I don’t recall the reason for being in Albuquerque’s Northeast Heights that day - maybe a trip to the credit union to change “our” account to “mine”. I meandered around a new development, admiring the southwest architecture of the expensive homes under construction, just leisurely getting lost without having to worry about anyone except myself, completely at peace. The last emotion I had expected to feel so soon after Harold’s death was relief.
     I knew it was more than having dealt with his lung cancer, radiation, chemotherapy, brain metastasis, more radiation, steroids, wasting, pain, and eventual death. It was 47 years of loving and living with a bi-polar personality who knew no real peace until he drew his last breath.

                                                                   * * *
       We met in the summer of 1954, after one semester of college taught me I was out of my element. I had wanted to stay in high school and play basketball forever, safe in my own little world. Now I was at loose ends, with no idea what I wanted to do in life except get married and have a big family. 
     Enter Harold (Harry) Trent, my drop-dead-handsome knight in shining armor. Instead of riding a white horse, which would have been fine with me, he was driving a lipstick-red 1950 Ford convertible.  What started as the most miserable time of my life turned into the memorable “steamy, dreamy summer of ‘54," the beginning of a fairy-tale romance that never ended. 

     Harry was part of a construction crew building a blacktop road from the Motley County line into Floyd County and up the Caprock west of  our tiny farming community of  Flomot, Texas. He was a bridge carpenter from an even smaller farming community, Carey, about 60 miles northeast in Childress County.
     Hindsight tells me part of the reason I was drawn to Harry was the feeling he needed me, and I liked being needed. My mothering instinct took over, and even though I later realized the mistake of making him too dependent on me, it was very hard to change.
     We married in October of that year, and soon reality came knocking on the door. Unreasonable jealousy and dark moods I had never seen before were playing havoc with my dream world. He started drinking again, having stopped of his own accord during the courtship. Although I knew absolutely nothing about alcoholism, I knew somehow that he was an alcoholic, but I kept the diagnosis to myself. 
     From the same source as this knowledge (God’s Spirit?) I understood his jealousy came from his own insecurity, not anything I had done, which made it a bit easier to deal with. But why did he often seem angry with me for no reason?
     Soon he began to realize he must share with me the fact that he was “crazy,” or I would be unable to cope with his moods. At this time he had no idea what was wrong, but from the time he was very small he knew his mind worked differently from that of most other people. He said it felt like it was wired for 110 volts and got plugged into 220. Sometimes thoughts bounced around in wild confusion, completely out of control. When he was introduced to alcohol at about age 15, he thought he had found the answer to his problems. It slowed his brain down so he could think normally. He started dating and life was great. But before long it became apparent that after the first drink, there was no stopping place.  One beer called for another and another in order to sustain this new-found panacea.  And when sobriety returned, so did the fears and panic.         

Harry

He came to me in summer when my world was dark and empty.
He filled the void completely, gave me purpose,
led me toward a bright horizon.
He taught me love, shared with me his flesh and soul,
showed me joy in giving of myself.
And when my cup of happiness was filled to the brim,
he gave me a whole new world--
sons and daughters in his image.
My cup runneth over.

Through a wisdom beyond his years,  he gave me a clearer insight into life
and a belief in God that affords me daily sustenance.
He is my mentor, my lover, my friend, the father of my children,
my Harry husband.

Living on the Edge

Why can’t you just be sane like me,
think positive, hang loose?
The way I “helped” my crazy mate
was a form of spouse abuse.
He patiently put up with me,
not once to swear or yell,
as I analyzed his kinky mind
where dark forebodings dwell.
But it hasn’t all been fruitless.
I’ve grown to understand
that he’s a special odd-ball,
this strange and gentle man.
His slant on life seems rather skewed
to a laid-back gal like me
and I must remind myself each day
that the side of things I see
may not be obvious to him,
perhaps not even true.
If I take the time to listen,
I may learn something new.
We complement each other
as the modern contact lens
can make one eye far-sighted
while one sees closer in.
To live with mental illness
doesn’t have to be a curse.
At least it isn’t boring,
which could be even worse!




