Silent Witness

“By stating the truth, we open conversations about grief.... We begin to overhaul the falsely redemptive storyline that has us, as a culture and as individuals, insist that there's a happy ending. We withstand what can't be fixed…even when the truth breaks our hearts.” 

I have not published for a while. Yes, I have been grieving the loss of my dog, my best friend. But in the midst of the sadness of such a blatant void, I have also come to realize that I had to make sense of something even bigger--the pivotal reason why I moved to Sacramento.

When I began this blog, I had hoped that by writing about my transition, I did not have to face the real issue head on. So I wrote about the past and the initial days of my relocation in what can be called glossier terms. But, I always knew that a larger catharsis had to happen. I had to face my darkness.

I realized that the subjective nature of blog writing presents a narrative that can come across as self gratuitous. I had to get out of that stance of self wallowing. This was the only way to tell the real story, to understand, and ultimately to move on.

I decided to remove myself as the participant and subject of this blog. I had to become the observer, the listener. I had to hear from a third party, a friend. And with that introduction, here is my story as told by the SILENT WITNESS…

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She always thought of herself as alone. She did not know that I was always present. But, even with my constancy and caring, I could not stop what happened to her. I could only watch the madness slowly, insidiously unfold.

And now, I can only tell what I witnessed. To those who care to listen, to those willing to come to that place of acceptance and empathy, to those who do not fear that life reveals the unthinkable, I now write to bear the ultimate truth and embrace her broken soul.

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Eight years ago…

Her mother lay in a hospital bed immersed in the vulnerability of her 80 years. This once beautiful and dynamic woman had not only acquiesced to the inevitable aging of her body but had completely surrendered her spirit. I knew she felt disappointed and frustrated with her Mother. She simply expected her to remain that constant, forceful presence. You know, the image that a self indulgent daughter creates in her head to allow herself license to become impatient, angry, frustrated with a Mother who gave and defined life. And yet, no matter how difficult, there is always the unspoken love of knowing and hoping she will always be there. That love filled with memories of music, laughter, and caring. That love that grows from infancy and will never let go of a Mother’s hand. That love that prevails.

So it was hard to see her Mother give up. It was the ultimate goodbye for which she was not prepared to face. And, as she sat beside her, again holding her hand, in the privacy of the present and the richness of their past, she spoke softly and kindly…

“The good news, Mom, is that nothing is broken. You are bruised from the fall and they have stitched the back of your head. You really must look into getting those steps up to code. They are dangerous.”

“He pushed me down the stairs”

Startled with disbelief, all she could say was, “What?”

“Dad pushed me down the stairs.”

Shocked, she could only offer a dismissive response…

“You must have imagined it Mom. It’s the medication talking. Get some sleep. You will feel better soon.”

Yes, it must be the pills. Mom was delirious.

Her Mother then retreated to speaking in Portuguese, the language of her childhood and heritage. It was a language that, as a shamed immigrant, her Mother chose not to teach her. But their symbiotic connection forged and imprinted understandings that defied spoken words, no matter the language. She came always to know what her Mother was saying. She simply responded in English.  And together they existed in a bilingual exchange of old and new, Mother and child; generational push and pull.

“Muito fruiu."

”I’ll get you another blanket Mom”.

"Obrigado."

"You’re welcome Mom."

And with that, she wrapped Mom snugly and waited until she fell asleep.

She later told her own daughter, the grandchild most close to her Mother, what she heard her Mother mumble.

“Why would she say that my Father pushed her? I think it was the drugs talking. She is getting old and incoherent. Why would he hurt her?”

“Oh no Mom, he pushed her. Why would she lie?”

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Shortly after that fall, her Mother’s health declined and the ravages of dementia took over. It came to the point where she could no longer feed or care for herself.

The daily responsibility fell towards her father. As he did with everything, he would declare how much he loved his wife, what a good man he was to tend to her, how sorry everyone should feel for him. This was the soundtrack of all her father’s lifelong, burdened proclamations. He was the good husband, the nice guy. His wife was difficult. His children were terrible. He worked hard. So convincing that most of his friends, family believed him.

