Friday morning started early as I had an appointment to have an echo done on my heart (as part of my cautious (his words, not mine) doctor who wanted to make sure that my heart and its arteries are functioning well since it appears the ones in my left leg are struggling some. It looks like my heart looks good based on reading the report on the patient website, but we will meet on this following Wednesday for another ultrasound of my leg and review all of the test results so far. So, I got to see the physical working of my heart during the echo with a very informative tech sharing the different things we were seeing and measuring. The heart is quite an amazing organ.
Then later that morning, I had an "opportunity" to experience the other aspect of our hearts--the center of warmth, connection, caring, and to grieve with another. I had lunch down in Draper with Laura.
The back story: I know several Lauras, so let me tell you about this one. She is also a mother of someone with schizophrenia. Her son was 10 years older than Ben. The week before, I had been exchanging texts with the women I spoke about in the past post as they shared how meaningful it has been to connect with each other. This conversation reminded me of a time many years ago that I met with Laura and a few other moms who also had sons with psychotic illnesses. I no longer could remember the names of the others and couldn't find Laura in my phone contacts, but did find her in my email, so I sent her an email to see if it was still valid and to also see if she wanted to meet for lunch. I told her about this new group and wondered if she wanted to also connect with them.
She immediately wrote back thank me for reaching out and also shared that her son had passed away 9 years ago. This began a series of emails back and forth with each other and finally a decision to meet for lunch was set for Friday, June 6.
It started a bit crazy as it happened that the restaurant we chose to meet at was closed because of a city water issue in that part of town, our next option was closed for remodeling, so we ended up further south in Draper at Kneaders.
When we first sat down, she told me that since her son's death, mental health issues and advocacy have been too difficult for them. She said after I had reached out, she didn't sleep for 2 nights because so many memories came flooding back--good and hard regarding her son and their lives together. Not at all what I meant to accomplish by reach out! However, she assured me that it was a good thing and that she was glad that I had reached out and that we had a chance to meet together.
Her son was 39 when he passed away. He had been living in a group home setting in West Valley. Things had been going fairly well for him and it was a good living situation for him. He had been up and involved during the day, but then missed dinner at center. Residents had small kitchens of their own, so they weren't too concerned about that. However, when he missed his evening meds appointment, they went to the room and found him deceased on the floor. An autopsy was preformed as is common in "un-attended deaths." They were told that his inner body looked like someone in his 80s and that literally that aging had caused his death--a result of both the illness and the medications he had taken over the years. So sad for everyone.
Neither Laura or I can remember how we connected with each other or when we connected. I know it was back around 2010 or so, long before we had interactions with the state hospital as she shared about their experiences there. There was five of us who got together once a month down in Sandy, either at the library in a conference room or at Laura's real estate office. I would guess that we met about 8-10 times until life and the chaos of dealing with our loved ones caused us to stop meeting. Because Laura's son was older than Ben, many times things she shared were helpful to me and even though I lost contact things she had shared helped me in my own journey over the years. So even though the details are lost to history (since I didn't keep a journal), the impact has remained with me and I knew that we were not alone in this battle.
So, we remembered her son and their many layers of involvement with mental health issues in our state. Her husband was the president of the Board of Directors of NAMI for three years. They taught Family to Family classes and they were involved in advocacy. We shared tears and connections. And as we near the end of our visit, Laura talked about how healing and perfect it had been for us to be together at this point in time--near her son's birthday--and to remember him.
Intertwining hearts---how blessed we are to be together with others in the good and the bad.
How is your heart doing today? The physical AND the caring one....
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