There are events in our lives that hit with such impact that we can almost feel the shock and awe every time we think about it. My mother left our home to be admitted into a mental hospital when I was but eIeven years old and later died when I was fifteen. I was about to experience another defining moment that would change the winding path that my life has taken.
It’s easy to forget the lessons from a message like the one Steve encountered. Life reverted back to same ol’, same ol’. We grew older and the children more involved in activities outside of Coon’s Creek, the nickname for our farm. Steve was a workaholic and relived his job each night with me at home. His parents lived in Greenville and became unable to get to a grocery store or care for their home and yard. It was time to move them to Coon’s Creek. My mother-in-law, B.B., was one of the kindest, gentlest persons I have ever met. But, my father-in-law had the disposition of a cheetah with his tail being pulled. We marveled at her patience with him.
The majority of the responsibility for his parents had fallen on Steve as the only Massey child nearby. They depended on him heavily while they lived in Greenville. Steve’s office was five miles from them. It was difficult for him to juggle the responsibility for their errands and keep up with his work. I had to be near the house, twenty miles away from my in-laws, to be with the children when they came home from school. Steve was sitting on a ticking time bomb with the stress in his body.
Steve loved to hunt, fish, and just walk in the woods behind our house. He and his brother, Don, who lived in Charlotte, sometimes hunted and fished together. A tree stand was Steve’s favorite place– hunting deer and bear. He collected guns, knives, and his own hunting stories. He used our woods to sight in his rifle. Without any warning his eyes began to blur and he couldn’t see through the scope of his shotgun. He began to fall in the house and also at work. And so began a long year from doctor to doctor to…we had been invaded by something, but what?
One mistaken diagnosis followed another until we ventured into the office of a neurologist. Steve went through a lot of in office tests, but the doctor felt that a spinal tap was necessary. ”I think you have a neurological disease, I just don’t know which one.”
The medicinal smell of the hospital was nauseating. Nurses’ shoes squeaked on tile floors; monotonous paintings adorned faded green walls. The clatter of the steel instrument cart stopped inside Steve’s room. My heart jumped at the sight of large instruments sheathed in sterile coverings. The neurologist burst through the door as if entering a subway train. It was 1985 and serious lab tests were sometimes performed in a patient’s room.
The nurse looked at my husband’s identification bracelet, “Steve Massey?” she questioned. “That’s me, all day long,” Steve replied. The nurse injected him with a medicine to make him relax, but she didn’t give me any.
Stepping next to the bed, the doctor explained, “Steve, you’ll have to be motionless as the needle goes in to your back. If there’s movement, you’ll get a horrible headache.”
I gripped Steve’s hand as the needle grated against the cartilage and tissue in his spine. The doctor handed the vial of spinal fluid to the nurse. “We’ll send this to MIT for testing.”
Five days after the hospital trip, I picked up the phone to learn the invader’s name, multiple sclerosis. The words MS brought me to my knees in prayer, “Why us Dear Lord, why us?” I cried.
A NOTE: Grief can be confusing when the losses occurred in the same season of the year even though far apart in time, Steve, Jan. 31, 1996 and Bill, Feb. 4, 2011. Indeed the two grief experiences have been very different. I am going to interrupt the Steve Series to return to Edisto Island, SC where Bill and I spent so many happy moments including our honeymoon. Hopefully, my sister will be able to join me. There will be a posts next week as I remember Bill and our Camelot—Edisto Island, SC and memories from the Celebration of his life, February 6, 2011.
The Steve Series will continue after I return from the Lowcountry.