Understanding the Feeling of Abandonment

(As published in Phoenix Society for Burn Survivors)

I am the daughter of burn survivors. At four years old and my sister six, my parents were severely burned in the basement of a Cape Cod, Massachusetts cottage. They went down to light the hot water heater as there was no hot water for my mother to wash her face. A new propane tank had been delivered, but there was a faulty valve. Gas with no smell had been escaping for hours. My mother lit the match, and blue flames ravaged her face and hands. My father suffered severe burns as well. When I was awakened in the middle of the night and carried across the dirt road by my babysitter, the stars looked flat in the sky. My sister and I slept on old mattresses in a basement room of a friend. Both my parents were gone in an instant for nine long months. My sister and I lived with my aunt and uncle on a farm in upstate New York, folded into the family with two cousins. We went ice skating, sledded down hills, and, during the spring, ran into the woods and picked mica, small mirrors, from the rocks. I cuddled with the farm dog, Shep. But that feeling of being abandoned never truly went away.

When we returned to New York City, I pressed my face against the windowpane, waiting for my mother to return to me after one of her 37 operations, watching her walk down the winding road in our housing development in New York City. I was never sure she would come home. My sister tells me that as I got older, I would often come home from sleepovers, groggy, in the middle of the night carrying my stuffed teddy bear. I didn't want to be away from my mother. What if she disappeared again? I would often wake up at home, even as I got older, my arms grazing the walls in the dark, and walk into my parents' bedroom to ensure they were still there. "Mommy, are you alive?" I would ask her.

One summer, we rented a house in Long Island. My mother was preparing to leave for an important meeting (she was a nurse/editor). She said I cried so hard for so long that she didn't go. I was nine years old then, almost the year after her final reconstructed face.

I was privileged, my dad a doctor and my mother with a career in nursing, and I often wondered why I felt waves of sadness at odd times or moments of anxiety when things were going well. My life was filled with opportunities. I went to sleep away summer camp and at 15 went to France for the summer. I did well in school and played sports and piano. I had friends. I felt so sorry for what my parents endured and perhaps guilty, too. Why did it happen to them and not me? My sister and I were spared the burns. The fire chief said the whole house would have blown up the next morning. My mother and father took the brunt of the explosion. What could be wrong with me? I wasn't the one burned, even though I had eczema patches often on my face and neck, the same places where my mother had been burned.

At 21, I had panic attacks and felt like I was going to have a heart attack and die. My hands got sweaty, and my heart raced. I began therapy. One pivotal moment was when the therapist said, "Your parents were 42 and 44 at the time of the accident. You were just four years old. You couldn't understand why they left you." I cried for myself for the first time.

BURNS AFFECT THE ENTIRE FAMILY

When a family member is burned, it affects everyone in the family. Now, I believe that it wasn't the burns/scars and my mother's changed face that affected me as much as the abandonment that has followed me throughout my life.

Of course, many people experience abandonment. I had one friend who said when she had her second daughter and was in the hospital for two days, her older daughter was anxious for a whole year after her mother came home. Other people lose parents, even siblings, to early death. Relationships end, married couples get divorced, and sometimes children are neglected.

But burn survivors often must go in and out of the hospital for years. Each leave-taking can trigger earlier fears for those left at home, such as losing my parents for nine months. The focus, naturally, is on the person who is burned and struggling with multiple surgeries. It is also important to make sure that others in the family can express their feelings and fears and that the community embraces everyone in the family. If someone had said to me, "It wasn't your fault," or "Your mother never wanted to leave you," perhaps it would have been easier for me to heal. Part of me always felt like an orphan.

As I entered adulthood and began forming romantic relationships, I would get anxious when I got too close. Everything could blow up again. I didn't realize what I was feeling at the time, only that I broke off relationships, sometimes abruptly. In my mid-twenties, I set off for California from New York City alone in a car without air conditioning or radio. I had received a graduate degree in poetry, and writing poems saved me as I wrote about my deepest fears. Poems spun through my mind on that trip out West. I was also trying to prove that I needed no one, not even my parents. Only when I got to California did I allow myself to feel the terror that had been living inside me.

