Before they were 30, my parent's lives were devastated by the mental health community's scrutiny about what they did or didn't do to cause their family to crumble into ruin. And there was the judgement of others and guilt they felt for abandoning their children. My mother toppled into an abyss of clinical depression and my father, allowing her to feel his feelings for him, threw himself into his work.
Every morning at 6 am my mom went to church. No explanation for any of it except the will of God. After all of the testing and the interrogations, no cause was ever determined. But every Sunday we all dressed up and went to high mass and I continued the charade, no longer believing in a benevolent God, a shepherd who kept watch over his flock.
My mother could sometimes be found in the "fourth bedroom" my dad constructed in the attic. Lying on one of the two built-in twin beds in Franciscan robes, hands crossed over her chest and eyes closed like a corpse in a sarcophagus. Once when I sneaked up the stairs to peek, I thought sure she had left once and for all. I later found out that my parents had long since been sleeping apart, as the church refused to sanction their use of birth control.
At home, when I wasn't in my room studying, I was with Danny. Danny was the only pure, innocent thing in my life. He was all goodness and loved me like a mother. Even as he grew, he never took to other people, no friends in the neighborhood. And when it was finally time for him to get on the bus for kindergarten, I was worried. He came home the first day crying. The older kids had teased him calling him "four eyes" and he threw his glasses out the bus window.
The next day when I met his bus, Danny's head was bleeding. Someone had thrown a rock at him. That was the last day he went to school. My parents took him for testing and though he displayed higher than average intelligence, they came back with a diagnosis of "emotionally disturbed" and recommended that he be sent away to a special school in Milwaukee called Lakeside Children Center. Later he would be diagnosed with Autism, not on the mental health radar at that point in time.
Lakeside was a nicer place than my other siblings ended up in, more like a home with a very nurturing woman, Miss Laatsche at the helm. She would forge a close relationship with Danny that fostered basic life skills and a modified education through the high school level. The hope was that eventually he could live on his own within the social services system. Miss Laatsch, with no family of her own, would remain in Dan's life until she died 40+ years later.
For me, Danny leaving was the most devastating turn of events in my life so far. I had failed in my crusade to save him and lost my best friend in the bargain. I had gotten better at submerging the sadness and the tears stopped flowing, but I was frightened by the physical sensations I experienced when he left. I could hardly breathe at the thought of not having him in my life.
Just when I thought my heart might burst in my chest, my body took over. The claustrophobia melted into spaciousness riding my bike with the wind in my hair and breathing in the smells of cut grass and pine trees. I did cartwheels and twirled around over and over again until I got so dizzy I fell breathless into the grass. I laid on my back watching the clouds shape shift into ogres and elephants, and I knew there was something more. And my body was the vehicle to find it.
Dan was only able to come home on holidays and a few weekends a year. Their concern for his welfare was understandable. When I saw him after his first few months, he had switched his attachment from me to Miss Laatsch. I was grateful he was content and seemed well taken care of. And as much as I missed him, a weight of responsibility was lifted.
After Dan left, our family moved to a bigger house in Brookfield, a slightly more afluent suburb of Milwaukee. We had a bigger yard with lots of trees and Mary and I each had our own room. Mine was French Provincial with a canopy bed and frilly linens. It felt like a new beginning, like we could almost forget about all that had happened. Nobody knew us and we kept our secret close, never even speaking of it even within the family.
We seemed almost like a normal family. My dad continued to rise in the ranks of his firm and we finally had enough money for my mother to indulge in becoming a stylish suburban housewife with all of the latest innovations. The prescription bottles never diminished, but nobody cared as long as she seemed happy. But I still worried.
I continued to do well in school, taking on even greater challenges and working harder than ever to meet them. Mary and I diverged even more and barely had anything to do with each other. I was studious, she was popular, I was skinny, she was zaftig. I was orderly and neat, she chaotic and messy. Nothing in common to bind us together so either of us would ever suffer the loss of another sibling again.
But something was always missing for me. My body cried out for catharsis and there weren't many outlets for girls in those days. I did track and field in middle school and made the cheerleading squad, but none of it was enough. Then somethig happened that changed everything for me. I saw the 1948 film "The Red Shoes" about a ballet dancer, so empassioned that she danced herself to death. I wanted to feel that way. To be so connected to my body, to allow it to express my innermost self, such that I would be willing to die for it.
There was no time to waste. I found a dance studio and took my first class. I was 11 at the time and the others said they started when they were 3. But it didn't matter to me, I would simply work harder to make up for lost time. Though my parents agreed to pay for my classes, dance was not at all on their radar and they humored me, thinking it was just a phase. And it wasn't fun in the beginning and I certainly wasn't successful, but none of it mattered. I just knew I had found my calling and I never looked back.
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