Invisibly Close: 1992 – 2002

By Dan Young
And Gry Sutherland

It´s tough getting to know someone well. When that someone is your parents, getting to know them well can be tricky and often painful. Seeing your parents clearly is like seeing yourself clearly, and that is never easy. And sometimes people get so close it is hard to see them clearly at all – It´s as if they´ve become invisibly close.


Just like pleasure, pain can bring people together. Which is what happened to my parents. My father’s name was Marvin Young, my mother’s Bula Miller. They were married on 6 March 1932. She was twenty-five years old, Marvin was twenty-seven.

Almost forty years ago, after my father retired, they built their home near the town of Coolidge, Arizona, right in the Great Mohave desert. Marvin had spent his life working with Native Americans (he even spoke the Navajo language), while Bula had a fine collection of Native American handcrafts: basketry, rugs, jewelry – of which she was very proud.

Every morning, just at sunrise, the desert quail would fly down among the cactus in the front of the house, scores of them, to be fed. “Feed us, Marvin”, they would cry,” feed us, feed us.” And Marvin would feed them. It became a ritual; the opening of his day, and he enjoyed this very much..

In the desert, water is life. The reason why the house was built where it was is because there is a well on the property that pumps water up from far beneath the surface. One late summer afternoon, in 1991, when the temperature was still way over 100 degrees F, Marvin decided to go out and check the pump. On his way there, he collapsed.

When Bula awoke from her midday nap, there was no sound in the house. “And when I got up”, she recalled later, “I cam out and started calling for him and there was no answer…So I finally heard a little noise up by the tank, and I went up there, and he was face down right there by the tank, and kind of groaning. I tried to help him up but he was…I couldn’t budge him.”

Marvin was lying face down, helpless on the hot, rocky ground. He had had a stroke.

In the hospital, Marvin slept a lot, while Bula sat and waited.

Two weeks later, he was discharged, and was moved to a care center, where he was taught how to walk, eat and help himself. Before long, he regained his old sense of humor, the same wry way he had always had of looking at himself and the world.

“Are we going now?” he asked her, hopefully. “Shall we go to lunch?” Then looking aside, “I didn’t realize how pretty she was”. Smiling with delight.

But the truth was that his brain had suffered permanent damage, so he was now totally dependent on her.

Now Marvin had always been fiercely independent. All through the more than sixty years they had been married, he had always been the one who was the breadwinner, while Bula had kept home and raised my brother and me. And now, in almost an instant, their entire world had been overturned.

The doctor told Bula he was amazed that Marvin had managed to survive not just the stroke but also the heat.

“A weaker man would have died,” he said.

Bula and the doctor were talking about him, discussing his condition. She wanted to bring him home again, but the doctor told her, and the social worker and the therapist all told her she would not be able to manage and would wear herself out.

Bula took a long time to decide what to do. The decision was not easy.

Then she told Marvin he was going to be moved to a new place, where he would be cared for and looked after. She said it was not far from home and that she would be with him every day. It was clear that he did not understand.

What she did not tell him was that he would never live at home again.

The day Marvin moved into the new place, Bula checked out his room, making sure that the bed had been made properly and everything was clean and tidy.

“This is a strange hotel,” he whispered, uncertain, skeptical. It was obvious he did not know where he was.
 

Adjusting to a new life.

There is an old Simon and Garfunkel record from the sixties where you can hear an old woman’s voice saying, “I still do it, I still lay on my half of the bed”.

Now Bula had to get used to having Marvin away frome, permanently, not just temporarily.

The older we grow, the more ourselves we become, the more the way children are, in touch with the very essence of our being. Bula had always been meticulous in everything she ever did. She always looked the world in the eye, and had never been given to sentimentality.

Just as she promised, she came everyday.

But Marvin was not happy at the Strange Hotel. He became irritable. He even fought with the couple that ran the home, in fact he took a swing at the man!

The damage to his brain was irreparable, but there were still some things he could do. Reading aloud helped – it exercises both sides of the brain. So did writing and singing, and he was still capable of dressing and undressing, too.

Time was no longer of any importance, but the old habit of looking at his watch was still important, one small anchor point in an otherwise ever changing and confusing world. It made no difference that the watch did not work.

For her part, Bula was not even sure if he was getting proper care.

Talking with Bula

Dan. When you think back over the time you’ve been married, 62 years, do you remember when you first met your husband?

Bula. Yes I do.

Dan. When…and where?

Bula. I’m not sure just when, but I know where. At a dance in Las Vegas, New Mexico.

Dan. Tell me about it.

Bula. Well, he came and asked me to dance and I danced and that was about the extent of it.

PAUSE

Dan. That’s not about the extent of it if you’ve been married for 62 years – it must have been something more then that…!

Bula. Well, then he called me…after that.

Dan. And then what happened?

Bula. Well, I really can’t remember. I went out with him a number of times. We’d go to a dance or to a movie or…I don’t know…we went on a picnic or two with another couple. We have some of those pictures. If you haven’t seen them you sure should. That was about the extent of it.

Dan. What do you remember when you first saw him, what was your reaction?

Bula. Just somebody to dance with.

Dan. It wasn’t…it didn’t say “BANG”?

Bula. No!!! (laughter)

Dan. How old were you?

Bula. This I am really not sure of.

Dan. What did you feel when you first met him?

Bula. Not anything special.

Dan. Were you attracted to him?

Bula. I evidently was or I wouldn’t have dated him. (laughter)

Dan Why did you decide to get married?

Bula. Well, I wonder sometimes! (laughter) I really don’t know! (laughter)

Dan. Well, seriously…

Bula, Seriously…I…a…he was persistent.

