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 attack and taken an overdose of her regular medication |
Madeline was caught
in a downward spiral
of TheColumnists.com
A few days before Christmas, there was a knock on the
door and I opened it to find a vaguely familiar young woman standing
there. In answer to my puzzled look she said she was the sister
of my friend and ex-neighbor Madeline.
We had met once before, passing on the stairs. For a moment we
looked into each other’s eyes and hers sent out some uncommon
message. I could think of no sensible reason she would be standing
in my doorway, and the tiniest warning sounded deep inside of
me. It whispered through some mostly unfamiliar part of me, throwing
up barriers and shorting circuits as it went. It was as if my
mind had suddenly become crammed with thick, sticky cobwebs I
couldn’t handle.
There is a moment when a woman in labor wants to cry out, “Wait! I don’t want any part of this!” This had a little of that same “flavor.” You know all attempts to escape are futile, but the silent plea goes out anyway.
Why couldn’t I shut this particular door and start this scene in a different way? But, of course it had to be played out as written.
Madeline was dead.
A caring, sweet girl had lived a lifetime and there were only 20 beads on the necklace of her years.
The details of the how and why don’t matter much. It’s not the kind of knowledge that will save anyone else. Prescription drugs, panic disorders, anxiety attacks are nothing new in our society, and my young friend was acquainted with all three…and much more.
A traumatic experience as an early teenager set Madeline on the yo-yo of counseling, medications, stupor, terror and more medications. At one time she told me she was on five or six different prescriptions, all making her feel as if she was losing her mind. She was either breathless with unreasoning fear or so drowsy she had to call-in sick at work.
Madeline was also in physical pain most of the time. She was diagnosed as having several possible conditions, from schizophrenia to fibromyalgia, but nothing was ever definite.
We became close, confiding friends. She added a lovely joy to my life with her smiles and reaching out for affection. I guess she saw me as a mother figure; her own had not been around much. I was more than happy to oblige.
I know what is meant when someone speaks of their heart bleeding for a person they care about. That’s how I felt about Madeline…nothing I could do but show her I cared and lose a little more heart’s blood. But she was losing so much more.
Every day I knew her, as I crossed the days from the calendar, my dear, little friend was drawing so close to stepping out into eternity.
She simply didn’t wake up one morning, not on this earth, anyway.
The last news regarding Madeline’s death is that she had a panic attack at bedtime, took her medication and eventually fell asleep. Logic says she must have taken more than she intended.
Even though she had moved, I had been hearing from Madeline often; the last time was a few days before the devastating news of her death, and she was bursting with good things to tell me. She had found a doctor who was determined to help her. He had her off all medications except one. She was jubilant and beginning to feel the lifting of a great burden she had carried since she was 15.
Today her name bounced off the page in my address book, as I checked to find another’s number. Madeline…oh, Lord…Madeline.
How clearly I saw that big smile of hers.
I couldn’t put a line through her name. Even knowing it is written down in Heaven.
© 2002 by Audrey Yeager.
The caricature drawing of Audrey Yeager is © 2001 by Jim
Hummel. The illustration is from IMSI's Master Clips Collection,
1895 Francisco Blvd. E., San Rafael, CA, 94901-5506, USA.
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