The wrong side of the door

I have thought that what I'm about to post here would never see the light of day. It comes from New Year's day 2019, which was not a day that I consider "light" in any sense of the word. I wrote it in a hospital waiting room, while my daughter suffered on the other side of a secure door through which I was not allowed to enter. 

I can only share it now because we have come so far past that dark morning in the ER.  Much good has transpired since then. We are healed and are healing. She is now in college and living on her own, working on her coping mechanisms, and enjoying a new-found family with her soon-to-be step father & step siblings. She is beautiful, healthy, and determined to find happiness each day.

COVID-19 has reminded me of the anguish of that January 1st of 2019. How many people since January of 2020 have been sitting out in their cars, or home alone, or in a waiting room, not being allowed to see a loved one in intensive care as they struggle with this horrible illness? I feel for you deeply. I've been there. It may not have been COVID-19, but it was just as precarious a situation with no guarantee of a recovery. For those of you who have been separated from your loved ones, on the other side of a hospital door, this post is for you. Read on:

How did you spend the first day of your new year? Did you celebrate by watching the Ball drop? Did you tuck into bed early and let the Earth's next circle-around-the-sun slip in quietly?  Were you with friends? Family? Your love? 

Or were you alone?

I thought I knew what loneliness was, (and I think I did to an extent), but this morning, the early hours of the first day of the New Year, I am sitting in a hospital emergency waiting room. And I am alone. I am alone like nothing I've ever felt before. I am helpless like nothing I have ever felt before. And believe me, I have been through some alone and helpless shit in my life. This is taking the cake.

My daughter is on the other side of a heavy wooden door that requires a code to enter. I do not have the code and my daughter does not want to see me.  It is 5 o’clock in the morning. At 4 o’clock in the morning I was woken up by a police officer entering my bedroom and turning on my light. I threw on my robe and went downstairs to find four more officers and my daughter at the kitchen table. She had taken pills and had called a depression hotline.

What came out of my gaping, open mouth at that moment? Of course the most ridiculous thing: “Honey, what? Where’s the dog?”  They have taken my daughter away in an ambulance and I have not spoken to her since.

So I have gotten dressed and have come to the hospital and she will not see me. All I know is that it has something to do with something her ex-boyfriend said to her in a late-night chat on an app called Discourse. She is 18, and so nobody is allowed to tell me anything.

It is too early to call anyone. I have a left a message on her dad’s phone. Then I have left him a text. Who knows when he will be up and will attend to those? I want to call my love, Gary. But it is too early, and we are supposed to be packing to leave for Italy in the next 24 hours. And who is going to understand all of this? I have no real information to share with anyone anyway.

I keep thinking “What if this were an acute medical emergency like a car accident? Or what if she were suffering from a potentially fatal disease?”  Ah, but she is suffering. It may not involve bloody injuries, or cancer cells, but it is just as acute, and just as potentially fatal. At her last doctor appointment they thought she might have schizoaffective disorder.

My heart is broken for her, and there is nobody who is going to understand this. And she is on the other side of that door, and I can’t get to her. I can’t get to her to hold her hand, to scold her, to ask her why she would do this, or why she would do this just as I am supposed to be taking an important trip and this was her chance to be an adult and take care of the house and why didn’t she wake me up to talk to me and why did she have to raid the medicine cabinet and, and , and …to tell her that I love her to the moon and back and that I am so sorry that I wasn’t more vigilant or whatever I was supposed to be. God, I just want to hold her, but she is on the other side of that damned door.

There is a hallway off of the waiting room that leads to another part of the hospital. Down that hallway there is another door. I can’t see it but I know it’s there because every few minutes I can hear the clicks of the electronic lock and the metal push-bar. I hear the woosh of the door opening, but I do not hear any footsteps and nobody walks into my view. There is nobody there. Not for me, anyway.

I have pulled out my laptop and have tried to work on my semester grading, which is due tomorrow. I am reading compositions about the importance of family. I’m crying now. I have asked the receptionist if she could ask my child if I can come in to where she is. She goes off to make my request, but comes back with a denial. More crying. After a while the receptionist gets up and crosses the room. She says to me “Hang in there”. And she keeps walking. God I am so alone.

I’m consoling myself that at least Renee is not alone. She has her doctor, and nurses, fluids, and meds.  That door down the hall keeps opening and closing with no sound of anyone entering or exiting. It’s the perfect torture. If I had any government secrets they would all be told by now—"just PLEASE! Stop opening and closing that door that nobody is going in or out of. I'll tell you anything!"

The heavy wooden door across from me opens; the one that directly separates me from my child. But it is not opening for me. A nurse exits and the door remains open for a few more seconds, mockingly, and then slowly closes again.

The sun is coming up now. 8:00 a.m., and still I sit here in this waiting room. Not one person has acknowledged me. The low lights in the waiting room have been switched on to bright, and workers are entering, chatting, greeting each other. A couple has just entered from the parking lot. A husband and wife, on their way to have their baby. God I am so alone. Happy New Year, 2019.