Dan. So it was his decision?

Bula. Well, more or less.

Dan. What kept you together?

Bula. I guess habit! (laughter)

Dan. Habit?!!!!!!!


Bula. I guess. (laughter) I don’t know what else!

Dan. What’s the most frightening thing that has happened to you in you life?

Bula. I can recall anything that I’ve been afraid of. I made a trip with Marvin over time up in the mountains and I got out and walked. The road was so bad…he was driving and that was a little scary!!

Dan. They tell a story about once when you were alone, before I was born, a Navajo man came into your room and you chased him – tell me about that.

Bula. That was when we were living at Tuba City. We were living in a government house that the nurse had one time lived in – and the bedroom had an outside door. I heard the door open – Marvin was gone – I was there alone – it was very isolated – I heard the door open into the bedroom – I was back in the living area – and I went in there and there stood a Navajo man. He had just opened the door and walked in. Then I said, “Get out of here,” and he did. He turned and left in a hurry!

Dan. Are you afraid of being alone?

Bula. No. I’ve lived alone a great deal of my married life. Your dad was out on jobs. I’m not afraid. I think I’m as safe here as I would be anyplace.

Dan. What does death mean to you?

Bula. I suppose my mother and father, really.

Dan. But what does it mean to you?

Bula. (Emphatically)…It means they’re gone…

Dan. Everybody is going to die. Does that frighten you?

Bula. Not really.

Dan. What do you think about death?

Bula. Well, I don’t think much about it.
(She looks out the window) There are a couple of those doves out there that you’ve been so worried about.

PAUSE

Dan. When Marvin is gone and you are alone here, do you think that’s going to affect you emotionally?

Bula. (Emphatically) I don’t know but I’ll face it when it happens.

Seven months later.

Seven months later. Marvin was back in the hospital: he had another stroke. This time, I hardly recognized him when I went into his room. But he recognized me.

“Hi, son” he beamed.

Most of the time, though, he was just not there. Bula tried to reach him, bring him back, but he was away somewhere else, in some inner world of his own.

His condition was much worse. This time, he needed constant care, twenty-four-hour care. He was no longer able to walk, eat or dress without assistance.

Another decision.

So Bula had to decide once more. But where would she put him now? She wanted to be with him every, but no matter where she turned, obstacles just seemed to crop up. It seemed that she was perpetually on the telephone. I had never seen her so frustrated.

And her problem was not a simple one. The closest place to home was where he had been living before, at the “Strange Hotel”, but they were not really capable of caring for a patient like Marvin, who could no longer do anything on his own. After conferring with the couple that owned and managed the place, she decided, nonetheless, that Marvin would be moving back to the Strange Hotel anyway.

It was only five minutes from home. The only other alternative would have meant an hour’s drive, a long road for a woman then eighty-five.

So Bula came, to be with, twice a day, and would bring him something he liked to eat. But she was worried – although she was never been one to share her feelings or seek advice, and this time was no exception.

Still, Marvin was not happy. He became apathetic, withdrew into himself. Just like the plants shriveling up for lack of water under the hot desert sun just outside his window, he was filled with longing and just a surely withering away himself.

For the Fourth of July, Bula bought him a flag at the supermarket, but it did not cheer him up. Afterward, while she was feeding, he looked up at her and whispered, “can’t we do it tonight?

She turned to me and laughed. But he did not laugh. I could see from his face how hurt he had been; he had been serious.

Then he looked straight at me and said, “You need a haircut”. He was still serious.

From The Hairdresser

Another day, after Bula had had her hair done, which she did every week, Marvin looked at and said, “Well, your hair looks real good.”

“Why, thank you,” she replied, obviously pleased.

“Don’t you think so,” he commented, looking at me. “Got a pretty wife, I’ll tell you.”

Then to her, “I love you”.

Marvin’s birthday.

It was Marvin’s eighty-eighth birthday. Bula came with flowers and a kiss. She read his birthday cards aloud for him. He fell asleep. They seemed closer, closer than they had been for a very long time.

The Long Road.

After Marvin had been in the Strange Hotel for three months, Bula found that he was not in fact being looked after properly. He had bedsores on his b back, his ear and his elbow as well as his ankle.

So she moved him back to the care canter. This time, he was in very bad shape. He was so thin, so thin and frail.

And she continued to visit him, day after day, and would feed the old man, or sit patiently by his bedside, calm and matter-of-fact.

A year later.

A year later, and Marvin was still at the care center. Bula had to drive over an hour to be with him; which is a long road for a woman of eighty-seven; but she did it every day.

For Halloween when American children go out trick or treating, Bula brought Marvin a carved out pumpkin. He enjoyed it very much. He was smiling and chuckling. Clearly he was much better.

In her down-to-earth manner, Bula had already bought and paid for two grave lots, in the cemetery close to their home. She had already paid for both his and her funeral as well.

In the end their insurance no longer covered the cost of his stay in the car center, and American health care is expensive. Bula paid over three thousand dollars a month for Marvin’s care. But, as she said, “this is something I just have to do”.



In this world of dualities, of beginnings and ends, all things must change.

One day, probably quite soon, my parents will not be here any more.

But this end holds within itself a beginning: through their pain I saw their love renewed.

Through the pain and laughter they shared I saw them become visibly close once more.



When I sit back, my eyes closed, and search deep inside myself, when I reach back to the time when I was small and totally dependent on these two people for my every need, when I find that place and feel, I feel strong and I feel free.

Note: I wrote this ending to the film in 1994. Marvin died in 1997, Bula in 2002.


Dan Young
2009