cgtrent@att.net

     Harry’s drinking had lasted only a few months after marriage, and the only way he found to cope now was to stay busy, working off the excess adrenaline and dulling the sharp edge of panic with exhaustion. Still, he was rarely able to sleep more than four hours a night. He had managed to survive for most of his life with little sleep, and saw no reason why I should be any different. If I preferred sleep to sex, I was rejecting him. Evidently, he produced as much testosterone as adrenaline, which was hard for a lazy old ho-hum gal to deal with. A simple yawn could send his ego plummeting.  I thought he was unduly concerned with sex, but he seemed to think (know?) somehow that without this magic source of regeneration, our love would succumb to the stress caused by his moods, eroding the special bond we had.
     Any time I tried to talk to him about our differences, his first question was, “Do you want a divorce?” It was not a threat, but to him the inevitable consequence of living with a nut. He was offering me a way out, but when I suggested marriage counseling, he said I only wanted to prove that I was right. I think he was just afraid of sharing his peculiarities with a stranger. He had seen a psychiatrist two or three times, and was not able to be frank with him, but at least the doctor assured him he was not the type to murder his family, a great blessing.  Generally, I squelched any complaints and tried to make the best of a touchy situation, like any good martyr would.
     Harold had left his construction job and gone back to farming, eventually buying a small piece of land with an old house we fixed up for our growing brood. Although he was proud to be a land owner, he was not a natural-born farmer like his dad. He started taking flying lessons, which turned out to be one of his greatest passions. He  also added to the meager farming income by working as a heavy equipment operator.
     One night during an unusually hectic period, he started having chest and arm pain. We both thought it was a heart attack, so I took him to the hospital. The doctor checked him over and admitted him, then told me the problem was an esophageal spasm.  He knew it would do no good to tell Harold his diagnosis, so he would keep him there awhile and prove it to him.  This was the only doctor we ever found who really understood his crazy patient, because he had similar problems. Of course, in those days it was just called “nerves,”  hence “neurosis.”
     All his life, Harold’s “nerves” would cause different physical symptoms which always made him think he was dying. He would go to the old family doctor, who would scold him and perhaps prescribe some  sugar pills, tell him to get hold of himself, and send him home. The pills had no noticeable effect, and Harold realized the problem was probably psychological. Eventually he learned to deal with that symptom, but it would be replaced by a new one, sending him to the same old doctor again. Just seeing the fearsome doc was usually enough to stop the problem for a short time. In a small town, there was little chance of finding a better doctor. Besides, he thought this one was God’s brother.
     Harry  had been expecting to die young ever since I knew him. His dad had heart trouble, like his dad before him, who died in his early fifties. Any new symptom he had was probably heart trouble or cancer.  Besides all the “nerve” problems, he also had many real physical complaints, but with these he would put off going to the doctor because he expected to be labeled as a hypochondriac. To get in the first punch, he adopted that description for himself. The best defense is a good offense, somebody has said. On the other hand, if I as much as sneezed, he wanted me to get medical attention right away. Since I’m a bit slow on the uptake, it took me awhile to understand that he was desperately afraid I might die before he did and leave him to fend for himself again.  He thought he was being selfish in that regard, but definitely did not want to outlive me.
     After the “heart attack” incident, the sweet, neurotic doctor gave him a prescription for the new drug, Valium, to help prevent panic attacks. He didn’t take them often, but just having them in his pocket gave him enough courage to go to work and do whatever had to be done to provide for his family.

     Because of Harry’s negative self-concept, he had no idea this poem was praising him. And  when our oldest son (years later) wrote and recorded a song, The Bravest Man in the World, about his dad, Harry could not understand the words of respect and love.They made no sense to him at all.
     Harry’s love for flying airplanes turned into a new profession, an aerial spraying business.  He sold the little farm to finance the operation, and was gone to Kansas City to purchase a Piper Super Cub when our fourth baby was born.  He and his cousin, Wayland, formed a partnership, rigged up the little plane with spraying apparatus, traded a tractor for an old gasoline transport which they converted into a mixing truck for chemicals, and we all became excited about our new adventure. 
     Moving to Olton, and eventually to Spur, the little plane stayed busy spraying boll weevils that summer, and then acid for defoliating the cotton stalks that fall. Payment was due when the crop was harvested, but many of the farmers chose to ignore this big debt, leaving us in hock up to our eyeballs. Having no way to repossess the chemicals, fuel, parts, labor and time, we were helpless against the selfishness which killed our new business and injured our faith in human nature.  Trying to hang on and placate all the “good old boys” he had to deal with, Harry started going to the bars at Post with them. Not only was it a waste of time, it almost killed him one night when he mixed booze with Valium. His lungs stopped working, and he fell to his knees in the middle of the bar, gasping for breath. Nobody paid any attention to the “falling down drunk” man on the floor, one of the most important lessons he ever learned. Finally, he regained his breath and left the bar with a new perspective.
     The plane went back to the money lenders and we had nowhere to turn for help. Harry took a minimum wage job in a plant that manufactured animal feed, which he hated. We had only one vehicle, an old rattletrap Chevy, no phone, no bank account, no savings, trying to feed and shelter four kids, with another on the way.  That delivery bill went unpaid until we got back into farming and made our first crop.
     With help from Harold’s parents, we started over on a rented farm at Carey. In the fall he would run the cotton stripper all day, then get in a seed truck for a long haul to a cotton-oil plant in Fort Worth and back that night, sleep a couple of hours and return to the field in the morning.  Not only was he taking care of his family financially, but was “staying out of our hair,” because he thought his presence only hindered our busy lives.  How his mixed-up mind explained the shouts of glee and the kids climbing his legs when his truck pulled up in the driveway will forever be a puzzle to all of us. He was floored, years later, when Jay told him how much he was missed back then.
     Later he hauled bales of cotton to Houston, wheat to Galveston, cucumbers to Mississippi, often having panic attacks along the way.  The anxiety would begin when he drove out of a town, and slowly build to a crescendo. I’ll find a doctor as soon as I get to town, he would always say to himself, but as he neared civilization, the panic would subside, and on he would go toward the next town, repeating the process again and again.  Other drivers talked about taking :bennies" to stay awake, but with his built-in pepper-uppers he could sometimes drive three days without any sleep. On every trip he would swear this wouldbe his last run, but when he got home and rested a few hours, he was off on another thrilling adventure.  He quickly learned to keep his doors locked from the prostitutes and pimps who seemed to live at truck stops along the way, just one of the many obstacles he had to face.

