Becoming Bearheart: One Woman's Journey to Find Peace After Trauma
222
Becoming Bearheart: One Woman's Journey to Find Peace After Trauma
222Paperback
-
PICK UP IN STORECheck Availability at Nearby Stores
Available within 2 business hours
Related collections and offers
Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781982220761 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Balboa Press |
| Publication date: | 03/06/2019 |
| Pages: | 222 |
| Sales rank: | 992,591 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.51(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Mom
As I left the busy freeways of Los Angeles and entered the two- lane mountain roads of the San Bernardino National Forest,
I could feel my entire body begin to relax. As I rounded each corner, my mind became quieter and I found myself noticing more and more detail of the natural world that surrounded me. It was as if my senses were becoming more acute with every turn. I rolled down my window and let the fresh, warm, summer air blow in my face. Occasionally, a waft of the wild honeysuckle that grew on the cliffs would get my attention. I could feel a total shift beginning to take place in my entire being.
I have always loved the mountains and being in them again brought back memories of when I was a little girl and used to visit my grandfather every summer in the Sierra Mountains of Central California. Sometimes Dad would take us all camping. Sometimes we would just hang out at the lake by Grandpa's cabin. Whatever the case, I would leave all of my fancy clothes and hair-ribbons behind and wear nothing but blue jeans, old tee shirts, and sandals, with my hair down, wild and free.
My special connection to my maternal grandfather started in infancy. Apparently, when Grandpa was in the room, everyone else was invisible. We were connected at the hip. I started spending summers with him around the age of ten, when my parents divorced. It occurs to me now, it was during those times that I was the happiest. Grandpa let me be me. He gave me room to breathe. We shared a love of adventure. "Wanna go for a ride?" meant, "I have places to go and people to see, want to come along?" Yes, Grandpa was a workaholic. He rarely spent a moment of his day that was not part of his job, his volunteer work, or membership on some board. But he never let that keep us apart. I would just tag along to the Masonic Lodge, the backroom of restaurants for board meetings, even bars where Grandpa would meet and schmooze clients. I loved it. Sometimes I would spend the day by the lake, meals with Grandpa, and nighttime listening to him tell stories next to the fire as he smoked his pipe. I knew most of the kids up there in his small mountain community.
We would hang out at the "Ice Cream Fountain," play pinball, swim, water ski, and watch movies at an old log cabin theater by the lake. I even met a very special boy there once. His name was Bob. He made me laugh ... a lot! We had long conversations and he seemed genuinely interested in me and my life. We had some things in common and knew some of the same kids. It was so nice to talk to someone my age who made me feel like whatever I had to say was worth listening to. Bob was so thoughtful. He seemed to just love making me happy, and even more so, he loved to make me laugh. He even surprised me one night by making me a home cooked dinner at Grandpa's house. What teenage boy does that? He was truly a good guy, and my time with him changed me. That summer with Bob was a very a special summer for me. In hindsight, I'm sure it was more special for me than for him. It was my summer of love. It changed the way I thought about what a true friend, boy or otherwise, should be. I cried when I left that summer, but I had to return home for school. As one would expect of teenagers, he met someone else before I saw him the next summer, as did I, but I never forgot him. That summer solidified my already passionate love of nature. I was a mountain girl, no doubt about it. That was the "real" me, and how appropriate that I should go back to the mountains to find the real me again. I was on my way to do some soul searching and to reconnect to the things that brought me joy and peace. It had been so long since I had felt either of those things.
My mind wandered again, but this time to the moment my world turned upside-down. It seemed like just yesterday that I received the phone call which I deem the impetus behind my loss of identity, my loss of direction, and my loss of inner peace. The phone call was the one informing me of my mother's murder. As I continued my drive up the mountain, I recalled that it had been 5 years since that terrible day. I had no idea at the time, but that was the day that would change the entire course of my life.
It was a Monday morning in March of 1986. It was a typical day, really, just like any other. I had arrived at work and was busy filing papers when my phone rang. It was about 9:00 a.m. and it was unusual for me to get calls at that time. I glanced over to my boss, who had transferred the call.
"Who is it?" I asked, walking back to my desk.
"It's your sister, Connie," she said, without looking up.
I picked up the phone and cheerfully said hello. It was a nice surprise to get a call from her while I was at work, but her response was less than cheerful. She immediately asked me to sit down and her tone gave me a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. I knew something was wrong. I continued to stand, paralyzed.
"Patti, Mom is in the hospital," Connie said. "She passed out at work and, Patti ... she's in a coma."
The words echoed in my head. I felt my face flush and my vision narrow. My knees weakened but I was unaware that I was about to collapse to the ground. Suddenly, I saw my boss jump out of her chair and rush over to me, scooting my chair under me in one swift swoop as I fell back into it.
I couldn't really hear what Connie was saying after that. I kept asking her to repeat herself. She finally asked me to give the phone to my boss so that she could take down the necessary information. Connie had already reserved the next flight out of town, and we both had to be on it in less than two hours.
