(Ruth, in better days, with her lifelong friend, Jason.)
My daughter, Ruth Allison Crachiola, died this month. She was 43. I am still wrapping my mind around it, my brain awash in so many memories and hopes and fears for her.
Ruth was a gorgeous baby. She was born at home and I have always feared that my selfish, in retrospect, decision to have a home birth might have played into the problems she faced throughout her life. I hated having my first child in a hospital and, more, I was afraid to leave him home while I went to the hospital to have my second. Although a doctor and two midwives had promised to come to the house to help, none of them arrived before her birth. So things were not as intended and she did not have the gentle skilled entry into life that I had hoped for. And she was not born into the family she might have hoped for, either, since the adults in her life were struggling with tensions and differences that only became more acute as she got older.
As is often the case with birth order, Ruth's older brother was the perfect child, smart and obedient, gentle and sweet natured. And as is also often the case, Ruth, although also smart and sweet, was more oppositional, strong willed and feisty. As a newborn, she also cried more than her brother had. And so she and her father had a measure of tension from the start, and that added to the marital tensions and to my sometimes overbearing attempts to protect her. I am not sure whether those tensions ever went away.
Ruth, like her brother, was smart as a whip, but unlike any of the rest of her family she was fearless and ready to try anything. She was walking and talking at 9 months of age and soon wondered if she could jump from the top of a flight of stairs to the bottom, as I threw myself in between to catch her time after time. She was the toddler who tried to climb up the outside brick chimney to the roof of the house, and almost made it. She was the child who rejected my efforts to nurse her long before she was one and sneaked away baby bottles from other children in her need for independence. She had a questioning mind and refused to accept confirmation into our church when the priest told her "not to worry" about her doubts and questions. She responded that she would not make promises as part of the confirmation ritual that she did not understand. She had a remarkable vocabulary from a young age, wrote beautiful poems and essays, and had a droll sense of humor.
Ruth had an early ear for music and could pick out a melody as soon as she could reach the piano. She could put puzzles together as soon as she could sit up next to them. And she was adorable.
When Ruth was about 7, she fell off the risers at her elementary school, falling backwards more than ten feet and becoming unconscious after hitting her head. She had a seizure at the hospital and developed epilepsy, which lead to countless medical appointments, blood tests, medications and perhaps worst of all, merciless teasing at school. Although these days teachers and schools seem to better recognize and address bullying, they did not do so in our school system when Ruth was little, and more than one teacher told me she would just have to toughen up. "If a kid doesn't want to be bullied, they need to try harder to get along," one school counselor said.
When Ruth was about 14, she was playing in the back yard, a field, at her friend Jason's house in our subdivision, when a group of older and much bigger high school boys drove up and wanted to beat up two of the boys in Ruth's group, on the supposition that they were gay. All of the kids managed to run to Jason's house except for Jeremy, who stumbled. Ruth turned back and threw herself on Jeremy's body, where she was kicked repeatedly by the gang of thugs who were trying to kick the boy underneath her while she kicked back at them. The police later told me they believed she had saved Jeremy's life because she was covered with bruises but he was unharmed. Several of the boys were later criminally convicted of assault with intent to do great bodily harm. My formerly fearless daughter became afraid of crowds, afraid to be in school, and was transferred to a little alternative school for unwed mothers and drop outs to finish high school. At some point, I know now, she started smoking dope and she told me recently that she has never been without drugs of some sort in all the years since.
Ruth was registered in college for a couple of years but only completed 4 credits. She confronted her fears and took roles in local plays and shows, acting and singing to favorable reviews. She traveled alone to the Czech Republic and Slovakia to visit a boyfriend's family and relatives in her maternal line. She moved to New York, and to Florida, and finally to Louisiana.
From the time of her first seizure, I took Ruth to counselors to try to help her cope with her condition and later our divorce and her ongoing struggles. She stayed in counseling all the time she lived with me, until she was 18 or more, but she later told me that she never told them the truth about anything. Despite increasing outbursts and even occasional short-term admissions into children's psychiatric hospitals, the counselors reassured me that she was only suffering from the usual changes and difficulties of puberty, 'situational depression,' and that she would be fine.
She was not fine. And at some point after she turned 21, Ruth was diagnosed with schizophrenic affective disorder, post traumatic stress disorder, bipolar disorder and who knows what else, since I was never permitted to see the medical records despite her consent. She had one particularly horrific suicide attempt that almost killed her and caused permanent physical injuries, numerous violent domestic relationships, and moments of homelessness when she spent the money I intended for rent on drugs instead. Through it all, I made sure she had a phone and food and, once I smartened up a bit, also made sure she had housing. We were never out of touch for long, although it was increasingly clear that there was nothing I could do that made a difference. I visited as much as I could until it was clear that the stress of my visits often made it nearly impossible to see her, and then the pandemic came along, so our only contact was by phone for almost seven years. There were many times over the years that I feared that she was dead, learned that she was hurt, held my breath through another crisis.