     For several years, Harry had carried a one-hundred-dollar bill in his wallet, his emergency stash. I made most of our clothes, and my own wardrobe was skimpy, as I “sacrificed” myself for the kids, playing my role of martyr to the hilt. One day he handed me the hundred dollars to buy myself some decent clothes, such a sweet, unselfish gesture. I self-righteously refused, stating that the kids needed clothes more than I did, crushing his big generous heart. I relished my martyrdom, and here he was trying to undermine it! But his pained expression softened my stance, I apologized and took the money, which paid for a nice pantsuit with a matching skirt, and a warm coat that lasted almost as long as my martyrdom.
     Soon Joe, the oldest child, was big enough to drive a tractor, and all of us did the necessary hoeing to insure the best of crops. Molly led the hoeing crew when I was busy at home. Jay, the youngest, was five when we bought the old home place from Harold’s parents, with a house that was too small for the seven of us. We bought a two-bedroom trailer house to park at the back door, which the three girls, Molly, Vinita and Peggy, occupied for several years.          
     Everybody pitched in to make the farm pay, but Harry still held a job as heavy equipment operator to cover the extra bills. During the years when teenagers require more “stuff”, we made good crops and the price of cotton was up, which is a pretty rare combination. Drought, constant debt, hailstorms played havoc with Harry’s “nerves”, but overall, it was a good life.
     As the girls grew more adept at housework, I spent more time on the tractor, which seemed like a vacation to me. I loved working with my adorable guy, fascinated with his skill and knowledge of machines and God’s creation. Jay could barely see over the steering wheel of the pickup when he started hauling seed and fuel to the field for us. The girls divided up the housework, did the cooking, laundry, shopping, whatever was necessary.  It was great for me to be able to come home and sit down for a delicious meal, then get up and leave the mess to the servants.
     One of the kids had called me for a ride home after a band trip, and I asked Harry, “Wanta go?” He usually would have begged off, but this time he accepted, and I thought nothing of it, chatting gaily along the way.  Later that night, I woke up to find his place in bed empty, and decided to go check on him. He was sitting at the kitchen table with a pistol lying in front of him, getting ready to go off in the pickup and shoot himself.  Didn’t want to leave a mess in the house, of course.
     He was certain that the phone call was from my lover, setting up a rendevous. Asking him to go with me was a cover-up, because I knew he wouldn’t likely accept. He kept watching when we got into town, expecting me to give some sort of sign to my “date” that our plans had been foiled. Then when we actually went to the school house and picked up our musician, he had to admit to himself that his imagination had made a fool of him again. He felt like a heavy burden to all his family, and was prepared to release us from our pain and misery.
     After we talked awhile and he decided he didn’t really want to die, he asked me to hide all his guns, which I did the next day.  If he ever hunted them, I don’t know, but he didn’t find them.
     In the fall of ‘75, Molly went off to college, Joe and Rhonda married, the nest was beginning to empty. But when Mama’s Alzheimer’s Disease progressed beyond Daddy’s coping skills, we moved them into the little trailer, and the house was full of kids again.  Jay had no place to sleep, so I built him a bed on stilts above the piano in the futility room.  Life was hectic but never dull.
       It was about 1978, and age was slowing down old Racehorse Harry.  He could no longer work night and day at his two jobs. His dad had died, we had three aging parents to see after, adding to the stress of dealing with teenagers trying to grow up.
     And then our beloved doctor took his own life. There was no place else to turn. New doctors refused to prescribe Valium after Harold had used up his hoarded stash. Most alcoholics will abuse any drug they can get.  How could they know he was an exception? He was very careful not to take more than was absolutely necessary.  Most of the pills had been dissolved in the laundry, as he would often forget to take them out of the watch pocket of his jeans -- a tiny place to carry a crutch, but just having them there was usually enough reassurance to keep the panic attacks at bay.
     Many times during those hectic years of black moods and sleepless nights, I was tempted to  buy booze for my troubled hubby to ease some of his stress. But knowing it was a downhill road, I resisted.  He said the reason I didn’t need alcohol was because I was born drunk. That was meant as a compliment, of course.  He often described me as a “free spirit,” something he very much admired and desired.   Nothing but alcohol had ever given him that feeling of freedom.
     One weekend Harry came home from his job at Boys Ranch with a bottle of Jack Daniels stashed in his bag. He was at the end of his rope, and this was the knot he had tied to hang onto. “I don’t have to beg a doctor for this,” he said.  
     For awhile he felt great. In time, as any serious drinker knows, he needed more and more alcohol to maintain his new “norm.” He hated himself for being so weak, but could not see any way out except suicide. 
     Harry discovered a lump in his breast, and thought it was cancer, of course. I went with him to yet another doctor, who felt of the lump and asked, “How much have you been drinking?” 
     “Not much,” was the sheepish reply.                                      
     “A quart a day,” I said.                                                                                                     
     The doctor thought the lump was caused by the effect of alcohol on the liver, and was definitely having no part in treating an alcoholic.  He recommended the Outreach Center and AA.
     Harry was shocked that anyone would think he was an alcoholic.  He went to work every day, and even besotted, he could do his job better than anyone else around.  He was a loving husband and father, was wonderful to my parents, looked after his widowed mother, tried his best to serve God and man. But he finally had to admit he really was an alcoholic. He joined AA, spent two rounds of counseling in a state hospital, yet when the black moods hit, he went back to the bottle.
     Peggy and Jay were still at home, and once Harry asked Peggy for a gun, which scared her spitless. Then later he borrowed Jay’s shotgun and started toward the back door. From the bedroom, I heard the bone-chilling sound as he loaded it, and knew what was happening. As I raced into the kitchen, Jay asked, “Daddy, what are you gonna to do?”
     “Oh, I’m just going down the road a way. . .” he said as I grabbed the gun from his hand and shoved him toward the bedroom, screaming, “How dare you?” or some such. How could he think about killing himself with his teenager’s own gun? 
     After the last binge he had been sober several months and was getting ready to go back to the job away from home which involved much stress. He was becoming so antsy, he knew sobriety was short-lived.  I had been taking Limbitrol, an anti-depressant medicine, and we were discussing the symptoms he was feeling, one of which seemed similar to mine.  In all these years, no doctor had linked his anxiety with depression, and the possibility seemed a bit ridiculous to me.  At the time, I thought anxiety and depression seemed like opposites.  But grasping  at this little straw, I asked,  “Why don’t you try some of these pills?”
     Harold had taken Asendin, a different anti-depressant, during one of his sobering-up spells, no better than sugar pills, he said. The difference in this one, which we didn’t know at the time, was that Limbitrol contained anti-anxiety properties as well as an anti-depressant. He swallowed the pills without any real hope of relief, but in about 30 minutes he realized that he was calm.  Wow!
     By this time we were using a different doctor. He was new in town, patient enough to listen, and willing to “treat you any way you want to be treated”. We talked to him, explaining about our experiment, and asked if he would prescribe this medicine for his new patient. Of course he would. 
     That day was the beginning of an eighteen-year-honeymoon, the most tranquil time Harold had ever known. He still was never officially diagnosed by a doctor as bipolar.The same three-month cycles of ups and downs continued, but never as severe as before. If he felt the urge to take a drink of alcohol, he just thought about how sick he was toward the last of his five-year binge.        
                                                       

