Chapter 4. New York Presbyterial Hospital, October 2010

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Chapter 4. New York Presbyterial Hospital, October 2010

When we hear the knock on the ER room door, Jamie and I both call out, “Come in.”  

It’s Rob, Jamie’s older brother, who walks into the small room. Jamie’s eyes widen and my mouth falls open. How did he even know we’re here?

He walks over to Jamie, hugs him, leans over to kiss me on the cheek, then sits in the visitor’s chair. 

~

A week before, in our Greenwich Village apartment, Jamie had woken up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat. But we both still felt healthy and fit from hiking the Tour du Mont Blanc. So we didn’t pay much attention.

Neither of us wanted to believe anything was wrong. But then it happened a second time.

That following morning I urged him to take the day off work to see a doctor. I wanted to go with him but he insisted I go to work. He assured me he’d call to let me know what was going on, which he did around 4:00 p.m. that afternoon.

“After I checked into the ER they did an EKG but didn’t find anything. So I should be home by the time you get home from work,” he’d said. He sounded calm. Like the doctors didn’t think there was any cause for alarm.

That evening, I opened our apartment door and with my key still in it, I called out, “You okay?” 

No answer. 

I dumped my small, black leather backpack on the floor of the entryway, threw my dark-brown sheepskin coat in the cupboard, and opened the door into the main room of our high-ceiling apartment. 

He wasn’t there. I grabbed the phone, fell onto the sofa and dialed his number. “Where are you?”

“I’m still in the ER,” he said. “They’ve just done a CAT scan and found a swollen gland pressing on a vein. They want to do a biopsy tomorrow, so they want me to stay overnight.” 

“I’ll take a taxi and be there in half an hour.”

“No,” he said. 

My stomach clenched. I felt the heat of anger rise. It’s only in retrospect that I realize, as was typical for me in my early forties, I barely registered the sting of rejection and hurt before the fire of reactive anger ignited within me. But in the moment it transpired, I also sensed Jamie wanted time to digest the fact that what was happening, was out of his control. So I respected his “no” and told him I’d be there in the morning. 

After hanging up I couldn’t stop myself from ruminating. Why won’t he let me be there with him? What is he thinking is wrong? Why is he so scared? 

I knew this kind of negative thought chatter would not help anything. I also knew that taking action would help. I could ask for support. I emailed his parents.  

Please don’t be alarmed, but I wanted to let you know what is going on, and to ask you to send love and healing energy to Jamie. 

I wrote that Jamie had gone to the New York Presbyterian Hospital to have his heart checked, and that the EKG was fine. But as the doctors had found a swollen lymph node, they wanted to do a biopsy the next day, so he’d be staying overnight in the hospital. 

Reaching out to Jamie’s parents to ask for support gave me a sense of relief: I knew they loved and cared for him too. But I hadn’t yet spoken with them the next morning before I left for the hospital to see Jamie.

~

“Mom and Dad tried calling both of you,” Rob says. “But when they didn’t get an answer, they called me and said that Camilla’s e-mail mentioned the New York Presbyterian Hospital. I told them I’d find you. I called the reception here and they confirmed Jamie was a patient. So I drove right here from Greenwich,” he says, throwing his arms up in the air in a very dramatic, Rob way. He must have been working from home in Connecticut, I think to myself.

Two and a half years older than Jamie, Rob has straight, greying hair and a serious, intense disposition. Jamie tends to be more laid back and easy going. But in a crisis, Rob remains calm, assesses the situation, can see what’s needed, and he’ll either contribute whatever may be required, or step back and give space. We’re both glad to see him. Reserved by nature and a good listener, he asks us what’s been going on. Jamie begins to tell him what has transpired so far. Rob leans back in the chair and listens. 

“Well, I’m relieved to hear you’re at least getting the medical attention you need,” he says after Jamie finishes. “So I won’t stay long.” 

“Thanks for driving into the city and finding us,” I say.

Jamie thanks him too. Rob’s presence comforts us both, but I also appreciate his ability to recognize our need for space. 

~

In retrospect, it’s only now in my mid-fifties, more than ten years later, that I can see the irony in my forty-three-year-old self emailing Jamie’s parents when I felt vulnerable, scared, and alone. At that point in time, Jamie and I had been married for nineteen years, and I often felt then, that his parents and his older, Harvard-educated brother, believed that they knew best — better than Jamie and me. Which often left me feeling smothered and claustrophobic. Like my voice didn’t count.

Like I didn’t count. 

The easy path would be to blame my in-laws for how I felt. And my immature self sometimes did that. But with plenty of therapy and inner work, I came to understand how I am responsible for my own feelings.

