Category Archives: grief

death; loss; healing

The Sins of the Culture.

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NEWLY-EDITED/FINAL EDIT.

Three weeks ago Tuesday, an earnest man died.

While raising his family, he and his wife lived socially separate from the “world”, ascribing to a set of beliefs which dictated that they “touch not the unclean thing.”

Such a system of belief came to include his relationship, familial though it was in real time, with me.

That man was my cousin. Though we’d grown up literally around the block from one another, in recent years I would be shunned — never contacted; never included in family gatherings, though remaining the only [ and, solitary ] blood relative still living in the same county.

Apart from one conversation with his wife, circa 1995 (the year mum died, she paying several visits to the house to help with Mum’s hospice care) – I had never actually told him anything about my life, directly. As a couple, they did provide great kindness to my father, inviting him several times for dinner after mum died, and supported an orchestra in which I had performed for many years; but, upon my retreating from that organization in the wake of both a horrid harrassment scene and failure to secure a contract, I could not recall any further voluntary contact from either of them.

In fact, following the final four years of my father’s life, most of which were spent as live in caregiver at either his house or mine, the next time I would see them in person would be when we all attended his nephew’s wedding reception. Though we’d been seated together at one of many round tables, no eye contact was returned and no conversation entertained. Only one comment, from his wife, remained with me, to replay over and over in my head: “You LOOK like somebody I know….?!”

At the time, I remember thinking afterwards that perhaps they’d been repelled by the black, Grecian-styled gown which I’d worn as professional dress at another wedding having just completed performance; typically, the garment was sleeveless, with two bands of stretch jersey meeting at an Empire waist, securely covering both breasts but, by a certain standard, a “plunging” neckline. Though no aspect of my body’s private parts were at all exposed I was, possibly, inappropriately attired for their company. By attending that wedding reception wearing that dress I had committed an offense, against them.

Sin.

Enmity from God. Disobedience against laws and precepts, as outlined in the Holy Bible.

To the Roman Catholic system, sin is clearly delineated within a hierarchy: Venial, or “lesser” offenses, which include transgressions; all the way to Mortal, those grave, serious and, frankly, felonious. Accordingly, punishments are doled out by means of penance requirements, after the requisite confession.

But among the Christian church’s innumerable outgrowths, from conservative to liberal, sin would come to carry a remarkably malleable definition – and over time, I would learn, subject to a legion of interpretation.

Herewith, the school of my own life.

Back in the late 1970’s, Mum hosted a German boy in our home. Not the typical exchange student, Roland hailed from the Schwelm assembly of our sectarian, fundamentalist Plymouth Brethren fellowship. He had secured a tool and die apprenticeship, of sorts, with the local Penn-Erie Schober, a machine shop owned by a wealthy, Swiss shipping magnate who himself was a member of the Zurich fellowship. Roland worked at the shop during the day, staying with our family nights and weekends and, invariably, attending the Gospel Assembly Hall with us both on Sundays and for every weekday “meeting”.

Roland was tall, blonde, and quiet. His English was halting, most notably his “v” sounds always slipping into “w” like Elmer Fudd. But, unlike his bold, cartoon counterpart Roland blushed, easily. And, he avoided eye contact with most everyone – especially me. I, on the other hand, on the cusp of college swiftly developed a crush, which would last until our tearful goodbye the following year.

My first alarm sounded during one of the earliest Gospel meetings held on Sunday evenings, at the Hall. Arriving just in time, I’d slid into an empty seat just beside him at the end of a row. His countenance ran crimson, his head elevated, nostrils flaring; clearly, my presence beside him was excruciating.

Later, he would disclose: German Christian men and women, both single and as married couples, never sat together during any meetings of the Plymouth Brethren. Men occupied one side of the worship room; women, the other. And, all ultimate relationships were, even still as late as the 1970’s, discreetly arranged by parents of agreeable families.

I was s.t.u.n.n.e.d.

This was the ’70’s. Granted, women’s liberation had not touched the Assembly of the Plymouth Brethren; but, arranged marriages had gone out with the advent of indoor plumbing!

Oh, but no; Roland was quick to intone that the Lord did not condone flagrant socializing between male and female adolescents. And, like all serious brothers of the Brethren, he had a Scripture to support his position.