It was not surprising that people took his side. Her Mother was beautiful, luminous when at her best. But she was also tempermental and unhappy. Men desired her but, to assuage their married guilt, placed blame for their lust on her. Women, in their jealous insecurities, stayed away and criticized. She was alone. No one stopped to care or question that perhaps her unhappiness resulted in the hidden secrets of her private world. It was easier and more convenient to believe the proclamations of a husband who convincingly extolled his loyalty and victimization.

As their child, it was chaotic and painful to grow up amidst the whispered gossip and the facades that swirled around her parents. All she knew was the roller coaster of life that resulted. This lovely, vivacious woman could also turn into a desperately flailing woman, so mired in frustration. She was confused by her father, never understanding why he seemed to delight in his role as the beleaguered spouse. But, unlike the rest of the world, she stayed loyal to her larger than life, mercurial mother rather than choose to understand her pathetic father. Her childhood memories of him were vague and distant. Ultimately, he did not seem to care. His focus was on his wife, his image. The daughter was invisible. There was no foundation, no relationship. Nothing.

This dynamic continued bizarrely along until my friend started to grow up. She went from the chubby, quiet child to a woman in her own right. She was smart and sought opportunities that her Mother had long surrendered. I clearly saw that eventually her Mother could not separate her anguish and slowly, sadly transferred her frustration and unhappiness towards her now distancing daughter. They fought. There were prolonged silences. The Mother was angry—bitter about the trapped and unhappy life she was leading. The daughter was angry—furious that a Mother would be so brutally unsupportive. For so many years it was a tortured relationship – on and off, over and over again.

When her Mother got sick, she fully returned. It was where she needed and wanted to be. I think they both knew that the love was always there. Life just had just cruelly taken its toll. But now her Mother was old and slowly fading in the morass of a mind’s confusion and failing body. She knew that she belonged by her mother’s side. She never told me how or why she became so committed. But I knew that her loyalty to her Mother was unquestioned.

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Upon visiting her Mother, as her health continued to decline, she found herself standing in the family kitchen. Her father entered from her Mother’s bedroom with a tray still full of uneaten food and a row of pills, neatly lined up and also untouched.

“What’s going on here? Why didn’t you give her dinner and her meds?”

“She yelled at me and refused. I tried. She is the bad one here.”

Slowly and concerted, she tried to explain, “Dad, Mom is not bad. She is sick”. Her irritation with her Father grew. “Mom has dementia. She does not understand. No one is at fault. Stop blaming her. It is not about you. She needs your help.”

Despite her words, she knew her father truly did not want to help. Under the guise of duty, her father began neglecting his wife. She decided that her Mother needed professional assistance. She researched and found a place that would care for her. Her father protested. 

“I want her with me. She belongs to me.”

“No Dad, you clearly cannot give her the supervision she requires. Think of Mom. You must want her to live. If she stays with you, she will die”.

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She will never forget the day before she left on a business trip to Brazil. She visited her Mother in the home to say good bye.

“I am going to be gone for a week or so. I have to go on a business trip. Guess what? I am going to Brazil. Maybe I will try to speak Portuguese while I am there. I think you would like that. But I will come see you as soon as I get back. I promise. I am glad you like it here Mom. I know they are taking good care of you.”

Her Mother simply sat there in a childlike daze, smiling.  She did not remember her Mother’s response. It was not important. It was important for her to tell her Mother that she loved her.

She does remember seeing her father out of the corner of her eye. He seemed to be circling around the room, whispering to the two assistants, the ladies who tended to her Mother’s daily care. Why was he speaking with them, she wondered? It was as if Dad had a glazed look about him, a maddened purpose. She immediately felt angry and suspect.

After their good byes, as her father and she left the home, they stood for a moment at the concrete intersection of the fog shrouded street. She looked at her father and sensed that something was not right. To her surprise, her entire body reared in fear and foreboding. She then did something she had never done before. She grabbed her father by the shoulders and shook him. She started to cry.

