I once had a close relative, let’s just say an older cousin, whom my mother told me had a mental illness. This woman, whom I’ll call Maude, had breakdowns with the birth of each of her children and had to be hospitalized. Later in life she had recurrences that were never diagnosed and she ended up homeless. It was months before my mother found out and arranged for her to move in to a pretty retirement center where she would be cared for for the rest of her life.
As a child Maude was my favorite older cousin, more like an aunt. Thirty years older than I, Maude would stop by the house to see if I wanted to walk to town with her. I always did and my mother never objected. Maude held my hand and we walked to an area of town we called the Heights. At a little café Maude bought me a hamburger and a Coke and asked me questions about my life. I knew few adults who were interested in my life and I’d talk Maude’s ear off. After the meal Maude and I walked across the street to a store with a giant picture window that displayed all kinds of penny candy. Maude handed me a quarter and I’d choose long laces of red licorice and sheets of tiny pastel-colored button candies that I’d eat during the walk back home.
My mother told me that if Maude “had a fit” that I should grab her tongue to keep her from swallowing it. Since I was only eight, this frightened me. My mother evidently didn’t think about what might happen if I stuck my hand in Maude’s mouth and she bit down. Fortunately, that never happened. When we reached my house Maude would slip a dollar into my hand and thank me. I never understood this. She had just taken me to town, bought me lunch and candy, given me money, and then thanked me. But Maude was lonely. All of her children had been taken away from her because of her illness.
One hundred years ago this month my local newspaper reported this: “Almost every insane asylum in Illinois has reached its limit of available accommodations for patients.” I cringed when I read that. And the “remedy” hasn’t been good. Now institutions release patients as quickly as they can and some have been caught literally dumping people onto sidewalks in homeless areas. Surely there are better solutions for those struggling with mental illness.
I last saw Maude in 1990 when she’d lived in the retirement center for a couple of years. She had occasionally been in touch with one or two of her children but they rarely came to see her. The lobby was quiet and smelled like lilac air freshener and looked out on a cluster of bright rose-colored hydrangea bushes. Maude had her own room.
After I returned home Maude wrote me a few letters, thanking me for packages I sent, telling me that she dreamed of her children, and telling me her favorite snack was a cheesy treat that had been my favorite as a child, a snack I hadn’t even remembered until she wrote that.
In her last letter she said this: “When you first came to see me, I hadn’t seen you in seventeen years but you were still fresh in my mind because you befriended me and were so sweet.” I finally knew what she meant. She had lost her own children but way back when, for a day now and then, she had me. And then she went home and searched, in her dreams, for the children who were frightened by her mental illness and who never got to sit across from her, eating hamburgers, and telling her about their lives.