Since the day of the pills

When we were kids, my sister Hazel was a bundle of trouble and drama, and she ran away at 17. She was missing for a month or so, and married soon after, which would've been in the early 1970s. In fifty years since then, I've seen her perhaps two dozen times.

One day several decades ago, after an argument with her husband, Hazel tried to kill herself by taking an overdose of sleeping pills.

Doctors pumped her stomach, but the damage had been done, and Hazel has had very limited muscle control since then. She can't walk. She can talk, but very slowly, and it's difficult trying to make out what she says. You're lucky if a word comes through, from which you can guess at context, but a conversation with Hazel would take an hour per sentence.

What's most horrific is, the thinking part of her mind still works. She's mentally present, but trapped in a damaged body. That's been Hazel's life since the day of the pills.

She's lived in nursing homes, and the one she's in now is a house, not an institution. Like the boarding house where I live, every resident has a room of their own, but unlike my place, they're cared for by the live-in staff that preps the meals and brings their meds.

The staff used to make sure Hazel exercised, and as recently as a few years ago, she came to family events in her wheelchair. Then she started refusing physical therapy, and eventually getting out of bed and into the wheelchair was more effort than it's worth to her, and she started refusing that as well. She lives her life in bed, sleeping or watching TV.

Still, her health hasn't been at issue, until recently. She's been hospitalized several times in the past few months, and the diagnosis is complicated. My other sister, Katrina, is Hazel's legal guardian, and understands the medical situation better than I do. Ask her, if you have any questions.

A few weeks after the last time Hazel left the hospital, she was switched to hospice care. She'll be my second sibling to go, following Ralph, who died ten years or so ago.

We all agree that it's best for Hazel, to switch from repeated hospitalizations to simply making sure she's comfortable. Since the "Do not resuscitate" decision was made, I've been visiting more often, because hey, she's my sister.

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Hazel and I weren't particularly close when we were kids. She's four years older than me, so the math says she left home when I was 13. Then she lived with her sequential husbands, always at least a county away, and the family saw her only at Thanksgiving dinner, maybe Christmas, maybe not.

And you know me — always I've been a recluse, so as a young adult I never made any effort to hang out with Hazel and her husbands, before or especially after her overdose.

Then I left Seattle in the 1990s, and became a missing person to the family. Now I'm back, Hazel is still disabled, on hospice, has perhaps months remaining, and I barely know her.

Even my childhood memories of Hazel are hazy. Mom and Dad were often mad at her over some rule she'd broken, or something they'd said she couldn't do but she'd done anyway. That's what I remember most, but even those memories are uncertain, because my other sister Katrina was no goody-too-shoes either, and less than a year younger. Any of my faint recollections of parents-yelling-at-sister could've been Katrina, not Hazel. I wasn't taking notes.

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And here we are, 2024. My sister Hazel is almost a stranger, and getting to know her any better than 'barely' is impossible.

Twice I visited Hazel while she was hospitalized. The first time I came alone, and it was tricky getting past the front desk, because I didn't know her name. She's been married three times, and I said, "I'm here to visit Hazel X," and then Hazel Y, before I was able to jog the name Hazel Z out of my head.

Visits go best when 3-5 family members come all at the same time. Friday's visit at the nursing home was the established routine — we converged like a mob, which made the visit easier and more enjoyable, and it might be surprising, but 'enjoyable' is the right word.

We'd just finished our ordinary bi-weekly breakfast, me and Mom and Katrina, with Katrina's friend Adelle. Walking in, the four of us were cheery, saying "Hello, Hazel!"

Katrina re-introduced me, because I was gone from 1991-2022. Hazel always thinks I'm our brother Clay, unless he's there too, and he wasn't. It's an understandable mistake; Clay and I look like brothers, and he's the one who didn't disappear.

Then for a few minutes, each of the visitors said something to Hazel, who can't really answer. When talking ran dry, we sang songs, like we always do, starting with "Bill Grogan's Goat" and "I've Been Working on the Railroad." Hazel can't get the words out quick enough, but she mouths the lyrics and can almost keep up, and it's clear from her huge smile that she enjoys the singalongs.

When we ran out of folk songs, we fell back to church songs. "Jesus Loves Me," "This Little Light of Mine," "He's Got the Whole World In His Hands," and more — all the greatest hits, same as every time we visit Hazel.

Me being atheist, maybe singing hymns should feel wrong, but it's OK. Our parents raised us in the church, so these silly ditties are a baseline memory for me and my brothers and sisters. Long as you ignore the meaning, and I always do, there are worse ways to spend half an hour than singing about Jesus and watching Hazel smile and almost sing along.

9/22/2024   

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