My husband drove me to the airport where I met up with Connie and we boarded the plane. I was still in shock. My entire body was tense, and I was emotionally paralyzed. The doctors told Connie that we needed to get there as soon as possible because Mom was in critical condition and they didn't know how long they would be able to keep her alive. It was the longest plane ride of my life. I didn't know if, when I arrived, Mom would be dead or alive. I kept praying that I would at least be able to say good-bye, but God knows I wasn't ready to do that. I begged for that chance. Neither Connie nor I wanted to talk about what to expect, but idle chitchat didn't feel right either. We sat in silence almost all the way to Phoenix.
When we arrived at the hospital in Mesa, Arizona, my sister Nancy was already there with her then husband, Mike. She was a wreck. She could hardly put a sentence together. She warned that Mom looked very bad and that it was hard seeing her that way. I took a deep breath and prepared myself for the worst.
Nothing, however, could have prepared me for what I was about to see. My young, beautiful, angelic mother was pale, and had tubes coming in and out of her entire body. The machine that was helping her to breathe announced every breath with a loud gush of air, and the heart monitor beeped loudly with every heartbeat. She had tape over her eyes to keep them closed, and there were washcloths rolled up and placed in her hands because her involuntary reflexes occasionally caused her to dig her beautifully manicured fingernails into the palms of her hands. Seeing her this way overwhelmed me with emotion and I began to sob uncontrollably.
A nurse approached me immediately to gently and supportively escort me out of the room. She explained to me that many professionals and researchers in the medical field believe that comatose patients can often still hear what's going on around them, and that there had been many reported incidents of people coming out of a coma and recalling conversation that others in the room had engaged in. She encouraged me to try and stay strong and to say only things to Mom that would give her hope and encourage her to fight. I took a minute to get a grip on my emotions and went back in to the room. When I did, Connie was talking to Mom and telling her that she was going to be ok. We both sat with her for a while and talked to her about waking up for us, as our tears continued to roll silently down our cheeks.
It seemed like quite a while before we were able to talk to the doctor. We still had no idea what caused her to slip into a coma. The hospital was running every test imaginable to try and figure out what had happened to her. It felt, to me, like it was taking a dreadfully long time to get the results. When the doctor finally did come in, there was still no news. I thought I was going to go crazy. The only tidbit they gave us was that there was speculation that she had a severe stroke, but they were going to continue running tests into the night to be sure.
I think it was Tuesday morning when I became startled by a loud ring. I'd been up for 24 hours and I can't really remember what time it was. I was lying on the couch in the waiting room of the hospital when the phone extension rang. We all looked at one another. I realized I was closest, so I picked it up. It was a Detective Palmer, from the Tempe Police Department. He was requesting to speak to my grandfather [Mom's dad] who had arrived Monday night. Grandpa, with a bewildered look on his face, got up slowly and came over to take the phone from me. The room went silent. Someone turned off the TV. We all were focused on Grandpa as he listened intensely to the detective. After what seemed like an eternity, Grandpa finally spoke, but his words were not the words I would expect to hear from the soft spoken, loving man that I knew.
"I'll kill him," he said with his teeth clenched. "I'm gonna kill him."
I was very confused. I could not think of what would cause the gentlest man I know to speak these words. Everyone in the room was focused on the one-sided conversation we were hearing. When he finally hung up the phone, he sat down and put his head in his hands and started shaking his head.
"Grandpa? What is it? What did he say?" I asked.
My heart sank as I sensed we were about to get more bad news; and more bad news it was. Detective Palmer had informed Grandpa that they had arrested a man and the charge was the attempted murder of our mother. Her "mysterious" comatose condition was no longer so mysterious. Someone had intentionally poisoned our mother with cyanide. The doctors had actually known this all along but were asked to keep it from us until the police had secured the evidence against the man who was responsible. They now had him in custody.
The shock of this news was overwhelming. I'm talking about an emotional tidal wave. It was a level of shock I had never experienced. I couldn't speak. I couldn't find words to put a sentence together. I found myself stuttering and searching for a verbal response that made sense, but I was unable to communicate. Everything began to move in slow motion and turned from color to black and white. It was a very surreal moment. Everyone was staring at one another in silence and confusion. Looking back, it was as though I had dropped into the scene of a classic 1940's noir murder mystery film, save the eerie music in the background. I was beyond confused.
Why on earth would anyone want to kill my mother? This was not the type of woman who was connected to "shady" people, if you know what I mean. My mom was your basic, every day, run- of-the-mill, Carol Brady. When I was young, she sewed clothes for my Barbie. She was on the women's bowling league. She attended regular Tupperware parties. She drank diet soda with the neighbor ladies as they discussed the latest neighborhood gossip. And, as of late, she was attending her church of choice every Sunday and had reached her one-year anniversary at her job as an Escrow Agent. There was just no conceivable reason for this to happen. The level of my confusion and dismay concerning the discovery of her condition is inadequately describable, even today.