     Harry called himself a perfectionist, but he wasn’t really.  He was driven to be perfect (sinless), which is impossible, of course, and he was never at peace with himself. A true perfectionist usually expects perfection from everyone around him, becomes controlling and tyrannical.  Harry’s aim for perfection included only himself.  He was very patient and forgiving with everyone else.  He tried his best not to hurt me, but could not understand that beating himself up was also painful to me.
     One of his most amazing traits was his refusal to argue.  He would gladly discuss anything, and sometimes we talked all night long, but if the discussion became heated--which usually meant I started to yell--he would walk away until I calmed down.  As a child, he had attended religious debates with his family and somehow could see things the adults evidently could not understand: Each participant went away from the fight thinking he had won, when in reality all they had done was to drive an even bigger wedge between the two denominations. He determined then that he would choose a better path, and he never turned back.
     Harry’s dream was to be as good as his dad. He was a much better person than his dad, but he refused to see that and would berate psychiatrists for trying to blame all his faults on his parents. During one of these fits of passion, he ended by saying, “My parents did the very best they could in raising me.”
     I asked, “Did you do the best you could in raising your kids?”
     “Of course not,” he answered, as if I were comparing apples and oranges. He could not (would not?) see the fallacy in his logic.
     Harold was such an astute lad, noticing many of the mistakes his parents made in their marriage and was determined to avoid them in his. He adopted the best traits of both his mother and dad,  and spurned their weaknesses -- except, of course, for the manic/depression that may have been inherited from both sides of the family.      
     During the years of trying to hide his condition, I suppose he felt that lying was sometimes necessary.  Maybe he learned it from his mother, whose personality was so much like his. They probably didn’t consider it lying, maybe just tactful, not to tell the whole truth, or polish it up to be presentable.  Because of this habit of saying whatever was expedient, he evidently expected the same from me, so he never learned to completely trust my word. To say it was frustrating to me is a huge understatement.  Accepting the idea that he was worthy of love and admiration was as foreign to him as the moon.  He clung to his negative attitudes as though to a leaky life raft.