After years of peer counseling, therapy, and even hypnotism, I found a man who could hold both my joy and my terror. We have two daughters. I began to write the story of the accident, Burned: A Memoir, when they were four and six, the same age my sister and I were when my parents were burned. Panic attacks began and would overtake my body even when I was at the playground watching my daughters in the sandbox. I continued to get help, and we had a wonderful family life, though I know my anxiety was passed down. As hard as it was, writing the story helped me to the other side.

Even though I am now in my seventies, I continue to see a therapist and do peer counseling. I still play the tape the hypnotist made for me, which tells me to hug my four-year-old self and tell her, "You are safe. You are healthy."

I don't think that early abandonment will ever truly go away. If my husband goes away for a few days, at first, I feel a slight panic, even terror, and make sure to make dates with friends. Exercise always helps, and I've had a pet for most of my adult life. Pets provide constant comfort. I snuggle up with my little Bichon, Ella. Writing has always saved my soul. After writing my first memoir, I never thought I would write another one. But a trip to Morocco at 19 led to a book. "Write me," it kept saying. My new memoir, Narrow Escapes, is about my life from 19-30, still grappling with the accident and, like everyone at that age, trying to find my path in life. I was fortunate to know I wanted to write and to teach.

Being the daughter of burn survivors has had its challenges, and the fears of abandonment will never completely disappear. However, I believe I am more compassionate because of the accident and embrace differences of all kinds, especially as my mother was facially disfigured. I was amazed by her ability to face the world after her burns, return to work, and make a great contribution to nursing. I hope I continue to make the world more loving and compassionate by my writing and teaching. I also want to let families of burn survivors know that everyone needs help to live their best and most fulfilling lives.

______

Louise Nayer’s latest memoir, Narrow Escapes is filled with adventure and romance, her journey in Morocco and traveling cross country by herself in the early 1970’s. It is also about her inner struggles to deal with an accident that burned her parents when she was four. She has written five other books, Burned: A Memoir, an Oprah Great Read, two poetry books and two non-fiction books, one about rituals for everyday life and one on retirement. She has been an educator for over 40 years, teaching English and creative writing at City College of San Francisco and more recently memoir workshops. She is a member of The Writer’s Grotto, has been interviewed widely, including on NPR. She has two grown daughters and a step-daughter and lives with her husband and dog, Ella, in San Francisco, www.louisenayer.com.

I Took a Pill in Ibiza

I Took a Pill in Ibiza

I never knew it was a song until just recently, but I took a pill in Ibiza, a small, white bitter pill-- and always wondered about that moment.  Why did I do that?  

 I was on a short vacation from school, junior year abroad in France, and decided to travel by myself. I was also becoming the writer that I would eventually become, and when I was alone, thoughts and lines spun through my mind like the scores on a player piano, uninterrupted by chatter. I loved trying to catch words that danced like fireflies in the East Coast summers. Maybe I also wanted to be invisible. No past.

  In Barcelona, I walked down the Ramblas, the huge boulevard with flower stalls, fruit stands, street performers, and staid tourists in groups holding itineraries. As a 20 year-old woman alone in a short dress—it was easily 80 degrees outside-- I was an easy target anywhere in the world-- and held my arms out as if to say, “Don’t come near me!” The catcalls from men and the crush of people overwhelmed me. Frantically trying to get away, I took a sharp turn into a small alleyway and ended up on a street of sex workers, half naked women leaning out of windows, lipstick smeared over their lips, cascading dark hair, luring men up to their rooms, the men all dressed up after Sunday confession. The streets smelled of sweat mixed with heavy cologne. I kept my head down and walked as fast as I could down the narrow street, men calling up to the windows and nowhere for me to disappear. I looked left and right and realized I’d have to walk a long way to get off the street and back to the Ramblas with its crush of people. I felt like a trapped animal. A few women laughed raucously at me and pointed and said things in Spanish I didn’t understand.

 I felt so out of place with my middle-class upbringing, formal mother—and her famous line, “Keep your legs together and your panties on,” and my intellectual Jewish doctor father. I also wanted to break free of my past. What did I really know of these women? A different life but still sisters on a different and perhaps more difficult journey. Many of them might have been banished from their Catholic families. Some might have had small children to raise.  They each had a story that I would never know.  I made it back to my hotel and decided to leave that night, for Ibiza, a stop on the “trail of cool.” I wanted to escape the city.