“What is happening? What are you doing?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I saw you. I saw that look on your face. What are you doing to Mom?”

“Only I can take care of Mom. She needs to come home. She is mine.”

“For Gods sake, what are you talking about? You cannot take care of her.” She was screaming, trembling.

“Forget it, you are crazy. Just like your Mother. You are a bad daughter”.

She was furious. She was frightened. But, she held back her rage and just walked away from him, refusing to respond to his insult. For now, Mom was safe in the home and she would deal with her father when she returned and when she could gather herself in a less erratic, more controlled manner. 

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And, a few days later, a half a world away, when she returned to her hotel room after a day of work, her phone rang. It was her brother and his words, though deliberately articulated, did not make sense to her.

“I am sorry to tell you this but Mom died.”

“What? But I just saw her. (Pause). That’s impossible.”

 “She is gone. I am so sorry.”

And he proceeded to explain the funeral arrangements. She thanked her brother and told him she would get back as soon as she could. She sat on the end of the bed, in silence and shock. How could this be? She found herself unable to cry. Then, robotically, she made arrangements to fly home.

And, when she arrived, she was not prepared to hear the first thing her brother had to say…

“He killed her”

“Who killed her?”

“Dad. He moved her out of the home the day you flew to Brazil. He hired two of the staff away and together they carried Mom out. By the time I got to the house, there was a lot of screaming. The ladies were cowering in the corner, crying. Then they quit. Hysteria. That night Dad called and said Mom was gurgling up her dinner. He gave her a cinnamon bun. She choked. The ambulance came and she died.”

Her head swirled in confused disbelief as she tried to make sense of what her brother was telling her. “What? A cinnamon bun? How random was that? This is surreal. What was her father thinking…what was he doing? I told him not to take her out of the home. I knew he was up to something.” But all she could say to her brother was,” I want an autopsy.”

“Too late, I told you when I called you in Brazil that she was going to be cremated. It’s done. Anyway, they don’t do autopsies on people in their 80s.”

And that was that. Though the circumstances were so bizarre and unexpected, there was nothing left to be done. Her Mother was gone.

At the funeral, she saw her father clutch the urn with her Mother’s ashes. As she watched his performance of grief, she could not help but notice there was a smirk beneath the façade. He now was back on the stage as the consummate victim. His audience awaited…and he knew that and loved every minute of the glory.

It was beyond surreal. 

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Four years later…

As her true friend, I told her that moving back with her father was not the best of plans. Her world was once a glamourous one of travel, corner offices, fancy accoutrement. She had done what her Mother never dared to attempt. She had sustained the divorce, rebuilt her life. She raised her daughters while trying to forge new possibilities. She definitely had the spirit of her Mother. Only, she told herself, she did it better. She did not surrender. She did not become embittered. She was free to dream. And, for a while, life seemed to reveal its magic.

But then, as it happens to all of us who are destined to endure the cycles of living, her world exploded. She lost her job. She could not find a mate. Her daughters grew up and were, to her pride, living independent lives of their own. And she could not find a place to land. Her confidence faltered. No matter what or how she tried to survive and prevail, nothing seemed to work.

She then decided to start her own business. One that would take her into her solo, later years. So she made the decision to dedicate her focus and savings into this new venture. She knew that in order to sustain the costs, she had to streamline her expenses and lifestyle. One way was to move back to the city of her childhood and into her father’s home. It was a well-intentioned, hopeful move. But I knew better. I knew it would be a step backwards into the world that would eventually reveal its true force.

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There was nothing I could do to stop her. She had lived a life separate from the insidious destitute of her past, separated from the mire. Why couldn’t she remember the pains of her childhood?  Why did she not remember that last day when she said good bye to her Mother? That day when she saw the dark manipulation of her father? But I knew that, in her focus to achieve her next set of dreams, she was not at that crossroad where the wisdom of living sadly concedes to its ugliness. I knew she would have to experience the impending, inevitable consequences.

I feared for her.

