The Day I lost my Innocence and Almost Lost my Mind

“I’m here to see Cathy Brtis,” I say to the elderly clerk sitting at the ER admissions desk. As she averts my eyes my stomach sinks and nausea threatens. My legs lose control as I begin my descent to the marbled floor. Halfway down someone offers me a hand and a seat but I feel an urgency to be in movement. At the same moment in time a man of the cloth with pursed lips and eyeballs of slits. This one also averts my gaze. This confirms what I already knew. I stuff down my tears and hold my quivering body parts as if in a straight-jacket. We ride the elevator down to a room I will never forget.

Quickly scanning the room, most of my 9 siblings are present, plus spouses. My mother is the only one to approach me and her reaction is typical but incredible given the situation as she tells me what I already know but don’t want to hear, “Cathy is dead.” I hear myself scream, “No!” over and over. Mom takes me firmly by the shoulders, “we need you to be okay. Hold yourself together!” Is she crazy? Is there nothing that can crack through the glaciered heart of this woman? My older brother, Bob, rescues me from her, “leave her alone, she needs to do this!” Mom lets go of me but I find no welcoming arms as Bob has risked too much by his intervention and will pay a group price soon enough. I feel him fade away from me in his own embarrassment.

I find the nearest wall and pound my fists against it, “no, no, no!” My guttural sobbing goes on forever. A bottomless pit of pain, I make a mindful effort to break from it. My eyes take a slower scan around the room and notice that nobody else is crying aside from a few sniffles. Dan, whose inner anger is most extreme, chuckles sardonically at my performance. The smile on his face is chilling. I finally notice my father sitting alone in a corner with his hands folded in his lap, a typical pose for him. His gaze is downwards. I adore him and I give him a pass — he has just lost his youngest and I feel his heartache, here I go again, as my sobbing is refueled.

I manage to resurface and find the rest staring at me in what I interpret to be anger and amazement and realize that I have GOT to get away from this madness! I walk the hallways and feel my brain is being pulled and squeezed at the same time. Nothing makes sense to me. This is a world I cannot live in but walking sends me deeper into darkness and confusion. I am drawn to be in that room with my family, a family that moves as a unit. You are either in, following their rules of conduct, or you are out, nothing in between, leaving no space for the individual. Years ago, I chose to leave and live life my way except not wise enough to realize that wherever I go they continue to be firmly embedded in my inner drivers.

Upon reentering, I sit down and cry, alone, still feeling the gruesome brain squeeze, waiting for my brain to literally snap in two, leaving me either dead or in a state of true craziness. “Where is she? Is she okay? How, Why, Where?” I wonder. But there is no one to ask so I listen for what I don’t really want to know. My sobbing worsens as I hear talk about the violence of the car crash, her brain shifting to the other side of her skull, her hip shattered to pieces. Yes, she died in an instance, but how can they talk of about Cathy’s brutal death with such composure, as if they’re solving a science project. In this family, science is King. This is simply another problem to be solved.

Something causes me to lift my gaze to find that Annette, my younger sister, has come in. I search her big blue eyes for a connection I so badly need and I find it. Annette has known how to cry her entire life, against the family decree of squashing emotions of any kind. When she was young I watched, trance-like, as she acted out her rage in tantrums, often to the point of convulsions. I could never pull that off. I was the eldest girl of 11 and as caretaker feelings and desires were quickly and thoroughly squashed. I turned my anger inward and still feel the effects of my own daggers slicing my heart to bits at every cruelty aimed my way.

I fall into the warm embrace of Annette’s strong arms. We sob together knowing we would never see our baby sister again. Entwined, we drop onto the closest couch, hanging onto each other for warmth in a room filled with ice. I feel my brain start to relax and find a flicker of hope that I may gain some version of mental soundness one day.