When I arrived, all the pensiones were full, one after the other, parades of young people, including me, trying to snag a bed; even the one at the very tippy top of the island was full. But I managed to get a bed at the last minute. We were so high up I almost felt I could touch the stars. I threw my backpack on the bed and went to explore. I swam that day at a beach right near the port and had lunch on a huge wooden table, watching boats come and go. The air was clean and the sea a million shades of blue and green. This was a hippie paradise, flooded with young people, some tripping on acid. The steep, cobblestoned street up to the very top of the hill was precarious to walk on, especially with my wooden Dr. Scholl sandals, good for my arches but noisy with each step. I thought about how hard it might be to walk up in the dark, but put that thought away.  That evening, after a nap and a shower, I carefully walked down and down and down the sheer street into a club, one of many on the island.  I got a glass of wine and sat down. A young man with thick blonde hair and mischievous blue eyes came and sat next to me, sidling a bit too close. I remember we were next to a window and the sun had just set. The island had few lights, so the streets were pitch dark. Stars gilded the sky and I saw one shooting and smiled. The man next to me talked a little about himself and then said, “Here take this. You’ll feel wonderful!” Everything I had been brought up with (be wary of strangers, be careful of drugs, always know what you’re taking) suddenly vanished out the window. “Why not,” I thought, perhaps on a deeper level feeling that my life needed to change. The stranger, and that is really all he was to me, got me some water and I popped the pill. I remember it was bitter. I remember that I never asked what it was but suddenly I felt in danger as he was moving closer and closer to me, I know hoping for sex. I didn’t want to have sex with him. I knew nothing about him.

The bar felt suffocating, filled with smoke and what seemed like mindless chatter. Outside it was beautiful. I grabbed my sweater off the seat and walked out the door without saying anything to the man. He didn’t run after me and for that I was grateful. Though the day had been warm, swimming-weather warm, the night was chilly. My one thin sweater did nothing to protect me from the cold, and I shivered.

I began the ascent up to the top of the island, trying to gaze at the stars, as if they could guide me and save me. As I began to walk, my legs felt wobbly, my breathing labored.  I was scared I might collapse on the cobblestones, collapse in the cold. Tears pooled in my eyes. What had I done? What was in this pill. Even my hands felt so weak I wouldn’t be able to grasp a pen. Step by step I forced myself to continue, hoping that someone might be walking up the hill, too, that I might say, “I’m having a hard time. I might need some help.” But there was no one. I kept looking and looking higher up, to see if I could see the end of the cobblestone trail; it went on forever and ever and finally I saw the pensione. The owner, an older woman in a black dress, was nowhere to be found. No one was anywhere to be found. Would I be found if something happened? All I wanted to do was lie down, like Sleeping Beauty, waiting for a kiss to wake me up. Finally, I fished out my key from my messy purse, went through the front door and felt like a ghost surrounded by foggy air. I found my room--my backpack, my home on my back--still there. It was 11 p.m. by the flashing red light of the clock radio. Tomorrow I’d swim again, I thought, as my eyes closed into the longest sleep I’ve ever had.

When I woke up the clock said 6 a.m. Saliva coated my chin. I wiped it off with a Kleenex. My mouth was dry, Surprised that I didn’t sleep longer, I got up and walked out the door, breathing in the sea air and gazing at the light house, now bathed in white light. The owner, sitting in a chair guarding the door, was dressed in her usual long, black dress, and asked me, “What time are you checking out?” I must have looked puzzled because she said, “Today you check out.” I suddenly realized that I had slept almost 17 hrs. and missed a whole day at Ibiza. 

“I’ll be out by 11 a.m.” I said, still a bit groggy. I went back to the room, took a shower then looked at myself in the mirror. My eyes looked dried out, my skin pasty but I was alive and well. I got dressed, grabbed my backpack, paid the owner and walked down the cobblestones, putting one foot carefully ahead of the next. Soon I’d have coffee and breakfast. After that I’d catch the boat back to Barcelona and then the train back to France. I had my whole life ahead of me.