I don’t remember the Scripture. I do remember his face, his skin, his averted gaze, and his physical discomfort which I had caused simply by sitting beside him.

Eventually, Roland returned to Germany. A few years later, Mum took in yet another German boy from the Brethren. Again, this young man would also work at Penn-Erie Schober. Hans-Jorg was completely different in both appearance and carriage, from Roland. Always smiling, happy, loving the outdoors, his English was fluent; we all enjoyed him, especially Mum who could, at last, carry on lengthy conversations about so many topics for which she was starved. I, however, was away at college, so my interactions with Hans did not include sitting beside him for any reason.

In 1984, I took my first trip overseas, traveling first to Scotland and, from there, across to the European continent. My visit at Roland’s home was brief, toward the end of my time in Germany; but, meeting up first with Hans-Jorg in the town of Remscheid, I’d been entertained at two eateries, one for “spaghetti ice” and the other a classic German pub.

As we sat, awaiting our sumptuous brunch of omelet and salad, Hans ordered a mug of beer. As it turned out, Germans were very keen on their beer, at virtually every meal except breakfast! (In Paris, I’d also been offered wine with dinner, which I declined.) Furthermore, Hans told me that cigarettes were very common in Germany; during the short social time between Morning Worship/Communion and Sunday School, all the men would stand outside, and smoke!

Regardless the decade across American history, the assembly of the Plymouth Brethren in the United States condemned both drinking and smoking. To them, along with s-e-x, these were sins – and, their offenders, living “in sin”. In fact, if one among the closed, accepted fellowship was found to be indulging in either, said violator was “put out” of the fellowship – no longer permitted at “the Lord’s Table” to accept communion.

Yet, here I was, in both France and Germany, among members of the same fellowship, the wine and beer flowing freely, the cigarettes puffed and inhaled at will.

At this juncture, my notion of sin began to evolve. How therefore, I mused, was God to judge anyone, and by what standard? And, if God’s standard was flexible, how could mere humans pass pronouncements of any kind upon one another, Christian or infidel?

Being obedient to the Almighty God takes conviction, determination, and a harnessing of the human will. Knowing how and when one is displeasing God, apparently, depends entirely upon where one lives on the planet.

My cousin is now where he knows, even as he has already been known by his Creator. The place is Heaven, where God sits on the throne and Christ beside him, they one and the same. Easier now to accept three in one, let alone two, in these times of quantum and string theory and non-locality. With God, all things are possible, after all.

One day, time will become eternity. Apparently, repentance is still the order of the day for humans, forgiveness the modus operandi of the Divine and, finally, acceptance.

Given time, how might we mortals hope to define what we can and should mean to one another?

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Copyright 4/8/23 Ruth Ann Scanzillo. All rights those of the author, whose story it is and whose name appears above this line. No copying, in whole, part, or by translation, permitted; sharing my blog link, exclusively, and that not via RSS feed. Thank you for respecting the history of someone other than yourself.

The Martian on the Attic Loft Floor.

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[ formerly titled: The Top Stitched Blue Denim Dress. ]

The old, bright red stuffed Martian doll with its assortment of Velcroed noses, mouths, and googly eyes stared up at me from its cast off pose on the attic floor, resembling a mutated flounder soaked in Red Dye #4.

This attic treasure, unearthed alongside equally ancient, Spanky and Our Gang hand lettered school musical posters, cheap heeled shoes, the chunks, pieces, and too-skinny stems of a long discarded Shark vacuum, seemed to taunt me. I, on my birthday no less, had trudged up the too-steep stairs to tackle my loft’s hoard with only one, elusive find in mind: my precious sleeveless, top stitched denim dress.

Mum had made all our clothes, growing up. A master tailor and expert dressmaker, she’d created pleated cuffed slacks, purses, hats, fully lined three piece suits, wedding and ball gowns, drapes, sofa slip covers, and bedspreads. When I moved out at the tender age of nearly 26, most of my wearables came off the rack and not without accompanying angst; diagnosed with adolescent ideopathic thoracic scoliosis at age 13, I would forever be forced to buy ready made clothes that never quite fit.

Never, that is, with one exception: my favorite denim dress.