     After the kids were grown and gone, about the same time farm income hit bottom, we turned back all our rented land, leased out our quarter section, and I accompanied Harold to his job site in Amarillo. He was using a motor grader to trim down the sides of a reservoir for holding waste water. Every pass over the “blue-tops” (markers for depth) on a two-to-one slope covered them with dirt, and he needed someone to uncover them for the next go-around.  I was elected as his helper, a fun job that was also very educational. I had never watched him “do his thing” with his beloved motor grader, and learned that he was quite an artist with this big machine. 
     One of his co-workers was jealous of the special rapport Harold had with the boss, and told some sort of lie about him. When the boss asked him about it, he showed his normal restraint, and instead of defending himself or putting down the trouble-maker, said, “Well, Jerry, you know him and you know me.  You can believe whatever you want," the peacemaker attitude that seemed to come so easy for him. His friendship with the liar never changed. Agape in action.
     When that job was done, Jerry needed a compactor operator to pack the soil, and my experience on a farm tractor filled all the requirements for this piece of equipment, so now I was officially a heavy equipment operator. It was much easier than driving a farm tractor with plows between rows of cotton, and paid better wages to boot. I was having a ball.
     By this time, Mama had died and my sisters took over Daddy’s care. I had always resented Daddy for being so critical of me, which was probably the beginning of my depression. One day as I was driving back and forth on the compactor, I was feeling sorry for myself, as usual, and thinking how much better things would be if Daddy just showed me a little appreciation. Then a little voice said, Have you ever shown him any appreciation for all the sacrifices he made, raising five kids during the depression?  What an eye opener!
     On the first rainy day when I couldn’t work, I sat down and started writing him a letter.  Maybe I can think of a couple of good things to say about him, I thought.  I would write awhile and cry awhile, and before long I had used up a big part of the thick tablet. I discovered that he had actually been an outstanding dad, very patient, never abusive. I could only remember one time that I felt the sting of his belt, when I was about twelve and acting more like two, having a screaming fit. I never knew how the letter affected him, but it changed my attitude forever. The depression began to lift, my clouded perspective cleared, and it finally dawned on me that my martyrdom had colored my personality a dark ugly grey.  As the light of love and forgiveness began to dawn, all my relationships improved, and I was able to dispense with the anti-depressant medicine. And finally, I was more understanding of Harry’s mental problems.
     Harry quit the stressful construction job and spent the rest of his working years taking care of the county’s dirt roads. I landed a secretarial job with the local Texas Highway Patrol, and we felt like we were retired, working only eight hours a day. He got off work early on Fridays and voluntarily started doing the laundry, so that I was free to take care of the shopping. Although I had done much of the farming,  he had never taken any part in the housework, nor did I expect it.
     Sometime in the past,  Harry had heard negative remarks by wives whose husbands had retired and made a nuisance of themselves, hanging around at home. He hoped never to retire, just die of a heart attack getting on or off his motor-grader, when there was little chance of hurting someone else. But his declining health made retirement a cursed necessity. Molly and  Tony bought us a house in the foothills of the Sandia Mountains east of Albuquerque, and we started on another new adventure.
     I had tried to get Harry interested in hobbies in preparation for the day when he could no longer do hard manual labor, to no avail. Now retirement hit him like a ton of bricks.  The only thing he really enjoyed besides work was flying, which was not a hobby for our limited budget, and his health problems now precluded his passing the physical examination. He liked to weld, but that was also out of the picture because of bad knees and back.  The last thing he had built was a 3-point-hitch for his 1949 Farmall tractor, his special toy. Before that was finished, he knew his body was already too far gone for all the necessary squatting and bending.  His arthritic hands with one missing finger were unable to do tedious work.                                        
    After retirement, Harry also retired from doing the laundry. I declined to ask why, for fear of making him feel guilty. He had dealt with more than his share of guilt already, and he probably would not have given me a straight answer, anyway. Any "why" question was always taken as a put-down. The only possibility my ordinary mind could come up with was that he would have to walk through “my” kitchen to get to the utility room. The previous house had the washer and dryer in a bathroom. He was afraid of invading my territory, and seemed nervous just looking in the cabinet for a coffee cup, although I was not the least bit picky about who used the kitchen. It was never my favorite place.
    It did bother me when his mother tried to take over my responsibilities during her frequent visits, and he was very understanding, because he knew she was trying to prove she could take better care of him than I did. She never forgave me for taking him away from her, and as her mind deteriorated, she imagined that I was cheating on him and he was going to move back with her. But having a loving husband in the kitchen is hardly the same as a jealous mother-in-law.
    The retired farmer/heavy equipment operator would sit in his recliner or on the porch or the bench out back and ponder the possibilities. He complained that I stayed too busy all the time, while he had nothing to do.  I tried to get him interested in the computer, cooking, reading, even sewing. No, no, no. His depression after retirement was the worst he had ever experienced, often leading to thoughts of suicide. Since he could no longer “produce,” he believed he was useless, a drain on me and society. 