Fifty-two years after I popped that pill—I wonder what might have happened if the pill had been stronger, or laced with something dangerous or if I had stopped breathing with no one to check on me? I think of all those people, often young people, who make one mistake—and don’t make it through the night. I also think of the helpers and the good fortune that lifts the lucky ones out of those drug-induced comas so that they might see the light, like the lighthouse does at the top of the island, these souls brought safely to shore.

Mt. St. Victoire

Mt. St. Victoire

Mt. St. Victoire was always a looming presence that year I lived in Aix-en Provence, Junior Year Abroad, 1969-1970; the year of the invasion of Cambodia, a year after the General Strike in France, workers and students uniting,; also the year I grew into the writer  and later teacher I would become, and my best friend, Ken, grew into an artist and later teacher and curator. We were 20, the world and us on the cusp of so much, and the mountain beckoned.

That morning, I packed my khaki backpack with a change of clothes, a few apples, two oranges, salami and cheese, some cookies and water. My sleeping bag was tied on top with a bungee cord. Ken’s backpack was similarly filled with what he would need on an overnight on the iconic mountain. We had picnicked with our group of international artist friends down below amidst the wildflowers many times, Catou, bringing tasty dishes made from leftover olives, rice, tuna, red pepper and scallions, dressed in a way I could never imitate. But that morning it was just Ken and me and the mountain. We were ready and met at the bus stop that whisked us to the trailheads.

Both in good shape, except for smoking Gauloise cigarettes, a habit we fortunately stopped, we began on the intermediate trail, not aware there were any other tails to the summit. In the sun, the limestone shaded from celadon and malachite green, to eggshell-white and silvery gray, constantly changing colors like a chameleon from the sun and shade. The trail was wide when we started and began to narrow about an hour later as we climbed higher and higher. At that point we stopped talking and concentrated on our feet, making sure we didn’t slip on the rocky, dry soil. The sun shone but not too brightly, the perfect temperature for a climb into Cezanne’s heart, our figures miniscule under the shadow of such royal rock. No wildflowers dotted the landscape, and we were exposed to the elements. I remembered a few years before summiting Mt. Washington and how the lush and humid summer landscape suddenly made way to Tuckerman’s Ravine; we left the tree line and I always wondered about the last tree before rock started, how nature could be so abrupt.

Ken offered to be in the back, in case I slipped or fell. I don’t think we thought about much that day—whether or not our sneakers had good treads or even how much water we needed with us. But we trudged confidently up the trail, now getting so narrow I placed my feet in impressions in the dirt made by previous hikers, so I wouldn’t veer too far to the left which was a huge cliff that dropped thousands of feet. If we fell to the left, we would surely die. We were both quiet, perhaps silently wondering what we had gotten into. The straps of my backpack cut into my shoulders, and I moved it so it was better centered.

Suddenly the path narrowed to almost nothingness, the huge cliff on the left and a steep wall in front of us. The wall glistened in the sun and hanging down was a chain. “What the hell!?” Ken said.

“I can’t believe this,” I said, scared of the wall, the chain and of the cliff below.

“Let me go up and see what’s above.” For a minute I wanted to say, “No, don’t go. Don’t leave me,” but he scurried up fast. “We’re almost at the summit he said! I’ll come down and bring our packs up.” He scurried down again, arms expertly monkeying down the chain. Later I learned that he was the best in his high school class at doing “the ropes.” I watched in awe.

Ken came down, went up with his pack, came down and went up with my pack, while I stayed put, trying to imagine myself as a monkey, easily going up the sheer wall. For a few minutes we both believed that this would be easy. I would pull up my whole body weight, something I had never done or even attempted. I was a tennis player, a basketball player, a dancer and a swimmer. Surely my arms would pull me up a chain.  Easy peasy. Ken was on top and must have seen the scared look on my face. “I’ll come down,” he said and that probably saved my life. With him behind me on the small slab of rocky ground, I courageously clutched the chain and tried with all my might to pull myself up. “You’re doing it!” Ken said, the ultimate cheerleader, “You’re doing it!” I was half way up, my arms straining to the max, the chains painfully digging into my hands when I suddenly and completely knew I couldn’t go any further. When I think back to that moment—perhaps if someone was behind me trying to kill me, or I was escaping the Nazis maybe an adrenaline surge would have propelled me further. Did I give up? My hands slipped and I fell with all my body weight toward Ken.  If he hadn’t acted so fast, we would have both fallen to our deaths off the cliff below. As I came rushing down, falling towards him, he pushed me into the wall, saving us both.  We sat cross legged clutching each other as tears streamed down my face.

