When my dad was in his 40s, he went through what some might call a midlife crisis, but I like to call it his second childhood. He did what men do. He bought a motorcycle. I loved it. I’d jump on the back, wrap my arms around his waist and cruise the countryside, the wind whipping my face.
One Sunday afternoon, he drove off on that motorcycle to see some friends north of Sioux City, out on old Highway 7, now K22. He never made it.
Around 2 a.m., the phone rang. It was St. Vincent Hospital. Some kids had found him on the side of the road, just outside of the city limits. He had swerved into the ditch to avoid hitting a dog that he said was as big as the bike.
He died two days before my 16th birthday.
That’s when my mom asked me if I wanted to be a kid or if I wanted to be a grownup. I said, “Grownup.” She said, “Good choice.”
It was just the two of us now. My mom had been a homemaker most of her married life. Now she had to be everything. From that moment on, she involved me in everything. I helped pick out my dad’s casket. I learned how life insurance works. We worked out a budget.
I didn’t know it at the time, but Dad’s death prepared me for the rest of my life.
Several years later, during my first marriage, I came home from work one day to find my husband trying to feed our baby. But he had put grits in the bottle instead of formula. So, I said, “Okay, Charlie, let’s go get some ice cream.” We weren’t going for ice cream. We were going back to the hospital. He stayed there for a couple months, got back on his meds, and he was fine until he started feeling better and stopped taking them again.
I was 28 when we married. I didn’t know then he suffered from catatonic schizophrenia. It surfaced after he got laid off. During his third mental breakdown, I had to take him to the hospital in Ferguson, Missouri—you’ve probably heard of Ferguson. It’s midnight. We walk into the emergency room. I’ve got my 3-year-old son by my side, my infant daughter in my arms, and there are two rival gangs—bloodied and bruised—on either side of me, still trying to fight. Some angel of a woman ushered us into another room.
That’s when I realize—I can’t do this. I was raising two children and a husband who was like a third.
We were going to lose our house because I couldn’t make the $500-a-month payment. After 10 years of marriage, I called my mom and told her what was going on. She told me to come home. Before I left our home in Missouri, I called his folks to figure out what to do with Charlie and his dad said, “I’m busy”. Put him on a bus. Send him here.”
Okay, fine. Greyhound, here you go. Headed to Pittsburgh. Good luck.
After that, I had no interest in getting married again. But several years down the road, my mom heard about this single’s group that held dances. She thought I should go. I said, “Yeah, it’s going to be like the one you went to where you had to push the old guy around in his wheelchair.” She insisted, no, no, this one’s really good. I wasn’t convinced.
Around the same time, I had gone through the Divorce Care series. I’m a slow learner. I had to go twice. The second time it took. Some friends there also mentioned this single’s group. So I went.
I got paired up with this older gentleman, who went to all these things. He had one move, swaying back and forth, so we called him Thumper. I finished dancing with Thumper and landed in the arms of someone who could really dance. He twirled me around and did a little dip. I guess you could say he swept me off my feet. We married a couple years later.
I was 46. Gailen was almost seven years younger. It seemed like the perfect match since statistics show women live longer. I thought, “Great! We’ll kick it around the same time after this long, healthy, happy life together.”
Well, that’s not going to happen.
Gailen was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis a month after we were married. We got that under control. But then, seven years later, I was cooking and I asked him to put the milk in the fridge. He took it to the washing machine.
I started noticing other little things. I would be talking to him, and he would cock his head like a curious dog. He wouldn’t say anything. He’d just look at me like I was speaking another language. One day he finally said, “I don’t understand your words. I don’t know what’s going on.”
We went back to the neurologist for another MRI. That’s the first time I’ve heard any doctor look at a scan and say, “Oh, damn.” When he was first diagnosed, the thin black film showed his brain flecked with little white dots from the MS. But now it showed dark patches of empty space.
Early onset dementia.
One summer night, it was raining cats and dogs, and I heard the back door open. I got up in time to see him outside, walking toward the cornfield. I’m thinking, if he gets out there, I’ll never find him. I caught him and asked, “What are you doing?”
“I’m looking for the cats,” he said.
I said, “Honey, they’re hiding because it’s pouring. You’ve got to come back in the house.”
He was out there in his skivvies.
My worst fear was coming home from my full-time job one day and he’d be gone. There are GPS trackers you can get for “flight-risk people,” but the man didn’t wear a watch. He wasn’t going to wear a tracker. He needed 24-hour care.
He’s been in four different nursing homes in the past two years. He’s 54. He’s still strong. Most places can’t handle such a young person. He had never been a violent person, but now he would get angry and hit people, even his own mother once – at which point she finally understood why I couldn’t sacrifice myself to take care of him anymore.
Statistics say he has about three years left of this “life” he is living.
Gailen is trapped in his body, his thoughts locked in his brain. Last month, when I went to see him at the nursing home, three hours away in Story City, he took his blanket and covered his head. When everything gets to be too much, he wants to hide. And I get it. There are days when I want to do the same thing.
Most of the time, he doesn’t recognize me and scowls. But during this visit, I asked him, “Are you content here? He nodded: Yes. I said, “Is the sky green? Is it purple-polka-dotted?” He shook his head: No.
There are rare, glimmering moments when I know he’s still there. A light will catch in his eyes. Even then, he can’t wrap his arms around me and hold meor take care of me. I have to take care of myself. I have to be the grownup.
Last year, I turned 60 and lost 30 pounds, thanks to healthier eating and taking the stairs more. Turns out that stuff actually works. That’s a loss I can live with because I’ve been “fluffy” ever since junior high when it was like a balloon went off in my body. Later, it didn’t help that Gailen liked to put everything in the deep fryer.
While we work through the pain of his living death, this long goodbye brought on by dementia, I’m the healthiest I’ve ever been. I have to take care of myself, because if I fall apart, who’s going to advocate for my husband?
But it doesn’t come without pain. When I’m feeling the weight of being a grownup, the grief of being married and alone—what they call an “ambiguous widow”—I’m reminded of my mother. If she were me, she’d pick herself up and carry on. Because if you don’t, all that’s left is to fall down and stay down. That’s not an example I want to set for my children and grandchildren.
When I’m at my lowest, I feel the warmth of my mom, my dad and those that have gone before me. One day, Gailen will be up there, too, and he’ll be able to reach back and surround me with his love.
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Linnea Clausen was born and raised in Sioux City, but she’s lived in Arizona and Missouri. She’s a proud pet parent to two dogs, two indoor cats and another posse of felines that live outside.
Ode is a storytelling series where community members tell true stories on stage to promote positive impact through empathy. It is produced by Siouxland Public Media.
The next event is 7 p.m. Friday, June 2 at ISU Design West in downtown Sioux City. The theme is “Stigmas: An ode to the power of opening up.” Tickets are available at kwit.org. For more information, visit facebook.com/odestorytelling.
This story was produced as part of an Images & Voices of Hope Restorative Narrative Fellowship, which supports media practitioners who want to tell stories of resilience in communities around the U.S. and abroad. ivoh is a nonprofit committed to strengthening the media's role as an agent of change and world benefit.
