Marigolds on the Cathedral Step

Sanity is fluid. We all want to believe that our minds will stay forever intact. Severe mental illness is something we hear about on the news, something that happens to other people, not to us. All too often, we don't realize how fragile our grasp on reality can be. Sometimes, mental illness can be brought on by a combination of genetic and environmental factors, such as abuse. Sometimes, all it takes is one major, terrible event to send us over the edge.

Today is October 30th. It's my Aunt Ida's birthday. Marigolds are her favorite flower, and I want to make her day a little bit brighter in some small way, if that's even a possibility at this point. To that end, I brought extra pots of marigolds in various shades of gold, yellow, and orange.

When I came here, I meant to leave the flowers on the wide stone steps and go. But something in me won't let me leave.

I haven't talked to my aunt in over a year. That wasn't a decision made by either of us. It was a byproduct of the disease that held her firmly in its grasp. My aunt is a captive in her own body.

Aunt Ida and I had always been close. Ever since I was a child, she doted on me as if I was her own. Despite trying for years, she wasn't able to have her own children. I often thought that the stress and sorrow stemming from this must have contributed to her divorce. In any case, after my mother died, I became her surrogate daughter.

We bonded over our love of animals. Aunt Ida worked for years as a veterinary technician at a little clinic in Chesterfield, VA. She wanted me to be a veterinarian because she knew my love for animals.

"Maria," she would tell me, "you love animals so much. You should be a veterinarian. This is what you were born to do--save things that can't save themselves."

I always responded by telling her that I couldn't do it. I wasn't strong enough. It would break my heart to see them sick, hurt or dying.

Now, I stare at the potted marigolds that have gone blurry. At that moment, I want nothing more than to shatter the terra cotta pots into a million pieces on the stone steps.

Instead, I look down at my hands, the sleeve cuffs of my sweater rolled neatly right at the wrist. For some strange reason, this small detail calms me a bit.

If it were up to me, I would leave the house with my sleeves dangling past the fingertips of my too-short arms. But my grandmother always catches me at the door and rolls my sleeves up, then kisses me goodbye and tells me she loves me.

My grandmother. Through everything that has happened, she has been my rock. She survived the loss of my mother, Carmen, who was like a daughter to her. She lived through the turmoil that was my father's life.

Even though it was not his fault, my father blamed himself for my mother's death. Losing my mother the way he did, making the impossible decision to take my mother off life support when she was finally declared brain dead--these were the absolute worst things that could have happened to my father.

That's why my grandmother, my aunt, and I couldn't fault him for any of the turmoil that he caused in our lives or in his own. He hated himself, and every decision in his life after my mother's death was colored by that. From the drugs to the reckless behavior to the poor choice of friends, all of it came back to self-loathing and blaming himself for the death of the person he loved most in the world.

When my father died, my grandmother held it together very well. She was heartbroken, but she still provided a ton of emotional support to Aunt Ida and me.

I put on a brave face and started working countless hours at my job, coming home after dark almost every night.

Aunt Ida couldn't handle my father's death. He was her baby brother, and she absolutely adored him. Losing him was the catalyst that sent her over the edge.

She started to get extremely paranoid. She swore that someone broke into her house, that the government was listening to us, that the public water supply had been poisoned. She started behaving erratically and seeing things that weren't there.

The diagnosis was paranoid schizophrenia.

At first, Aunt Ida started getting her medication in shot form. This was very convenient for her because she could get one shot of medication to last the entire month, and she could see her psychiatrist at the same time. In this way, she kept going for several years. She worked her job and was her normal, sweet self for the most part.

Unfortunately, the concentrated dose of medication in these shots can have very bad side effects. Aunt Ida developed a condition called tardive dyskinesia. She would have muscle spasms that she couldn't control. Her jaw would lock while she was eating so that she couldn't chew. Her eyes would snap shut, and she'd have to pry them open with her fingers.

Tardive dyskinesia is a neurological disorder that only gets worse with time. This meant that Aunt Ida really couldn't stay on the shots any longer. So, her psychiatrist prescribed medication in pill form instead.

This worked for a while. However, another problem is that medication for schizophrenia and other mental illnesses lose their efficacy over time. As the disease progresses, the dosage of medication has to keep increasing. Eventually, it gets to the place where the medication controls the symptoms, but does not get rid of them entirely.

That is what happened to Aunt Ida. The medication could not quell her paranoia, and she began to believe that her pills had been poisoned. Because of this fear, she refused to take them.

Under the law, people have the right to choose their own healthcare. Someone with a physical disease such as terminal cancer can choose not to undergo chemotherapy or radiation. The same is true for people with mental illnesses--they can choose not to be treated for their condition.

One of the main problems with schizophrenia is that the ill person believes he or she is fine. Everyone else is the problem and is out to get them. When someone believes that she is fine and everyone around her is crazy, why would she take medication?

When we called the mental health clinic, they told us there was nothing they could do. Her healthcare is her decision. Because of privacy laws, they couldn't even tell us whether Aunt Ida had attended her last appointment, whether they had spoken to her, or whether her medication had been refilled.

When we called the police, they said they couldn't take any action at all unless she was a clear and present danger to herself or others.

Everywhere we turned, we ran into brick wall after brick wall. No one could do anything unless she broke the law or harmed someone. By then, it would be too late to help her--she'd be sent to jail or to a mental institution for the criminally insane.

Aunt Ida could not keep up with her finances, and she refused to sign a power of attorney to let me handle her affairs. I tried to help her with her bills, but she refused. After a while, Aunt Ida refused to even speak to us.

She lost her job, her house, her car. She became homeless.

Beautiful, sweet Aunt Ida with her gorgeous dark brown hair, quirky personality, and artistic flair is gone. She is a shell of her former self. She wears rags and lives in Monroe Park, a small patch of grass in downtown Richmond, VA.

It kills me to think of my beloved aunt sleeping in a tiny park alone at night. The one saving grace is that Monroe Park sits directly across the street from the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart. The Catholic priests and nuns take a special interest in the park's homeless population, providing food and clothing. They let them sleep inside the Cathedral on nights when it is raining, or if it is too cold outside.

Today, I've set the potted marigolds on the Cathedral's stone steps. I should just leave, but maybe I'm crazy too--I still have a glimmer of hope.

I sit on the steps and wait for my aunt to show up. An hour goes by, then another. Just as the sun is beginning to set in the west, I see Aunt Ida wandering down the street. She's coming toward the Cathedral, but she looks around as if she has no clue where she's at.

Not wanting to startle her, I remain on the step and wait for her to arrive. As she gets closer, she seems to notice me, but it's clear that my identity doesn't register with her.

As I had hoped, Aunt Ida is drawn to the marigolds. She seems pleased with them and grazes her hand over the pom pom blooms. Her eyes move to my face, and this time, I see a spark of recognition.

"Hi, Aunt Ida," I say.

"Hi, Maria Lynn," she answers.

I try to talk to her, but she speaks in odd, winding phrases that go nowhere. She keeps stringing words together, but they make no sense. Still, whenever she stops and asks, "Okay?," I reply by saying "Okay."

She begins to tell me about a war in Louisiana. She says that when the water runs red and the sand turns red with blood, that's when you know people are dying and there are bodies in the water.

I try to tell her that there is no war in Louisiana, and bodies and blood are not washing up on the beaches. She only responds by saying that the news doesn't tell us the truth about what is going on.

Then, Aunt Ida tells me that I need to go home. I plead with her to come with me, but she refuses.

"The marigolds are my home now."