Sometimes we are cast into human dramas that leave profound marks on our memories. Deeply etching into our souls are memories we can't erase. Sharing the moment of someone who is crossing over into madness is difficult enough as a professional therapist. It becomes something quite different when a child is witness to the crossing. I spent many times with my mother as she crossed back and forth into madness. Each time we were alone. Her second crossing was a year after her rape by Chuck, my step-grandfather. (see Spitfire) My father was often gone for long periods on business during this time. We were people living together and coming apart. That year I played for long hours by myself. I felt out of control and the horizon was getting darker. Teachers didn't know, relatives didn't know, or care. I played deaf and dumb until:

                                                She stood ghastly stark white

                                                against washed white walls and open bed,

                                                Talking to phantom figures

                                                set deeply in shadows

                                                I could not see.

                                                Her black eyes

                                                cut the room,

                                                she moved again,

                                                turned,

                                                slumped over memory washboard,

                                                faint memory of

                                                an Oklahoma woman,

                                                She spoke with eyes glaring and staring

                                                locking onto my eyes,

                                                Her discordant words gathered about my soul,

                                                ... Frightened and Gothic pale

                                                she dissolved into madness.

     My mother picked up a knife and came at me, angry, despondent, tearing apart the air, spectral blood filled the room and spattered the walls. I ran out of the house in terror crying for help. I ran to a neighbor. Pounding on the door I yelled, “Help! My mom needs help!” Oddly, not yelling, “I need help.” An ambulance was called and they took my mom away.

     Our neighbors kept me the night until my father returned late the next day. Ruth, our Jewish neighbor who took me in that night of horror, was suffering from cancer at the time, and even in her own pain she was kind to me. Ruth held my hand warmly that terror filled night as she sang me to sleep with Yiddish songs. Sometimes her songs come back to me late in the night. Ruth died three years later.