                                                                                           
    Several years ago, when Jay was on his first round-the-world cruise on an aircraft carrier, the kids had given me a computer for e-mail purposes and writing poems. Although I tried to get Harry to use it, he refused to even touch it, so I had been printing out their letters for him to read.  Now I encouraged him to pass the time learning something about it, as he was always so good with machines. But to him that was my territory, just like the kitchen, sewing machine and piano. He absolutely refused to invade my privacy. I talked until I was blue in the face, but his fear of becoming a nuisance overrode my common-sense arguments. 
    It was like he thought I had secret love letters hidden in that little contraption. In all the years of writing poetry, I handed him a copy of everything. I shared with him every letter I received, whether by e-mail or snail. He didn’t receive any, of course, because he never wrote any. Not once in his life had he ever written a letter, not even to me when he was in the hospital for weeks at a time. Didn’t think he could. (There was one short suicide note.)
    Finally, one day I said to him, “That computer is just a tool, like your tools in the garage. When I need to use one of your tools, I go help myself. Does it invade your privacy when I use your workshop?”
    Well, that seemed to make a little bit of sense, and he’d had about enough boredom and self-pity for awhile.  He decided to write the kids a letter apiece, telling them how he felt about them, something he could not do face to face.  It had been 50 years since he studied typing in high school, and was surprised to learn how easily it came back, except for the missing finger.  He would write a paragraph or two, read it, delete and start all over. None of the letters filled a whole page, but each took about a day to finish. 
    When his lung cancer was diagnosed, Harry started a diary. Then he wrote about some of his childhood experiences, about the emotional struggle of selling the family farm, and about dealing with manic/depression.  It was such a wonderful surprise to him that he could actually put those feelings into sensible words, something of value to leave his kids, most of whom inherited the bi-polar genes.

