIVE?’

‘As far as I know. She regained consciousness before they took her away.’

So now - all of this energy had to go somewhere, and by all the saints, this man deserved exactly what came next.

‘James, you SUCK at this! You should never, EVER be permitted to speak to another parent, EVER! You NEVER say ‘I’m so sorry’ unless you’re prepared to follow that statement up with ‘we did everything we could’. What in the hell were you thinking? Didn’t you take a class for this kind of thing? There are classes, you know. There are classes!!’

‘Thank you for that. Thank you SO much, ma’am.’

‘Oh no you don’t. You don’t get to have attitude. You get to sit there and listen to what I have to say since you couldn’t be bothered to exercise the minimal courtesy required to listen to me earlier and answer my question. Jesus Christ! What the hell is wrong with you?! Now you can speak. What hospital is she at?’

I was there in record time.

The gentleman who greeted me there was NOT James who was, apparently, quite contrite and embarrassed. He answered several questions including whether or not he thought this could be a ruse in order to get me to take her home. According to him, that’s the first thing they wondered, too. A review of the tape, however, showed
Anne-Marie staggering out of group, leaning against the reception counter, saying something to the counselor, then face-planting onto the floor.

For the next 30 minutes, she kept slipping in and out of consciousness - unable to provide answers for anything outside of what her name was - and her age. Beyond that, her eyes would roll back up, and she would become unresponsive. In addition, she lost bladder control.

CT scans and blood work came back normal. Given her pre-existing migraine disorder, they’ve determined she had a Basilar Migraine triggered by stress. What were they doing in group? Watching a movie about a teenage girl who had to identify the body of her mother, who’d overdosed…on Christmas. And here is Anne-Marie, who is spending her first Christmas without her father…without me....

She was discharged from the hospital, and she asked that I take her back to the facility where she was permitted to sleep well into the next day, and excused from any high-stress activity.

Christmas 2014.