Same As It Ever Was

Sarah Blackhorn was one I never met, but I heard about her at bubble bath time.  He would lean back in the tub and tell me tales from his youth, their summer camp experiences.  She had long blond curls. He would look at me after being lost in a reverie of this sort and say, "You had those blond curls then, didn't you?"  Suddenly I had morphed into the Sarah Blackhorn of those humid, childhood July days.  When I looked into his eyes they sought reassurance of my identity, my identity as Sarah.  The same happened to a lesser degree with Beauty in, "Beauty and the Beast."  And with the ceratops dinosaur in the CD he liked to listen to, "Far, Far Away." Everywhere we went in his inner world it was glorious, it was shining and golden similar to the childhood I had had-- and could reclaim through his reveries. The Zyprexa he took tamped down his desires, the excessive ones, but not the ramblings I was privy to.  As the Zyprexa entered his system his posture would change, he would bend at the knees and lean forward, making his balance precarious. He is now receiving physical therapy for this side effect in balance.  Then as now he would put his face inches from mine and sing a Disney princess song, or high school musical, he had all of them memorized.  I was fresh meat, his mother candidly said, and I could agree, as he belted the lyrics out inches from my face.  The swing out back was another one of his spots.  He pumped his legs, went high then low and back again.  Sometimes his hands would blister from clutching the chains but more often now his palms just calloused up all the more. His face was tanned from hours and hours of swinging in the sun and the wind.  Never in the rain but any other weather condition and you could find him there.

He is 29 now.  He almost died 5 years ago or so.  An abusive staff hitting on him when no one knew and he did not tell.  His appetite became depressed, his capacity to engage and express.  He became explosive and tried to dive out of a moving car.  At the psych hospital they gave  him a boatload of meds to halt his destructive behavior. It halted--everything. He next was crawling on the floor, had regressed to a person he had never been.  It took years of the right staff with good food, encouragement and a loving family to bring him back. The right meds, not too many but the right ones properly prescribed. The father had shouted, "My son is not to be a science experiment!" It was a dark time, as he became skinnier and skinnier, with some frantic, flicking movements and restlessness that has now all but disappeared.

Days, months, years passed.  I thought about him often but was afraid to call. Frankly, I was afraid he was dead.  Finally, I called, around Easter, the beginning of spring.  His mother answered, said he was fine, had fully recovered. He was now supported by Judevine and all was truly going well.  She invited me to his home.

When I came in the front door, he was asking staff for dinner seconds. His appetite had clearly returned.  Then he turned and, recognizing me, said, "Sarah!  Where have you been? " and before I could answer, he was belting out Disney songs inches from my face. Same as it ever was.