     The last entry in Harry’s diary was after the cancer metastasized to his brain, affecting the use of his left hand.  His fingers wouldn’t hit the right keys, and he wrote: Well rthw legty sise of this typweiter sosent seem to work todY SO i WILL WQRITE AOME LATER.  ( The left side of this typewriter doesn’t seem to work today, so I will write some later.)
     That may have been the same day he was sitting on the bench at the back of the house when a deputy sheriff stopped by to look at his tractor.  Said he had a Farmall he was trying to  rebuild, so Harry stood up, holding in his right hand the glass of juice he was drinking, and started toward the tractor shed.  His left leg refused to go where he told it to, and he wobbled around like he was drunk, couldn’t even get the gate open.  It really worried him that the deputy probably thought his drink was spiked with whiskey.
     Then he developed a terrible headache, and tests showed the lung cancer had spread to his cerebellum and liver. Radiation to his head stopped the pain, but the side effects of that and steroids were devastating.  None of his hormone glands seemed to be working, so his production of adrenaline and testosterone dropped dramatically, leaving him with no energy. Soon he needed a walker, then a wheelchair, and help getting up and down. He worried that I would hurt myself lifting and tugging. At times he had to invent new words when the old ones slipped his memory, but still he seldom complained.                                                                                                          

                                                                                                                             
     The oncologist had given Harold a prescription for Morphine, instructing him to use as much as he needed.  But he still thought he was supposed to “tough it out” as long as he could.  Steroids had atrophied his muscles, and with nothing to help support his lower spine where the disks had deteriorated, the bones rubbing together were causing a lot of pain. He was still mobile, sometimes in a wheelchair but never bedfast, for which he was very thankful. It seemed that the sicker he got, the more thankful he became for his many blessings.  He had never asked, “Why me?” or shown an ounce of self-pity from the day of his diagnosis, asking only that he be allowed to die at home.  He was concerned that when the end was near, he might panic, but it never happened. When he calmly told me he thought the time was at hand, I figured it was just his negative outlook talking. 
     After he was finally convinced to take the first dose of Morphine, he was lying on the couch in the living room, trying to get comfortable. He had resumed his smoking habit because, amazingly, it helped the cough from radiation pneumonia, and I was sitting in front of him in his wheelchair holding an ashtray on my knee within easy reach. He voiced concern for my comfort in balancing the ashtray, (tough job!) which was so typical of his caring attitude, probably the last thing he said before falling asleep when the pain medication took effect.
      He slept for an hour or so, got up to use the bathroom, and then went to bed. I lay down with him, as we had always retired at the same time, enjoying the closeness. After he was asleep, I slipped out of bed and went to visit with the kids for awhile.
     Our middle daughter, Vinita, and three-year-old granddaughter, Rachel, had been with us for two weeks, preparing to return home to Virginia soon. Our oldest son, Joe, and wife Rhonda had come for a long weekend during spring break at the university in Lubbock where they are dorm parents. Our oldest daughter, Molly, and son-in-law, Tony, live in Albuquerque, about 30 minutes away. The other two families from San Diego had recently visited. Harry had given his little pickup to our youngest son, Jay, had finalized the sale of the farm.  Everything was in order. So after 24 hours of painless sleep, resting up for the trip home, Old Weird Harold  peacefully stopped breathing.

                                     
     I asked our youngest daughter, Peggy, to record her favorite song,  Somewhere Over the Rainbow for her dad’s funeral service, and she had just left the recording studio when she got the message of his death. The friend who helped her with the recording asked how soon she needed the CD, and she said, “There’s no hurry. It’s not like he’s dying tomorrow.” (“So blasé,” she says, with that overly-guilty conscience that she inherited from him.) he had a plane ticket to come the next weekend and play the song for him, to get his ok.  Nobody but Harry, and perhaps the doctor, expected him to leave us so soon.
     I had not shed a tear until Peggy arrived and played her recording for us. So beautiful and so apt.Everybody scattered to a private corner to cry.
     I had seen widows at funerals who seemed so stoic, never showing any negative emotions. How can they do that? I wondered. I had also seen women collapse in hysterics at first sight of their spouse in the casket.  That was what I expected of myself, and dreaded.
    The funeral director, a friend, ushered me into the room where many relatives and friends were already gathered. They’re probably wondering what all these smiley-face and Charlie Brown balloons are doing in this setting, I thought. There in the pretty casket was a bald-headed big lump of clay wearing Harry’s favorite home-made shirt, (no fancy suit and tie for this red-neck) but Harold was nowhere to be seen or mourned for.  His soul had long-since been set free.
     Joe read part of his song, The Bravest Man in the World at the funeral:  "If courage is counted as facing your demons and claiming the pain as your own, then we'll all hail him as the conquering hero, for I know he's the bravest man in the world."
    The balloons were loosed by grandkids at the grave site as Somewhere Over the Rainbow was played, and as three-year-old Rachel’s smiley-face took to the sky, she cried, “I want it baaack!”, giving us all a chuckle.  Charlie Brown barely hopped the fence, then bounced down the gravel road toward a pasture of mesquite trees, just like old Charlie’s luck with flying kites. Harry had always identified with poor old Charlie Brown, but never believed me when I quoted the phrase, “You’re a good man, Charlie Brown.”

