Book 3 Chapter 1 Page 1: Spread Eagle (Gail enters the nursing home)

            “You dirty kids!  You are all against me!  I wish that I never bore you!”  Gail was screaming at her children, the three of them who had bothered to show up for the official commitment day to the nursing home.  Fire was flaming out of her eyes, steam was whistling out of her ears, as she felt the wrathful righteousness of all the saints in the calendar as she called for a plague on the three houses of her children.  In a rare show of unity, Cheryl, Jeff, and Laura arrived at the nursing home at about the same time to show Gail that her three children agreed with the decision to have her committed.  Also, like the thirty senators who stabbed Caesar, if all three of them showed up then Gail could single out one of her children and blame that lone child for her commitment.  It was like a scene from Alamogordo where the scientists hid behind a glass enclosed shelter to watch the atomic bomb go off, only the three children retreated to the foyer to watch the scene unfolding through the safety of a picture window.  Their mother was shaking her head emphatically, leaning her whole body from the passengers’ side of the vehicle across to the drivers’ side, all the time yelling, “I don’t want to go in,” and “I own my own house!  It is bought and paid for,” and “my cat needs me!”  This went on for some time before Gail exhausted herself and the two maintenance men were called to pry her hands from the door handle and bodily remove her from the car.

The day that Gail was forced to go into the nursing home, which she would forever refer to as the day that she died, started out as any other day would begin.  Cheryl tricked her mother into leaving the house by promising to take her out to breakfast.  As soon as they left Laura, and her son Jack, moved Gail’s bed and dresser from her house to the nursing home.  It was the hope of the children that if Gail had some of her prized possessions from her house in her new room at the nursing home then she would more easily transition herself into this new lifestyle.  That was delusional thinking because as soon as Gail saw the furniture and realized the permanency of what was happening to her, it was like throwing oil onto an open flame.

            After Gail and Cheryl had their lunch, they got into the car with what should have been a short drive home.  Gail was distracted after lunch and was poring through her purse, so she didn’t notice when the car pulled into the nursing home parking lot.  It was only when she saw the nursing home logo on the outside of the main building did she realize where she was and the real purpose for this trip.  It was at that moment that Gail became belligerent.  With a determined look etched across her face, Gail refused to get out of the car and stubbornly anchored herself to the passenger’s seat.  Laura stepped in and kept the car door open so that Gail couldn’t close it and make Cheryl drive away.  There was a standstill; Gail refused to get out of the car while three of her children stood and waited.  They refused to let her go back to her house and Gail refused to go into the nursing home.  Jeff, feeling useless as a bystander, went inside of the nursing home and asked a couple of nurses to help.  Try as they may, the nurses couldn’t budge the mother either.  Finally, a husky maintenance man was enlisted to help.  Gail had a death grip on the door handle of the passenger side and the men had to pry her hand off.  Gently, but firmly, they sat Gail into the waiting wheelchair
            Kicking and screaming now that she had been removed from the inside of the car, Gail squirmed around in her wheelchair.  Held in place by the maintenance mas, and guided by the two nurses, Gail was wheeled through the front door into the secured section of the nursing home.  Once inside of that hallway the residents cannot leave on their own volition.  The three children followed their mother to the secured section and then lined up outside of their mother’s new room as she was wheeled into the hallway.  They watched as the ugly scene began to unfold.  Gail refused to go into her room.  She stretched out her arms and legs to prevent the nurses from pushing her through the door.  She had a death grip on the door jam and wedged her feet between her wheelchair and the door frame.  Laura compared it to giving our cat a bath in the tub when the cat stuck out its four paws to prevent us from putting him into the water.  The scene was somewhat comical, if it was a disinterested observer who was watching, but then it wasn’t funny anymore when Gail yelled at her three kids.  Slinging arrows as fast as possible, with the intent to wound and inflict pain, Gail yelled at Jeff; “You never became a doctor!”  She was searching for some vulnerability to attack in each of her children.

Once Gail was forced into her room by the staff, she started calling all the nurses, “whores.”  She was dismissive when anyone tried to reason with her.  In one final act of defiance, Gail made a show of taking a framed family portrait that was lovingly hung in her room for her, taking it off the wall and then throwing it on the floor in the common area.  The broken glass sliced a gash through the whole family.  The symbolism was strong enough for anyone to see and, when the staff rehung the portrait, they had to remove the glass so Gail wouldn’t use it to harm herself.  Eventually the nurses had to send Gail to the hospital to give her sedatives and anti-psychotic medicine to calm her down.  “We are not equipped to handle this kind of behavior,” they told me. “And if her behavior doesn’t improve then she will have to find another facility.”