I’m thinking today about my late sister, whose birthdate is fast approaching — a very good time for me to remember her at her best and worst — which is of course true for memories of anyone. But a bit different here, because Ruth was bipolar.
She was born just two months short of my fifth birthday, so I didn’t realize for years that my parents had recognized her problem early on — the reason that I, a first child, would never have other siblings. But despite her handicap, she did remarkable things…
I was a couple of years ahead of myself from kindergarten on, so we were never in the same school at the same time. I was an excellent student, and Ruth sometimes suffered from unthinking teachers who made sibling comparisons, like “You are not the same kind of student that your sister was.” Today I say “Not Fair!” to something I didn’t even know about for years.
Despite Ruth’s many difficulties, as my own understanding of bipolarism expanded, I realized what an incredible overachiever she was. She earned three college degrees: one as a graduate in education at an all-women’s school, then a master’s in history from a coed university that enabled her to find excellent positions in teaching high schoolers about her specialties — including the U.S. Civil War and the American Labor Movement. And how her students loved her for enlivening their classes by voicing Rebel yells and singing Union songs! Her third degree was an MBA, which she earned during a couple of years while she took — for reasons of variety only — a business position. But with all this good going for her, much became bad because of the erratic behavior she had no effective control over. Eventually, she married — had two daughters — and divorced her husband, although she was the only one who wanted it.…
She had followed me after I married and moved to Chicago, not to live with us, but to be somewhere near a first-degree relative to call on as needed. One of such times was winter, when she was teaching high schoolers but had trouble waking up and getting started in really bad weather; then I would drive to her apartment, haul her out of bed, and make sure she was OK for the day.…
Please understand: All her life, my sister took proper medications under doctors’ orders. A breakthrough of sorts was Dr. Elizabeth Kübler-Ross of “Death and Dying” fame, who moved from England and found her American home in Chicago’s south suburbs, where I was on the board of our local Mental Health Center. When Dr. Ross joined that institution as an adviser, she advised me on lithium, which proved to be very helpful for Ruth. How many times in anyone’s life does the right person enter it at the right time? I am especially grateful for this, one of my own such times!
Still, all does not always end well. Ruth’s life concluded in facilities where I could visit, but she had lost contact with reality. A short time before, she had been unable to attend her only grandson’s bar mitzvah, and didn’t even know what she had missed. I am thankful that her death was easy, a quiet passage in a very understanding nursing home that followed her lead and wishes for the short time in which she could express them. And although her daughters and I were not happy with her desire for cremation, we also bowed to her own wishes — written much earlier, and never changed.…
I thank you now, for reading, and also understanding.
Harriet Gross can be reached at harrietgross@sbcglobal.net.