There is a void of memory and specific details directly following that phone call. I can remember severe pain in my stomach. I remember Grandpa rushing out to the parking lot in tears of anger and hurting his hand from punching the side of a car. I remember a nurse administering Valium to my sister, Nancy, who was completely losing it. But all of this is viewed in my memory as a slow-moving scene from a movie. I cannot remember sound. I cannot remember actual conversation. All I remember from that moment is pain; sheer, unbridled, colossal pain.
The next memory I have is a few hours after this devastating news. I was standing in the hallway, outside the ICU where Mom was, when my childhood girlfriend, my best friend, [someone who Mom called her "other" daughter and my "soul sister"] exited the elevator and began to walk toward me. She had come as the result of a phone call I made to her earlier, but she had not yet heard of the new development. Immediately upon seeing her, I fell completely apart.
I heard myself say, "Someone killed Mom."
My back fell against the wall, my knees gave out from under me and I sank to the floor like a rag doll, sobbing. Kim rushed to my side and knelt down beside me.
"Honey, what is it? Oh my God, what happened?" she asked frantically.
Through my tears and gasps for breath, I tried to explain what the detective had told us. Kim was just as horrified and confused as the rest of us. We two sat on the floor in the middle of the hospital corridor holding each other and cried. Kim recalled how she and Mom had just spent the day together yesterday, Sunday, and that Mom was so happy. She told me they had such a beautiful day. It was just so hard to believe this was happening. We were sobbing and shaking. To say we were experiencing our bodies and minds in a full state of physiological shock would be an understatement.
While we all tried to cope with the reality of what was happening, my sister Connie decided to call our father to let him know what was happening. Our parents had been divorced for some time, and Dad had remarried. My sisters and I all had a rocky relationship with him and his wife. I hadn't seen nor spoken to him in a couple of years. Suddenly, he was there at the hospital with his wife. At first, I thought maybe this might be a new beginning; a healing of sorts, but the visit quickly broke down into hurtful, and poorly timed, statements. As had been the status quo when reaching out for support, once again I felt abandoned and deeply wounded. At this point in my life, I felt closer to my grandfather than anyone else. That connection with Grandpa would only continue to grow stronger throughout the rest of our days together.
After being told by the police, and having it confirmed by doctors that Mom had been poisoned by cyanide, things got kind of crazy. None of us had slept since Sunday night. It was now Tuesday afternoon. The doctors were running test after test on Mom to determine her exact status. The paramedics who initially worked on her had noticed a strange coloring on her skin and fingernails upon their arrival. It was consistent with poisoning, so they administered a general antidote. Because of that antidote, the poison was stopped before reaching most of her major organs. As a result, after they restarted her heart and put her on the life support, her heart, lungs, kidneys, even her liver were all functioning normally. Her body, in effect, was as strong as a horse. Her brain, on the other hand, was a different story. The cyanide had reached it first, and that is where it did the most damage. The CAT scans were all showing no brain activity. They continued running the tests, just to make sure, but things were really looking bleak. Her doctor was ready to announce her brain dead.
That night, we all gathered at the home of my sister Nancy, who lived close by. We sat around the living room and tried to make sense of it all. There were so many questions. We were all so incredibly exhausted and decided to turn on the TV to just get our minds off of everything for a while. Unfortunately, the story of our mother's poisoning was headline news. Every channel was airing the incident in great detail. The phone began ringing off the hook, and reporters were parked out in front of the house. We all felt so violated to know that the whole world was now aware of our personal grief. I suddenly had a new-found compassion for all of the people whose lives were exploited by the media.
After a while, my brother-in-law, went outside to give a statement to reporters just to get them off our lawn. We screened the calls, and we turned off the TV. It is difficult to explain the feeling of claustrophobia this created. We were so overwhelmed with emotions of all kinds, and there was no way to escape it. We were trapped.
We tried to eat some dinner, but the attempt was unsuccessful, so we all headed off to bed. I was so physically and emotionally exhausted that I expected to be able to just drift right off to sleep. No such luck. I tossed and turned all night. I kept seeing Mom lying there in her hospital bed, hooked up to all that equipment. I was so afraid something would happen during the night and we wouldn't be there for her. I couldn't shut off the thoughts running through my mind. Finally, at some point, I must have fallen asleep.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Becoming Bearheart"
by .
Copyright © 2019 Patti A. Williams.
Excerpted by permission of Balboa Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements, ix,
Introduction, xiii,
Chapter One Mom, 1,
Chapter Two Justice, 14,
Chapter Three Trauma, 21,
Chapter Four Shadow Man, 44,
Chapter Five Sweat, 57,
Chapter Six The Red Road, 73,
Chapter Seven Little Wolf Dreaming, 97,
Chapter Eight Bearheart, 144,
Chapter Nine Sick and Tired, 158,
Chapter Ten Healing, 174,
Chapter Eleven Coming Home, 182,
Bibliography, 203,
References, 205,
About The Author, 207,