Mail order catalogs populating my PO Box for so many decades, this garment had likely originated at Newport News or some similar bargain outlet. But, the fabric was solid, hardy, stretch denim; the dress wore well and, most importantly, it seemed designed with my warped body in mind. Boat neck, vertical top stitching slenderizing the line and belted with a slim, faux alligator belt at waist, the dress hugged my wide hips only to flare out toward the hem in a flirty skirt just meeting midway through my knobby knees.

But, because my hips were wider than my compressed, crooked upper back, the excess fabric above the waist served to blouse out over the shoulder blades, masking their uneven protrusion to the right of my spinal curve. So few pieces of clothing – be they sweaters, blazers, or vests – so effectively concealed the deformity I grew to favor this frock, appearing in it everywhere all summer.

In recent years, and largely due to the pandemic, most of my clothes had hung unworn. Now, I’d been sorting through by color and cut, and noticed that my favorite denim wasn’t on any rack. Neither could it be found folded among the rest of the jean jackets and pants. And, this being the one outfit I always chose first, its absence was baffling.

Until today.

Let fate on the day of birth remind an aging woman of her mortality. Add to that one orphaned at the vulnerable age of menopause, celebrating alone after yet another fractured, intractable disagreement with the man who couldn’t love her, I had plenty of time to contemplate and reflect. This dress, its absence looming with prescience, filled the firmament with telling import; I could trace back one wearing, to Miami, in 2015 and there’d been no man in my life since until he who had sent me tearing home from his place twenty odd minutes south, aborting our plans for the day. I calculated, realizing that dress had been in my possession from 2015 through til 2017 until now. From whose house had it disappeared?

We’d spent the past six years breaking up, reuniting, wrenching free again, meeting to eat. His mother ailed; his mother passed; he returned, this time to stick. Over all those years, more than one strange article of clothing had tempted question – tossed casually on an unmade bed, folded in clean laundry, or stuffed under a sofa cushion during a drunk. Had my best dress been flat out stolen, or just relegated to the suspected cheat heap?

Seven hours remained, of this solitary birthday. Carol Burnett was turning 90, and the world of celebrity had a big TV party planned for the evening. Carol was my kindred; she’d famously declared, on The Tonight Show, that yes, she’d be more than happy to get married again – as long as he lived in his house, next door.

I’ll crawl back up to the attic, then back down through the bedroom for one, last meticulous treasure hunt before curtain time. If the missing denim does turn up, he’s off the hook; if it doesn’t, I’ll finally have all the proof I’ve been seeking for so long that the truly loving man I deserve is somebody else, out there, dressed and ready.

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The Martian on the attic floor won’t have to say a word.

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p.s. but if, this summer, you see a sleeveless denim with flirty skirt and a sq………. call me.

(I think it’s an Allegra K.)

UPDATE: Pulled out the last plastic bin, known to contain only dad’s old things. Hanging behind it – in the dark – was the denim dress.

Thanks, Mum. You’ve done it, again.

Copyright 4/26/23 Ruth Ann Scanzillo. Happy Birthday, to Carol, to Channing, Melania, and me. All rights reserved.

littlebarefeetblog.com

The Disease of Compliance.

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She’d given me the look.

That look, of doleful disapproval, on my mother’s otherwise silent face will never leave me.

I’d spoken with authority, against those to whom she had submitted. My efforts were in her defense – her immediate creature comforts, her broader sustenance, what she deserved from those to whom humane treatment was allegedly a priority.

My mother’d given me that look. She did so, because she could no longer speak. My mother was dying, of terminal brain cancer.

The medical center to whom she had relinquished her vulnerable body had – as far as my eye, ear, and remaining senses could perceive – utterly failed.