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From the onset, living with her father was challenging. She immediately became his latest Munchausean target. There was never a possibility of peaceful coexistence. There were temper tantrums and disagreements. In her father’s eyes, she could do no right. She reached out for support from her brother who in turn accused her of being controlling and pointed out that she chose to take on this situation in order to start her business. Her children likewise reminded her that she knew it would be hard. So, in short, she asked for it. In order to deal with the outbursts and clashes, she focused on her business. In the summer, she “escaped” to a temporary haven in New York. And she had her dog. Her ever present, loving companion who allowed her refuge in his loyaly and love. He was her sustenance.

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And then… in one fated night, her fractured, temporary world became a permanent hell. I will never forget how it happened.

She found her father screaming at the top of his lungs in his bedroom, incoherently shouting accusations.  She called an ambulance. It took three nurses to strap him into his hospital bed. This went on until the early hours of the morning, until the medication finally was able to sedate his convulsive rantings. The diagnois arrived shortly after, Alzheimers.

I really do not know why she did not leave then but she stayed. She told her brothers she would care for him. She thought she could manage and help him through the disease. Again, as with her Mother, she knew she wanted to help a parent.

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From the beginning, she dutifully followed the directions of his doctor.

• Take away the burners on the stove so he could not harm himself. She cooked for him. But Dad refused to eat what she prepared.
• Take away his car because he cannot drive. But Dad constantly asked for his car and became enraged when he was told he could not have his keys.
• Limit and monitor his outings. But Dad snuck out over and over again and she spent hours driving around, looking for him.

The list and the rebellion/complaints went on and on.  Her father became angrier and angrier.

“Why are you doing this Marie?

“Dad, I’m not Marie. That was Mom’s name. And I am just following the doctor’s orders”

“LIAR! The doctor is a good man. You are the bad one Marie. You are doing this to me.”

Beyond reason, she perservered:

• She contracted specialists to test him in hopes of getting him further help and contain his outbursts. Dad lied to them.
• She engaged companions to assist and acclimate him to a less independent life. Dad refused each attempt and demanded each leave.
• She tried to get him into the research at UCSF. But his regular doctor was always too busy to send in the right papers. For months and months she tried to get the admission application filled out. To no avail.

From the specific to the inane, nothing worked. She read through medical papers and articles in hopes of further understanding and coping with the illness. In particular, she was told (and read) that when Alzheimer’s or Dementia cripples the brain, it targets the frontal lobe where the core of the patient’s personality dominates. For her Mother, a simple childlike joy prevailed. She was unprepared for the darkness of her father that emerged.

• He would lock her out of the house.
• He would call his friends and tell them that she was abusing him.
• He accused her of stealing his money.
• He would bang on her bedroom door and scream demands.

She would come back to the house and find her dog locked up in the basement, shaking. One day she found her father hovering over the water dish.

“What are you pouring into my dog’s bowl Dad?”

“What are you talking about? I am just giving him water. You never give him any. You are a bad person.”

Finally, the behavior became so unpredictably erratic that she decided it was time to seek full time care. As she had done with her Mother, she researched and ultimately found a residence which offered a private room and bath, round the clock care, and some freedom to leave with friends and family. After some convincing, her brother agreed.

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Immediately, her father was furious with the new home. She was told by the facility that this was normal and they, as professionals, would manage his ultimate assimilation. But the calls of concern escalated. He was not eating. He spent his nights roaming the halls wailing. His medication was not helping. And then…the ultimate nightmare…in spite of so-called security, her Father had “escaped”. He was missing.

A city-wide police search was conducted. He was “found” a few hours later. He had taken the bus and a taxi to his brother’s home down the South Bay. When the police came to get him, he handed them letters he had written that she, his daughter, had abused him. She got a call from the Ombudsman of the City of San Francisco. One of her father’s friends had issued a complaint that she had put her father in a home against his will. She was accused of elder abuse. Throughout, none of the authorities ever asked her side of the story.

The craziness continued. When he was brought back to the care facility he told the nurse he was going to kill himself. So, the residence threw him out. After two weeks of insanity, they did not want him anymore. Her brother and she did not know what to do so they brought him to the hospital and waited (and waited) for someone to help.

