Swing Low

Thanks, as always, to my family. I am also grateful to the Manitoba Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts for their support.

“N
othing accomplished.”

I don’t know what my father meant when he said it. I had asked him, the day before he took his own life, what he was thinking about, and that was his reply. Two hopeless words, spoken in a whisper by a man who felt he had failed on every level. This book is my attempt to prove my father wrong.

At the age of seventeen, he was diagnosed as suffering from the mental illness known then as manic depression and today as bipolar disorder. His method of self-defence, along with the large amounts of medication he was prescribed, was silence. And maybe, for him, it worked. He managed, against the advice of his psychiatrist, to get married, to rear a family, and to teach elementary school for more than forty years. His psychiatrist warned him, way back in the early 1950s, that the odds of living a normal life were heavily
stacked against him. In fact, Dad’s life fell into the typical pattern of our small town of Steinbach, Manitoba: an ordered existence of work, church, and family, with the occasional inevitable upsets along the way. His managing to live an ordinary life was an extraordinary accomplishment. It is a measure of his strength, his high (some would say impossibly high) personal standards, and his extreme self-discipline that he managed to stay sane, organized, and ordinary for so long.

A year or so after his retirement, my parents went out for a drive in the countryside around town. “Well,” said my father after they’d driven in silence for a while, “I did it.” “You’ve done many things, Mel,” said my mom. “What are you referring to?” “I did what they said I would never do,” answered my father.

And he did it exceptionally well. He became a much-loved and respected teacher, known especially for his kindness, exuberance, and booming voice, and at home my mother and my sister and I had everything we could possibly want or need. There was only one thing we missed, and that was hearing him speak. I have often wondered what he would have said about himself, if he had spoken. He never talked about his past, even his childhood, and often he simply didn’t speak at all. His whole world, it seemed, was in the classroom. And when there, he gave it his all. My sister and I, both students of his at one time, used to sit in class in absolute awe. Was this funny, energetic, outspoken man really our father? It must have been teaching, the daily ritual of stepping outside himself and into a vital role, that sustained him all those years.

Had we known then what we know now, we would have understood that the end of his teaching career would, essentially, mean the end of Mel. After his suicide, we were left with many questions. How could this have happened? we asked ourselves over and over. After all, other people have difficulty retiring, but they don’t necessarily kill themselves. I became obsessed with knowing all that I could about his life, searching, I suppose, for clues that would ultimately lead me to the cause of his death. With the help of my mother and my sister and Dad’s friends, colleagues, and relatives, I’ve managed to put a few pieces of the puzzle of his life together. But in spite of many theories and much speculation, there’s really only one answer, and that is depression. A clinical, profoundly inadequate word for deep despair.

At the end of his life, my father, in a rare conversation, asked me to write things down for him, words and sentences that would lead him out of his confusion and sadness to a place and time that he might understand. “You will be well again,” I wrote. “Please write that again,” he’d ask. I wrote many things over and over and over, and he would read each sentence, each declaration and piece of information out loud. Eventually, it stopped making sense to him. “You will be well again?” he’d ask me, and I’d say, “No, Dad,
you
will be well again.” “I will be well again?” he’d ask. “Yes,” I’d say. “I will be well again,” he’d repeat. “Please write that down.”

Soon I was filling up pages of yellow legal notepads with writing from his own point of view so he could understand it when he read it to himself. After his death, when I began writing this book, I continued to write in the same way. It
was a natural extension of the writing I’d done for him in the hospital, and a way, though not a perfect one, of hearing what my father might have talked about if he’d ever allowed himself to. If he’d ever thought it would matter to anybody. After his death, I read everything I could find on mental illness and suicide, poring over facts and statistics, survivors’ accounts, reasons, clues, anything at all that might help me to understand, or if not to understand then at least to accept, my father’s decision and to live with it. By dragging some of the awful details into the light of day, they became much less frightening. I have to admit, my father didn’t feel the same way, but he found a way to alleviate his pain, and so have I.

B
ethesda Hospital, Steinbach, Manitoba. I’ve been trying for weeks to make sense of things. For instance, why am I here? I’ve filled up several yellow legal pads, right to the margins, with words and sentences and sentence fragments, but nothing is clear to me. It seems, upon rereading my notes, that I’ve written several things repeatedly, such as “Develop a new life strategy.” That particular sentence appears on almost every page, as do hearts (I’m drawing hearts!) with the words “I love” inside them. I suppose I’ve forgotten the names of those I love or I haven’t drawn the hearts big enough to hold them all or I’m simply confirming with myself my ability to love. It bothers me that I haven’t put the names in.