I never found it in me to blame Ruth for her choices because mental illness and addiction stacked the odds against her and I had no idea what demons she was facing. Her life was harder than I have said, with so much violence and trauma. But in the past few months, Ruth seemed truly to have reached a reckoning with herself. She said she was planning to get help but didn't want her rehab to interfere with Jack's and my trip to see her, although I encouraged her to go ahead and said we would visit her there. When we arrived in New Orleans, I was so shocked at how sick and frail she was and encouraged her again to get into a program as soon as she could. She said it was all scheduled and told me that I had done all I could and that she had not been ready to heal, but she was ready now. She was seeing an addiction counselor and worked hard to be admitted to what was promised to be a 30 day rehab, already telling her counselor that 30 days was not enough and to please find her a transitional placement once that was done. Rehab was scheduled for rehab on Ash Wednesday but the ride they promised did not come to get her. Although I was concerned that story might be just another excuse, Ruth immediately called the facility to tell them she was still waiting. She finally got to rehab on Monday, February 27 in high spirits, and was disappointed but still committed to recovery when they sent her home on Saturday, 5 days later, claiming 'insurance issues.' Her counselor said that she was covered and it was just a glitch, promising that she would find another placement as soon as she could but reminding Ruth that she had over 100 clients and it could take a few days.
When Ruth arrived home another woman, wearing her clothes, was there with her partner, Raymond. Raymond insisted it was not what it seemed. Despite this disappointing return, Ruth told me that her own recovery was the important focus right now, and that she and Raymond would work things out or not, she was not going to let going to let this shake her resolve. Ruth and I talked several times that day and every day after, and she was full of hope. We last spoke on Monday, March 6, and I told her, as I often did, how proud I was of her and how much she deserved a clean life. We talked about 'working the program,' and about plans we would make when her counselor thought she was well enough to travel.
I could not reach her the next day, or the days after, despite numerous calls and texts. I checked the jail and hospital, but being out of touch for a few days was not so very unusual. I had been concerned about a relapse in light of the challenges she was facing but I calmed myself and waited. On Friday, March 10, Raymond called to tell me that he had gone to the hospital the previous Monday because his own health was bad, leaving Ruth alone and asleep after one of her seizures, and had just returned home to find her dead.
The police said they are sure it was a drug overdose, because they had been called to assist in previous overdose scares, but we will not know for sure for a few weeks when toxicology tests are complete. If it was a relapse, I cannot blame her. She faced a lot of challenges. And as she often told me, drugs were the only coping mechanism she knew, and she was working on building new ones but it was a slow go. If it was not a drug overdose, it is just sad all the same. Raymond has her phone and I have that split second of shock when he calls to say he misses her and her name appears on my screen.
Two weeks later and I am still trying to wrap my mind around things. Her father, who lives in New Orleans about 20 minutes away from Ruth's apartment, has planned a 'second line,' the musical ending to a jazz funeral. Although it is not a custom elsewhere, Ruth would have loved the idea. His wife kindly let me know it was planned, but that there was no need for me to come, saying that it would be held at the location where she and Ruth's dad were married, led by their minister, and that no one would be there for me, everyone would be there for them. Of course, she said, I was "included," but that I would be spending a lot of money to end up in a group of strangers. And she is right. None of the people who will be there knew Ruth or me. Still, I feel hurt, but it just might be that everything hurts right now, and that's okay, too. Ruth's brother will go because his father is there, and I hope he will find the comfort and closure that we are both seeking.
Although I know my thoughts might change as time goes by, for now I feel certain that my relationship with Ruth was gentle and loving over the past many years. I have copies of some of the many letters I sent her on my computer since I stopped handwriting letters several years ago. Of course I regret not seeing her more, but my rational brain knows how difficult those trips were for her and how many weeks I spent in New Orleans just waiting in a hotel room, hoping she would get it together to have me meet her for a few minutes. The regrets that surface now are from decades ago; the tiny moments when I was irritated at her childhood tantrums, the times I was frustrated because she would not get ready for school as quickly as I needed, or left the kitchen a mess; silly things that my brain brings up just to torment me. Now, when time stands still, I wish I could have been endlessly patient, the fantasy perfect parent that no one can manage to be. Because maybe then, I think, things could have been different. It is hard for the brain to adjust to the fact that someone I loved from the moment she arrived and on for over 43 years could simply disappear in an instant.