Finally, his doctor, the same doctor she had trusted and dutifully followed, turned his father’s evaluation and ultimate fate over to a psychiatric review board. This was the final call/conversation with that doctor:

“Your father is being released. If he is able to maneuver such an elaborate “escape”, he is fine. The board has declared him legally competent. He is free to come and go and make his own decisions.”

“Wait…what about his Alzheimer’s?”

“Their evaluation is that he is only in early dementia but is capable of caring and making decisions for himself”

“What does this mean? What do I do?”

“Nothing…just move out.”

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For a few days she did retreat, in a state of shock and disbelief. Her brother convinced her to return and, in her confusion, with no place to go, she came back. During this time, amidst screaming tirades from her father, she had to pull together the fractured pieces of her existence. She closed her struggling business in hopes that the financial drain would ease the burden. She started looking into options for places to live. Nothing was affordable. Suddenly even the city of her childhood was unwelcoming. Another startling blow, her once vibrant and energetic dog became ill. She did not know at the time that this was the beginning of the end. But she found herself wondering what her father had really poured into her dog’s water all those nights she found him locked up in the garage. She was frightened and she was struggling.

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It was 2 in the morning and her father was banging on her locked bedroom door.

“Marie, Marie! Get out. You are the worst daughter. I never want to see you again. Get out”

And with that, she placed a call to some friends in Sacramento who helped her find an apartment. Shortly after, she and her sick dog finally moved out.

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There are many postscripts to this story but I share just these…

Right after her departure, another brother sent his mother in law to stay and care for the father. Not out of concern but because the neighbors were frightened that Dad was alone and might do something dangerous. They threatened to call Social Services. Within days after she moved in, the police were called. Dad had hit her and tried to throw her down the basement stairs.

The same stairs he had thrown his wife, her Mother, down years before.

He was placed in a 48 hour psychiatric hold. He was “evaluated” and sent home. Again, he convinced, manipulated his audience (again, trained professionals) to believe his convoluted reality, his deviance. And again, everyone believed him. He knew exactly how to perform.

When her brother told her what had happened, he simply said, “It was never you. It is who he is.”

To this day, her father remains alone in his house. There are continuous episodes but no matter, there is nothing more she can do. She is no longer a participant in the madness.

In Sacramento, her dog passed away after a final, valiant struggle to keep him alive. It was yet another heart wrenching loss in a suffocating whirlwind of sorrow. When she called her brother to tell him, she simply said, “As far as I am concerned, Dad killed Mom and he killed my dog. I have nothing more to say”.

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So there you are. All that I have shared is true. As her friend, I question why she did not walk away sooner. But I want her to know, that even in the darkest moments, I understood that she strove to do what was right, from the heart. She was courageous against an unstoppable series of consequences that defied reason and goodness.

For now, she remains in Sacramento--she survived and she must now prevail with what remains. The toll of what transpired has aged her physically. In her darkest moments, she is crippled by surges of disbelief, anger, sorrow. But she continues to strive for dignity amidst the raw memories of the trauma.

And she often thinks of her Mother. Her heart further breaks for she now realizes why her Mother surrendered her spirit. Sometimes, in the stillness of the night, she speaks and expresses her sorrow to the woman who was once, like her, such a force.

“I understand Mom. It happened to me and I am so very sorry”.

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I too am so very, very sorry. I wish I could ultimately ease the pain. All I could do was bear witness to the truth of her journey and I share it now to those willing to listen, to understand. There is no happy ending to the story I just shared. 

But perhaps there is something better - for she is realizing that there may opportunities for hopeful beginnings. I believe that, with time and in the silent acceptance of the truth, she will find resolve in what remains. In grief she will become. There will emerge the strength of a wiser, kinder commitment. The commitment to self, the commitment to love.

She will carry on.

This blog was written to compassionately honor anyone who has gone through the darkest of times.
It is dedicated to the friends who supported and listened. It is dedicated to Marie Theresa, my Mother.
And it is dedicated to Baci.