I wanted their love, but I didn’t want to feel controlled. And control is a strong theme both in Jamie’s family of origin and for me too. Perhaps it is simply a never-ending process of trying to keep the balance on the seesaw-continuum of support at one end, and control at the other.

Perhaps trust lies somewhere in the middle.

Perhaps the heart of it was: I wanted his parents’ love, support and trust, and that also involved healthy boundaries — something I wasn’t so good at establishing at that age.

~

When Jamie and I were in our twenties and thirties, each summer we drove up from New York City to visit his parents at their summer home in Brewster, Cape Cod. We visited many weekends, and we often spent part of our summer vacation with them too. Along with Jamie’s three brothers and various girlfriends, on the bay side of the Cape we windsurfed, sailed Hobie Cats, caught bluefish, kayaked, and when the waters receded nearly a mile at low-tide, we hunted clams, checked out tidal pools teeming with sea life, threw boomerangs and frisbees, and played the occasional game of bocce. With Jamie’s Waspy Dad we played tennis, and with his Italian-American mother who embodies a genius with food, we cooked celebratory feasts. I’m acutely aware of our privilege and deeply grateful for it.

But the Jones clan grew. Their four sons married four wives: first a daughter-in-law from Australia, then one from San Diego, one from the Czech republic, and the last to marry was Rob, to a Russian wife. By the time the sixth grandchild arrived, when the Jones Clan gathered, the dynamics were complex and, for me, no longer enjoyable. 

When I first heard Eckhart Tolle say, “Families are crucibles for unconscious behavior,” I thought, Yes, that’s it. Perhaps when adults gather with their families of origin, it’s almost impossible not to be sucked back into the patterns of behavior engaged in while growing up.

I find the dynamics with my own family of origin challenging enough, let alone in-law dynamics. And maybe being an “in-law,” by its very nature, makes me more of an out-law. I love and enjoy each member of the Jones Clan as individual human beings, but with large family gatherings, I came to a point where I often experienced more anxiety and stress, than joy.

Perhaps the underlying love is what kept me coming back, even with the unconscious behavior and the projecting of disowned shadows. Plus I wanted to be with my partner… although, since when is it ever a good thing if we have to give up who we are in order to be with in-laws? 

~

With Jamie in hospital, Rob will be the Jones clan ambassador. He’ll be the bridge: sharing news with their parents, their other two younger brothers, and the extended Jones clan. He plays the role of the oldest of four sons very well. 

“I want you to know I’m here for you both,” he says, getting up to leave. He kisses me on the cheek goodbye, and leans in to hug Jamie. “I love you so much,” he says to his brother. 

The vulnerability in his voice makes me tear up. Jamie chokes up too. 

~  

Perhaps an hour later, Jamie’s cell phone rings and he answers. It’s his parents. I hear them asking questions. He starts to answer. His breath catches. He pauses and takes a deep breath, but he breaks down. His chest heaves with deep, shoulder-wracking sobs. He weeps from the depths of his soul. The room echoes with his wails. It’s as though within him is a desperate, wounded, wild black bear letting loose its most agonized growl. Gashes cut deep into its dark, blood-stained fur, showing muscle cut to the bone. The Grizzly stands, reaching up to its full towering height and groans in torment.

It’s as though he needs his parents to witness this crisis. He needs them to understand he could die. He needs his parents, who love him so deeply, to hold that jagged truth with him. To hold, with him, the possibility of an untimely, early death. 

With clenched jaw and corded neck, my shoulders curl over my chest. I’ve never seen Jamie so distraught. His anguish rips my heart from my chest. I cannot help but feel his pain. 

But all I can do is be there with him. Be there for him. 

My soul cracks open. 

~ 

Time passes and we are breathed.  

A nurse comes in and tells Jamie they want him to spend another night under observation so he’ll be ready for the biopsy surgery the following morning. They move him upstairs to a shared room with a window overlooking the courtyard. Sitting on a chair by the bed with a curtain pulled around us, I gaze out the window at the setting sun. But that isn’t what I see. As I stare out into the gloaming, I’m numbed by the notion of endings.

Jamie squeezes my hand. I climb up next to him in bed, but a nurse walks by and tells me I’m not allowed. At any other time, I may have put up a fight—often to Jamie’s embarrassment. Or I may have just climbed back up after she left the room. But all the fight has drained out of me.

We sit together in silence, holding hands. The encircling blue curtains seem to isolate us from the outside world and the window only offers an ending. It’s as though each molecule of air pushes down on us with an unexpected weight. Jamie knows I’ll be here for him, but we don’t know what the outcome will be. 

Fear swallows us whole. 

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