Two days ago I decided to test my younger brother, who runs this hospital. He sat at the foot of my bed watching me and I sat at the head of my bed watching him. (What was there to say?)
Eventually I blurted out, I’m mentally ill. I said it because I wanted him to say that I wasn’t or that, if I was, I would soon be fine, that life was like this for a lot of people from time to time, that I wasn’t alone, that I had nothing to be ashamed of, and that I’d be just as right as rain in no time.

My brother answered, Yes, you are. No more and no less, a brief (life) sentence hanging in the air between us like a raised fist. I sat on my bed and stared out the window. Eventually my brother went on a bit to say that he felt my “admission” was a big step forward, an essential part of the healing process, and now, perhaps, I’d be able to open up with my psychiatrist. You’ve got to be honest, Mel, he said. And of course he’s right. But one must find the words first, and words don’t come as easily to me.

And I don’t mean to sound disrespectful, but the thing is there is no psychiatrist here for me to “open up with.” I would like to ask my brother when and if I’ll see one, but I can’t find the right words to do that either and I’m ashamed besides. Rather, we spend our time staring at one another. And the days go by. Reg told me that he has a difficult choice to make, that is whether to treat me as a brother would or as a regional health authority CEO would, and he has chosen “brother,” which means he comes to visit but doesn’t interfere with my hospital care. I guess that makes sense, it sounds nice, but I would have preferred it had he chosen “CEO,” because after all I do have a family, and what I need, at least according to Reg, is a shrink to be honest with, and I could use a plug from him, an endorsement rather, and so … perhaps he could produce one for me,
because I think I would like to get some help. I mean, it’s wonderful that he’s being brotherly, but it raises the question then of who’s in charge of me here. In the meantime, I’ve decided to write a few things down. Things about myself, my life, etc., so that when my time comes to open up, if it should, I’ll have a bit of an idea of what to say.

Bethesda Hospital, Steinbach, Manitoba, Date: find newspaper, determine date, insert here. (The custodian brings the newspaper to me every morning. He is a friend of mine and former custodian of Elmdale School.)

I’m a methodical man so this business re losing my mind is frustrating. I keep records of everything, every transaction, every purchase, every drawing my children ever made, every notebook they filled as students. Everything. But they’re not doing me much good now.

In my travel diaries I record seating orders: wife, Elvira, and daughter Miriam, left side of six-seater plane. Pilot, myself, and other daughter, Marj, on right side. Wind coming from the north, Elvira decked out in colourful new pantsuit, gas gauge at halfway mark, etc. I wrote my own textbook on Canadian history when I found the existing province-issued text to be inadequate. I have three filing cabinets with file folders precisely labelled and carefully maintained. In my safety deposit box I have kept, for forty-two years, the receipt for the wedding rings my wife and I bought at Birks Jewellers, and also the receipt from the hotel
we stayed in on our wedding night … eleven dollars. I didn’t sleep at all that night. Not for a second. I was a wreck. I willed my hands to stop trembling. I would have shouted at them if I hadn’t been worried about waking Elvira. I’m rather a nervous man, prone to panic attacks and nail-biting. I worry.

There are two things that help to dispel my nervous energy: writing and walking. Once, years ago, I stopped walking and lay down in my bed for several months. Once, very recently, I went for a walk and ended up in a town twenty miles away. When I say writing I mean writing down facts and details and lists and instructions to myself. I’ve been researching the lives of important Canadians such as Emily Carr, Lucy Maud Montgomery, and Foster Hewitt. By writing down the details of the lives of these accomplished individuals, I learn how to live.

I should add that part of the reason, beyond my own obvious limitations, for the interrupted feel of my writing has to do with the nurses who come into my room from time to time with questions and drinks and pills and clipboards. They have become curious about my writing, and every time they come into my room I stop and nod and smile pleasantly. Occasionally I’ll say something like Keep up the good work, or, Quite an efficient system you’ve got here, which isn’t necessarily true, but I like to offer encouragement when I can.

When I begin to write again I have often forgotten entirely what I was writing about. Several of the nurses are former students of mine and still call me Mr. Toews. The nurse who attached the wander guard to my wrist reminded
me of the year we built a replica Hudson Bay Trading Post and operated it as a real store for the entire school year. I still have the photographs, she said, and offered to bring them in to show me. I told her I’d like that. Some of the nurses are mothers of former students of mine and will tell me what their children are doing these days. When I was first admitted to the hospital last night or two weeks or eight years ago, I spoke to the nurses at length. I asked them questions such as Where am I? Why am I here? Where is my wife? (this last over and over and over) until they grew short with me. I noticed that one nurse had written on her clipboard, “Patient talks non-stop, obviously wants attention.” Many of them, however, know their boss is my brother, and they try hard not to get angry with me. I’m grateful for every kindness.