Spring 2009 Issue
Susan Mrosek pays tribute to her late sister, Diane, the “muse for and loudest celebrator of Pondering Pool.” Susan says, “If it weren’t for her, I doubt it would even exist. Her essence is strung throughout the whole collection and pretty much everything I do.” In this unique collection, we honor the power of creativity spanning a generation through Susan, Diane Hope, and their mother Irma’s writings.
My sister, Diane, by far, bore the brunt of our father’s sexual and emotional abuse. From the age of 12, she was back and forth to psychiatrists, labeled “mentally ill,” given psychotropic drugs, and yet never removed from the abhorrent situation, which lasted at least through high school. As a result, she had no self-esteem, became self-abusive, paranoid, and unable to function in the world. Over the years, she was diagnosed with several disorders; OCD, PTSD, bipolar, acute anxiety disorder, to name a few. Diane was brilliant, compassionate, overly generous, hysterically funny, extraordinarily creative, and downright intoxicating, yet she was never really able to take her gifts out in public.
Her injuries (and our own) affected each of us in various ways — we all survived/coped differently and throughout the years, took turns caring for Diane, as we were all better off than her. It was a roller coaster of joy (because she was an incredible person), despair, guilt, humor, sorrow and Hope (which of course is her name) — ultimately exhausting, depleting, vicious then forgiving. Toward the end, her needs grew beyond a single care taker — it took a village. Complicating that, she could never tolerate living with anyone or even having someone stay overnight. She absorbed people’s energy to the point of pain (it was like there were hundreds of people living in her). She wanted us to stay close, but keep our distance, which was an impossible feat.
From the family’s perspective, we tried EVERYTHING we could to help her. From her perspective, she felt ostracized, talked about, labeled, disrespected, misunderstood, out of control and blessed to have our support. She was indeed conflicted. All I know is I would have done anything to heal her. I now know only she could heal herself. We, the family, were both awed by and deeply admired Diane’s mothering skills. It was the thing she was most proud of (and most tortured by). She was a loving, compassionate, nurturing, fun, single mom who despite her raging challenges managed to raise her daughter to be, as she would say, “A shiny star in a sky full of circles.” This, of course, was with lots of help from family and friends, but it was her spirit and wisdom that shaped Taylor, who is now 20 years old, and screamingly independent, hysterically funny, generous, creative…a lot like her mom.
to appear on same page as the sketch “I’m the Caretaker”
Hope in the ER
I couldn’t draw her to me with my cold claw, and prayed for the circulation of a warm hand. Even still, I didn’t know how to hold on loose enough that she could follow, yet lead.
I told her to sit, they would come to us, she needn’t hip and toe the entire causeway to the check-in booth, but she didn’t hear me – she was already there. And we waited.
I tossed some jokes…she didn’t catch. Instead, she dove through the bag of distractions we’d packed to bargain with the monster, exchange pain for play, we travel that way a lot.
Time lapsed. They insisted help was on the way.
The monster, no longer amused by the toys, gradually resumed his preferred entertainment, watching her spiral after the apparition he paid to play tag down her left, no her right, yes her left side. Suddenly, she torqued through mid air toward her vast reservoir of hope, for that is her name.
God, let it never run dry.
