Collateral Damage

Trying to maintains some sense of neutrality, I listen as my friend Henry struggles to sort out and articulate his feelings.  Life would be ever so much simpler, I begin to think, without all its drama and emotional conflict.  We might all petrify from boredom and apathy, I suppose, but still it's an appealing prospect, despite the potential drawbacks.

No one was prepared for the drastic consequences of the stroke's brutal assault.  Grateful that he was still alive, we tried our best to keep him that way, staving off the depression, pain and anger.  We accepted the reassuring words of the doctors, that recovery was likely with time and therapy.  We didn't consider that they might be wrong - didn't reckon on the magnitude of the loss - the soul killing isolation of a series of nursing homes, the loss of speech, memory, coherent thought or the continuing and worsening paralysis.  And finally, adding insult to  injury, the breakdown of the last shreds of a troubled marriage - a wife's temper exploding, a random act of domestic violence, an arrest, a trial date set.


All this collateral damage aside, I still find the emotional contradictions the most mystifying.  They are bound by sickness and not love, I realize intellectually, and while a part of me understands this, another part is shocked by his determination to go home and her impatience to have him there.  They can't live quietly and together, they can't live quietly and apart.  Sickness, like some space age superglue, drives them to separate corners then pulls them back and in the interim, they scream abuse and threats and the vilest of curses.  They stalk each other, plotting and scheming revenge, hysterical and tearful.  There are endless attacks and counter attacks in this private, ongoing hell - a daughter who takes one's side then the other's and is finally driven away like a rabid dog whose wounds may never heal - and the war escalates.  Given the choice of self preservation and safety or the potential to destroy each other, each chooses the path of destruction.  Unbidden images suddenly come into my mind - sharks in a feeding frenzy, wild eyed lunatics in straight jackets, mental madness.  


Love comes and goes, friendships fade, parenting wears off but addiction feeds off itself and and is renewed and strengthened with every fix, every drink, every insane argument.   Nothing keeps people together like sickness.


Sometimes I think my baby's too good to die,
Sometimes I think she should be buried alive - Hugh Laurie, "Laughin' Just To Keep From Cryin'"