I Forgot to Remember: A Memoir of Amnesia (18 page)

A few moments later, I saw that the bikes had both been abandoned on the path. I then saw Patrick standing next to a tree near the lake. He waved at me. As I got closer, I heard a big splash. Patrick turned and ran toward me, screaming, “Benjamin just fell in the lake!” I rushed forward through all the weeds and brambles. I can remember spotting Benjamin’s jean jacket with the navy-blue sleeves and hood. Without thinking at all, I stepped into the icy water, grabbed for that hood, and pulled as hard as I could. I lost my balance with the first pull and fell deeper into the water, but I was closer now to where Benjamin was, so I got a better hold on him and pulled again, as hard as I could. That time I got him and literally threw him up on the bank of the lake. I knew that both Benjamin and Patrick were crying, but I couldn’t move toward them at
first. I was in so much
pain
! And when I looked down, there was blood. Somehow, I got myself out of the lake and got the boys back on their bikes. Benjamin was babbling this whole time about “a plastic milk jug hurting the earth!” But I wasn’t really listening to him. He was soaking wet and shivering uncontrollably. I was unsure whether or not he would be able to ride his bike. I was shivering and wet as well, but I was more concerned about the pain and all the blood. I just wanted to sit down, curl up in a ball, and go to sleep, but something gave me the strength to walk home, encouraging the boys the whole time, saying over and over, “Everything is fine. Everyone is fine.”

This is what Benjamin remembers about that fateful day: “I fell through the thin ice of the lake and I was in the frigid water. And you immediately jumped in. You might have thrown Patrick out of the way first, or in the other direction into the grass and then jumped in after me. I remember that you waded into the lake and just bodily grabbed me up and then you ran back so now we’re both soaking wet and freezing. So freezing cold. And then we just ran home. I was shivering my ass off! We went inside and you went and got towels and blankets and wrapped me up cinnamon-bun style in all those towels and blankets, and you laid down and had me call someone. I don’t know if the cold shock of the water immediately sent you into labor. I just remember you crying, making these horrible noises of anguish. And I remember you expressing pain in your face and verbally and me asking if you were all right, and you repeating, ‘It’s all right, it’s the baby, it’s the baby.’ I’m fuzzy as to who took us to the hospital or when Dad came. I think back to my childhood, there were more days that he wasn’t home than there were days that he was home. I’ve got to believe that it was me calling 911. Both Patrick and I, just given our situation, we
did routine drills on, Where is all the stuff we need in the house? How do you dial 911? How do you talk to the operator? We had a phone list on the refrigerator. I was only six, and this was the second or third time I had called 911 on your behalf.”

The situation was clearly a serious one. Jim says, “I don’t remember how I got to the hospital, either. I recall sitting in a conference room in Waltham, Massachusetts, being interrupted for a phone call and someone telling me that you’d had an accident. The next memory I have is being by your side in the ER at Shady Grove Hospital in Rockville, Maryland. At the hospital the doctor told me that your uterus might ‘tear itself apart.’ You were only at twenty-three or twenty-four weeks of gestation; your uterus was weakened by two previous cesarean deliveries, the first of which had been an emergency, and therefore a vertical rather than horizontal incision. You were not supposed to go into labor with this pregnancy. You had lost a lot of blood, and your condition was deemed too delicate for a helicopter ride, so they hurriedly bundled you in an ambulance and rushed you to Georgetown Medical Center downtown. The doctors couldn’t understand why you knew none of your own medical history. You bluffed and said I kept track of all that and I just automatically covered for you.”

A young resident at Georgetown examined me and delivered an unexpected ultimatum: “There’s two ways we can go here. We can do what we can to save the child, or you can decide to do whatever needs to be done to help the mother. If you opt to improve the mother’s condition, we can’t do that here.” Georgetown University Hospital was a Catholic hospital, sworn to protect our baby at any cost. The resident explained to Jim that I had suffered an abruption, in which the placenta was partially torn away from my uterine wall, and that I had lost, and continued to lose, quite a bit
of blood. The doctor gave us five minutes. Jim recalls, “For me, it was like a flashback to that moment at the other hospital in Fort Worth: ‘Bring your sons and tell your wife good-bye.’ I didn’t need five minutes. I told the doctors to save the baby because that was going to be the only way anyone at that hospital would dispense
any
treatment to you.” They administered large doses of magnesium sulfate to me, meant to slow the contractions. It was initially too much. My vital signs flickered. Jim summoned the head nurse, who reduced the dosage. Fortunately, my body eventually stabilized somewhat, but the contractions never stopped.

I spent almost a week in the hospital, and when I was released it was with strict orders to stay in bed. Jim talked with my parents and it was decided that my mom would come up and stay with us and help with the boys as well as prepare meals and do the housework so I wouldn’t feel compelled to do anything. I was once again baffling the medical community by somehow holding on to Kassidy through three months of constant labor.