Her diagnosing surgeon had gone on vacation, to publish his new novel. The PA in whose charge she had been placed had us on hold, instructed to reroute her past surgical options to the latest chemo protocol still on the shelves at the local cancer center. That facility sent its physicians on rounds, to speak with us in the hospital room, check her vitals, and determine when the chemo port should be scheduled. The chemo port procedure failed. Her lung was punctured; she wheezed; I tore around that ward like Shirley MacLaine in “Terms of Endearment” until a portable xray machine was located and a technician to take the image. The nurses assigned to her charge were surgical, moved to the cancer floor to cover for short staffing, and had no idea how to operate her chemo infusion machine. Her veins rolled; the caustic solution, intended for the chemo port in her sternum which hadn’t found its destination dispersed through her tissues, never reaching her brain. She likely stroked out, losing what little ability she had left to either speak or press the call button, and filled a toilet feces collector tray which sat for hours on a hot August afternoon until I, returning to my watch after a brief lunch, sourced the choking odor. The nurses who were assigned to periodically turn her in the bed were absent; when asked to appear, one of them jerked her body so abruptly the lung tube came out and had to be reinserted. Finally, the surgeon returned from his vacation, took one look at her, pulled me out into the hall, told me she “didn’t look good”, and assigned Hospice to convince us to take her home. Two weeks later, the sun streaming in the bedroom window, my mother took her final catch breaths as I held her hand. The date was August 4, 1995.

Little has changed, at that medical facility, except for a magnificent expansion of most all departments and building additions. The nurses are still short handed; the bedside attention completely dependent upon the availability of qualified individuals; and, patients are still subject to a level of care that is based entirely upon their willingness to comply.

Compliance.

An agreement to do whatever one is told, without argument.

Life, and its counterpart – death – notwithstanding.

In generations past, principally the one within which my mother was raised, people were trained to care. And, the professions dedicated to helping others attracted the truly compassionate.

What changed?

Enter the “model.” Such is a behavioral plan, designed and then applied to both institutions and corporations. Because of the veritable size of contemporary enterprise, management of such breadth has required a top down approach to containment – the goal being to maintain order. Without order, systems collapse.

But, hierarchy has its own, inherent weakness. Power, established at the top, while appearing to solidify structure ultimately produces imbalance. How, and why?

When there is power at the top, the distribution of decision making becomes diluted. Multiple departments are created, over which each has its own manager; this produces compartmentalization, which becomes not only a pattern of action but a mentality which infuses perception. This, in turn, births insularity.

When insular thinking pervades, everyone existing within its cocoon learns to believe that what happens in their comparatively tiny world defines reality everywhere. Any notion of standard, whether intellectual or moral, is completely subject to thinking which is increasingly ruled by opinion rather than fact. Accountability diminishes. One answers only to one’s immediate superior, who may or may not have a cogent grasp on anything.

What’s worse, those who actually do possess the cognitive mettle to interpret situations functionally are so far removed from each compartment that assessment is reduced to remotely accessed paperwork.

Enter the health care institution. At the very bottom of this malignant monstrosity is the bedside caregiver. Whence does valid authority rule? And, most importantly, who cares?

Tyrants look at this picture and choose depopulation. Reduce the volume; solve the problem. Oh?

The word “money”, both its acquisition and domain, has yet to enter this discussion. Perhaps the reader carries awareness of its power, in silence; by now, most regardless of socio-economic status know those at the top seize enormous salary and, with it, the power to determine the hourly wage of their counterparts on the bottom rung. In the medical field, those who have direct interaction with the most vulnerable receive the least in compensation.

The model which has informed the structure of health care institutions comes from big business. In my day, the theory driving its application was called Total Quality Management – TQM. This idea birthed the meeting room, wherein all employees from a given level were called together, allegedly to air all grievances, and given a promise of follow up action. Over time, all learned to expect from these pretensive scenes little to nothing beyond status quo. Those in charge selected the appropriate form, filled in data where required, and filed it in a slot marked “Reports.”

To date, I have been “dismissed” from three medical practices. I am no longer a good “fit.” As the patient in pain, I am documented as alternately defiant, my tone lacking in “professionalism”; whereas, my transgressions have included identifying both irregularities and errors, naming them, questioning why, and asking for further assistance. As the patient, I have been non-compliant.

Theoretically, we in the United States have an advocate. It’s called Congress. Should I appear before this body, stand from my seat, be recognized, and speak, be forewarned.

Those who seek to silence me can expect the look.

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Copyright 4/21/23 Ruth Ann Scanzillo. All rights those of the author, whose story it is and whose name appears above this line. No copying – in whole; part; or, by translation (except you, Hans-Jorg!) – permitted. Sharing by blog link, exclusively, and that not via RSS. Thank you for respecting the truth.

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