A few minutes later, still sitting down, a few men, German hikers from their accents, came to the wall and chain and quickly pulled themselves up. “Just about 30 minutes more to the summit” they said to us, maybe wondering why we were sitting there looking stunned. For a minute I wanted to try again, but I knew I couldn’t make it. They had no idea why we were sitting there and they might have been very nice people, but at that moment, I couldn’t stand their bronzed, muscled arms that pulled them toward the summit with what seemed like arrogance. My pale arms felt doughy and weak as if I were 80 years old, as if I might have trouble lifting a pen to write my last will and testament. How did they get to be so fit? I wanted to summit so badly.

“Let’s find the beginner’s trail,” Ken said. “I’m sure there’s one. Not everyone is going up a chain!” He never made me feel bad that I couldn’t do the chain. I was forever grateful for that.

Determined to make it to the top, we walked all the way down quite fast as we didn’t want to summit in the dark. We found the other trail. So exhausted, I had to mentally think, “I’m putting one foot in front of the next,”as we hiked all the way up to the top, at least a couple more hours of climbing. It was almost dark when we got there and stars were beginning to glisten and explode in the Mediterranean sky, l’heure bleu, the hour of blue twilight.

 A huge wooden platform was scattered with sleeping bags, some with sleeping hikers. Other people milled in groups under the stars. We found two spaces and spread out our bags, ate salami, cheese and fruit, peed like others behind some rocks and went to sleep. I was glad to have all my clothes on in the chilly night. I’m not sure I had ever felt so exhausted, so comforted by the stars and so happy that Ken and I were both alive.

My Bloody Tooth Socket

My Bloody Tooth Socket

(TW: If you’re sensitive to blood this blog post is not for you).

I’m not sure how much I contributed to my chronic tooth loss over the past number of years. I’ve always brushed—maybe not always flossed though --until later in life.

My dad died with all his teeth intact and never one cavity.  Shouldn’t I have inherited that mouth?

My mother lost some teeth to her love of crunchy Mary Janes, M &M’s and later when she moved to California, Sees candy. But only a few teeth.

 After she died, my dad was surprised to see another box of candy arrive for her.  The mail still comes after a person is deceased, always unsettling. The candy made sense though. She never wanted to go without.

I must admit I have been a candy lover, unwrapping too many plastic wrappers (earth destroying) over my now pretty long life (73 this year). But I’ve had long stretches of “being good” and lately, I’m near perfect. My husband doles out one small piece of chocolate every day which I ask him to do, but I brush my teeth right after. The sugar addiction seems to be diminishing with age.

After losing a lot of upper teeth—I have a “partial” and feel like a chronic teen with a bite plate—and after losing a number of “lower teeth” in the back of each side—my ship came in—not a ship I wanted. My bottom middle tooth could not be saved. Too little too late.  Too much bone loss, finally for the poor little guy.

My fantastic periodontist kept bemoaning, “I wish I had worked on you twenty years ago.” She could have saved my teeth! But then again, with kids in college and regular bills, I’m not sure I could have come up with the money. That is the plight of most people in the world. If Bernie had gotten in, he promised dental care for all. But he didn’t get in—and might have still been blocked by Manchin who I guess has enough money from his investments in fossil fuels to fix his teeth.

So, my little sweet tooth was pulled—carefully by my great dentist—so as not to create a domino effect of the teeth next to it (which may happen and in the end dentures might be the way to go).  I saved it in a little special case.  Maybe I should get a tiny piece of satin so it can be “laid to rest” in style. It will be used to have the right color (slightly yellowed at this point in my life) for the partial.

