The Lost Pearl
Today, I received a copy of her death certificate, the child my grandparents lost.
Pearl was born 22 April 1923 and died of Diphtheria on June 15, 1927. At that time, Rube and Gussie and their daughters, Thelma (my mother), 8, and Leonore, 5, lived in the Bronx.
Grandma Gussie’s grief was inconsolable, could find no distraction. She needed to fill the void, and in doing so, emotional shockwaves reverberated from that epicenter, changing the course of our family’s history.
Pearl’s replacement, Sally, a beautiful, blonde girl with warm brown eyes, was born in 1930. She was a child full of fear, pursued by phantoms and fairies. In her teens, she was diagnosed with Schizophrenia.
Unlike Pearl’s two day illness and its resolution, Gussie knew this was to be a lifelong siege. She knew, because her sister, Nettie, was schizophrenic. So, Grandma had lost Sally, too.
Aunt Nettie and Uncle Jack had no children, and Nettie’s mental illness was a problem with which her husband coped. The family clucked their tongues and pitied Jack, but they had their own lives to live, their own struggles.
At 19, Sally and Len were married and she soon became pregnant. Seeking protection from the “voices” and her bottomless dread, she moved in with Grandma. Unrelenting nausea and vomiting debilitated her, and, twice, she was admitted to the hospital for fluid replacement and sedation.
When Steven was born, I was only ten years old, but for three months, I cared for him every weekend so Grandma could spend time with Grandpa.
Sally and Len’s family income qualified them for a rent-subsidized apartment in Canarsie, where Mark was born in 1954. I went to care for Steven and the baby, this time for two weeks, while Sally lay on the sofa, deep in a post-partum depression. Grandma made the two hour bus and subway trip from Coney Island several times a week for the next six years, comforting Sally, shopping and preparing meals, caring for the little boys.
In 1960, the family moved to Coney Island to make things easier for Grandma, whose health was failing. Grandma died in 1963, and in December, 1966, Sally’s gentle-natured, 41 year old husband, Len died of a heart attack.
In less than two weeks, Sally’s world disintegrated.
On the night the police were alerted to the disturbance, the wind blew a damp, salty and chilling breeze across the Coney Island boardwalk, battering the project buildings. Desperate to escape the suffocating embrace of her demons, Sally stood naked at her open window, in her hand a carving knife. Spewing vitriol upon the spectators below, her words were undecipherable, overpowered by the blaring sound of her television.
As Sally’s next of kin, the police called my mother, and to be supportive, I went along.
There was no food in the kitchen; and garbage was strewn around the living room, where she had gouged out the walls with a hammer. Terrified, the boys had locked themselves in their bedroom.
The police reassured, calmed and disarmed Sally, and by the time we arrived, she was docile, sitting on a chair in the living room.
My mother signed the commitment papers, and a police ambulance took Sally to Central Islip State Hospital. There was no alternative. What else could be done? No infectious process or surgical symptomatology presented itself. Her subjective pain, and the behavior it instigated, determined the course of treatment….medication and electro-shock therapy. “Commitment is the best answer for her children and for herself”, my mother said.
Yes, maybe it was best for Sally, who would be cared for by the state. But, who would help Sally’s young sons cope with this catastrophe? They were parentless, but not orphaned.
Len’s mother, Faye, took the boys into her home, providing a caring and stable environment. As adults, Steven and Mark supported themselves at various anonymous jobs; taxi drivers, messengers. They live together still, in a Brooklyn apartment.
Discussions about Sally were rare and judgmental, the sisters blaming Grandma. “How could she have allowed Sally to marry, to have children?” They said Grandma had brought a curse upon the family when she replaced the lost Pearl with another baby. The poisonous gene infected Sally with unending torment, and shackled Grandma to a life of guilt, servitude and sorrow.
The sisters told me it was best to forget about Sally, she would be well taken care of in the asylum.
No family member visited Aunt Sally.
In 1971, following a newspaper exposé of abuse, neglect and exploitation, the asylums were closed by the State. Patients were dumped in NYC, my Aunt Sally among them. There were few shelters and minimal social services available to care for these unfortunates dwelling in the shadows…..20th Century lepers.
Sally lived on the streets and in the subways, often sleeping in public shelters for the next 15 years. Occasionally, she phoned my mother or Aunt Leonore to say she was OK, still alive.
Sally died, obese and diabetic, of coronary artery disease, at age 56. She is buried next to Grandma Gussie in New Jersey.
During all those decades, my mother never once initiated contact with Sally or Nettie. Their rare phone calls were unwelcome, and neither invitation to visit, nor sympathetic ear to their rambling was offered. Was this callousness simply passed on within the family dynamic, to protect against, and deny, the dark knowledge that the insanity gene “was within me, too”?
Or was our lack of charity shaped by a larger, cultural taboo? These are convenient crutches upon which to lean for absolution. In the final analysis, it is difficult to accept that there was not one soul in the family who responded with active intervention or an expression of love to these castaways. The ignorance, denial and fear demonstrated by past generations cannot be changed, only noted.
The story that began with Pearl is told. Her history, and her legacy, has been reconstructed in all its human, painful truth. Maybe just in the telling, our collective sin articulated, we will act with compassion next time.
It all began with the loss of one little girl, Pearl…..And she is found.