On July 13, 1992, Kassidy Taylor Meck was delivered by cesarean section. My sister Barb wrote in her journal a few days later: “7-18-92: Su and Kassidy went home yesterday and all is going well. Su sounded so upbeat and happy. She feels better than she has for months. They [Su and Kassidy] are already more like best friends than they are mother and daughter.”

Dr. Muir is a big reason why I held on to Kassidy until the middle of July. He kept telling me, “Your daughter is in the best possible place”—inside me—“and the longer you can hold on to her the better she will be in the long run. You can either have a few months of discomfort now, or there is a possibility that she will suffer a
lifetime of discomfort if she is born too early.” The first time I saw her, just like when I had first heard her heartbeat, I fell head over heels in love with her. I was terrified that I was going to break her somehow, and I worried constantly about whether she was feeling too warm or too cold, or if she was hungry or sleepy. I didn’t know who to ask how I was supposed to hold her, or how I was supposed to know what she wanted. Because I had two young boys, everybody just assumed I was an old pro and knew exactly what to do.

I remember Jim bringing Benjamin and Patrick to visit their new sister and me in the hospital. Benjamin wanted to read her a book, and so he brought Dr. Seuss’s
Marvin K. Mooney, Will You Please Go Now!
from home. He sat and read that book particularly loudly to Kassidy and Patrick. He was so loud as he read, and so close to her (so she could see all the pictures), I thought for sure that Kassidy would be afraid and start to cry, but surprisingly, she didn’t.

I can remember holding Kassidy and just staring at her. She had, and still has, these huge, gorgeous blue eyes. I was scared to death that I was going to hurt her because I didn’t know what I was doing, and I desperately didn’t want to do anything wrong.

Benjamin says he remembers the day that Kassidy came home. “Kassidy was asleep in her baby carrier and you just set her right down on the family room floor. It’s so strange to think back to when she was so tiny. I know that some of the memories that I have of Kassidy as a baby and toddler are kind of secondary memories from pictures I have seen, or stories that you tell. But I can remember both Patrick and me looking at her and then each other and thinking, ‘We don’t want to deal with this.’ And so we played outside a lot more often. When Kassidy cried it was really loud, and you would just drop whatever you were doing and rush
to her immediately. I can remember it taking you like more than ten minutes to change Kassidy’s diaper. You were with her pretty much all the time. Kassidy nursed until she was almost five, which was probably excessive. And maybe because of that, you two were always together. Even now, you’re more like sisters than mother and daughter.”

It’s true that the dynamics of our family were fairly unusual. Kassidy and I never had a typical mother-daughter relationship. We always seemed kind of on a different wavelength than most other mothers and daughters. I was just beginning to learn how to learn as Kassidy came into my life. Benjamin and Patrick’s job in the family was to look out for us. Then there was Jim, who was always really far away, traveling for work.

I probably did devote much more time to Kassidy, at least initially, than I did to anyone or anything else. To some extent, I just didn’t know when to stop. Exactly how much care was enough for a completely helpless baby? Patrick and Benjamin, and even Jim, probably felt a bit neglected, and in all likelihood they felt a bit resentful of Kassidy at first. But I couldn’t help myself. Kassidy became my everything in the summer of 1992. She was my happy, healthy, perfect baby girl. And she and I, in a sense, ended up growing up together.

—Supertramp

A
fter Kassidy was born, Jim went back to his life of traveling. He was now working for a management consulting firm in northern Virginia and his territory was “the world.” So instead of just being away for days or weeks, he would be gone sometimes for months at a time. Sure, they paid well, but Jim essentially sold his soul in order to work there. This particular company made the fictional company in John Grisham’s book
The Firm
look like a friggin’ preschool. I rarely knew where he was. Jim never left us itineraries, and I didn’t know enough to ask for one each time he left. And I probably would not have been able to read them even if he did. He would occasionally call from wherever he was, but often the difference in time was puzzling to me. How
was it that he could be getting ready to go out to dinner if I was just getting the boys their breakfast? How was it he was telling me good night right as I was coming home after teaching my morning aerobics classes?

As Jim traveled the globe, I would like very much to say that Benjamin, Patrick, Kassidy, and I led an idyllic life in Montgomery County, keeping the home fires burning, so to speak, awaiting the arrival of our man of the house. In reality, the kids and I continued to lead a chaotic life, with six-year-old Benjamin and now even five-year-old Patrick acting as the men of the house. I was getting better at remembering what needed to be done, as long as I had my huge stickered calendar. Meals were kept simple, but occasionally forgotten. Having a baby, even a baby as easy as Kassidy, still took its toll on all of us. We continued to play the “What are we doing today?” game each morning and I think that helped. The boys can remember me having a lot of “lightning,” and even though my episodes didn’t faze them, I still can’t imagine what could have happened during those times when I was all but incapacitated. Scary.