I was healing perfectly—after ten days-- until one night, just after Jeopardy, and I was thrilled to get the final clue of archipelago--I said to Jim, “I think I’m bleeding in my mouth.” I went to the bathroom, looked in the mirror and my bottom teeth were covered in pools of blood. Ironically, Jim had just lost a top front tooth that day and had a roll of gauze that he didn’t need. I placed the gauze in my mouth, bit down for a long time and prayed. I kept bleeding, sometimes profusely, sometimes not, and decided to go to bed. About an hour later, I woke up to feeling trickles of liquid in my mouth and got up and looked in the mirror. Blood, again.

 I didn’t want to disturb Jim, or ruin the sheets and pillow case—Jim also, supposedly the real patient with the extraction that day-- needed his beauty rest.

I went into the T.V. room and sat on the couch, using one gauze pad after another, sometimes completely soaked in blood, sometimes just trickles. One time I got up to look at my mouth in the mirror and saw clots of blood covering my lower teeth. Like a modern woman, I googled. The clots could be “liver clots” I saw—unusual but happens. Some sites said, go to the doctor immediately. I imagined needing a transfusion—but with Covid and all kinds of viruses, the last thing I wanted was someone else’s blood if I could avoid it.

I had just joined a mindfulness class and decided to do an “up body scan” trying to relax all my muscles. I was relaxed but still bleeding. Two hours had gone by. It was now 1 a.m. I was determined not to wake Jim, but I started thinking of Option B—a visit to urgent care at Kaiser. I had both my dentist and periodontist’s phone numbers but was determined, again, to wait until at least 7:15 to get in touch. Unless I was passing out, I didn’t want to take advantage of their generosity on a Saturday.

The clock kept ticking (actually not ticking but showing up on my Iphone).  I was trying to sleep sitting up as I googled lying down is bad. I ran out of gauze pads and was now using toilet paper (a mistake as I found out from the dentist as the fibers could stick in the socket). I was in no pain, though, and happy as I had googled “dry socket” and that causes lots of pain. One thing I could check off my list. Google isn’t always bad for the brain. I found out something good.

At 3 a.m. I was still bleeding—sometimes trickles and other times the toilet paper was soaked in blood. I was getting worried. How much blood was this really that I lost? I took my blood pressure, normally very low and it was 131/112 (usually 96/70). But if I was losing blood it would be low. Just nerves I thought.

I did a 15 minute breathing meditation (again learned in my mindfulfulness class—thank you Jon Kabat Zinn) and thought there are just four hours until 7 a.m.

Then, miraculously—like the red sea parting for the Israelites—the bleeding stopped. Possibly completely stopped. I waited, put in another square of TP and low and behold—no blood. Another 30 minutes and still no blood. Perhaps I was cured!

My husband then got up, our little white bichon, Ella, up too and now following him down the long hallway. My tribe was with me, and I was not bleeding.

At 7:15 I texted my dentist and texted my periodontist. Both so sweetly got back to me right away. Jim took a picture of my “socket” which I sent. My dentist called –“I just woke up”—he said  but proceeded to calm me down. “Nothing to worry about.” I probably opened it up somehow with food or a toothbrush bristle. I mentioned the “liver clots” which he didn’t say anything about. I think I was googling too much.

It wouldn’t bleed again, he said, as long as I was careful. My periodontist asked me about fish oil supplements which could cause bleeding and again reassured me. She said I could put a black tea bag on the area if it started again. I had already googled that and had already done that (maybe that’s why it stopped—the tannic acid cure)!

A new day was dawning. I had been up all night by myself, bleeding from my mouth and dealt with all of it, meditation and all.

 My tooth was still gone and still in its little box—about to be satin-lined-- and there might be more to come (before the denture decision) but all was well. I took a deep breath and made myself a cup of coffee (only drink cool liquids my dentist said—so I poured in a lot of milk and let it cool off). The bloody gauze and tissue filled up the whole wastebasket in the front bathroom—not a pretty site unless you’re a vampire—so I dumped it into the garbage, so I wouldn’t look at the evidence. My tooth was still gone and soon I’ll have a mold made and another “bite plate” on the bottom. “People are outliving their teeth” my dentist said. I chalked that up to “lucky to still be alive and well.”