     When we knew there was no hope of recovery from the cancer, we discussed many sensitive issues, including his funeral. When I asked about pall-bearers, he didn’t think he had enough friends to handle the task, of course. Probably have to hire some, he said. I asked if he would like for his long-time doctor and friend to do the eulogy, as he knew him better than anyone besides family. He liked the idea, any possible way to get the word out that there is hope beyond the bottle. The doctor did a great job with a sensitive subject, although it shocked some of the audience.  If it helped one person, it was worth whatever embarrassment it might have caused. Did this big-hearted bipolar alcoholic leave a valuable legacy or what?
                                                                                                  
                                                              Dr. Mike’s Eulogy

     Ephesians 6:10: Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.  Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes.  For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.  Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.  Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.  In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.  Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.  And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests.  With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.
     Pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains.  Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should.

     Harold was one of my best friends - but not always.  He wasn’t at first.  I must confess that at first, he was just another patient on the schedule with a multitude of problems I felt powerless to fix!  He was a threat to my then young ego, because I couldn’t fix him and make him well.  Doctors like appendicitis.  We can be heroes.  We can fix it.  We can cure it and the patient goes home fixed, never to be bothered by that again.  We like pregnancy, because while it seems like forever, pregnancies never last forever.  There is an end point.  But not so with Harold.  I couldn’t fix him.
     If I could characterize Harold’s life or summarize it in one word, I think the word would be struggle.  Harold struggled every day of his life.  I don’t think Gail or the children would mind if I talk of the personal and private and, yes, confidential relationship I had with Harold.  Because I think it will serve as an encouragement and an inspiration to those of us gathered today to honor him, and therefore Harold’s life can have even greater significance by encouraging others, when he would have never told this story himself in a setting like this.
     Harold was an alcoholic, and that is how I would have described him and labeled him--at first.  Then I got to know him--and then I got to know him better--and then I got to know him real well!
     Harold was one of the kindest and most warm-hearted and generous and grateful friends I have ever had.
     Harold had a chemical imbalance in his brain, not really that different from any other chemical imbalance in our bodies.  Not that different from diabetes, or low thyroid, or menopause or any other hormone deficiency - except Harold’s imbalance involved a deficiency of the brain hormones that gave him the mental energy and emotional energy to cope with stressors.  His brain would be so tired--he couldn’t cope with another decision or choice and would feel so overwhelmed.  He would medicate himself, with alcohol.  And he struggled with this demon every day of his life. He would be stressed and start drinking, but then he would keep on drinking, and during the binge, realize this wasn’t the answer, and stop.  Then we would see him with complications of the withdrawal.  He would then spend time in a treatment center and work with the good folks at AA and do well for a time, then repeat this cycle over and over again.
     But then, about 20 years ago, he quit drinking, and I think there are at least three reasons for his ultimate success.
    (1) A profound faith in our Lord.  At times in Harold’s depth of gloom, he felt suicide was the only answer to the misery he had and the misery he brought to the lives of those he loved and cherished.  But he found a faith and a faithfulness that gave his life purpose, and to me that faith was characterized by his generosity at our congregation.  We have a youth fund, used for youth activities that is funded by free-will donations apart from the weekly contribution.  Harold and Gail loved and believed in our young people and were always the most generous donors to this youth fund.  I was in awe of their generosity.  And on more than one occasion, Harold would be in my office and would just give me some money and say, “Thanks for working with our kids, and use this to help them,” thinking of our youth while facing serious health problems of his own.
     (2) The second thing that led to his success was the love and support of a faithful wife for 47  years.  Tammy (Wynette) sang the song--but she couldn’t walk the walk.  Gail, you sang the song,  walked the walk and stood by your man, even when he couldn’t stand.  Our passage from Ephesians tells us to put on the full armor of God so that we can take our stand against the devil’s schemes.
      Verse 13: Put on the full armor of God so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground and after you have done everything to stand , stand firm.
     Stand by your man!  Gail, your life is exemplary in that.
     (3) The third part of Harold’s success in fighting that demon is that he got treatment for his chemical imbalance and complied with that treatment.
     I’m reminded of the story of Job.  Highly successful, had it all.  Attacked by Satan, lost it all, even the support of his wife whose advice was to curse God and die.  But he was faithful to God through it all and we’re told in Job 42:12: The Lord blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the first.   
    Gail, I wasn’t there for the courtship and the early years, but I can only imagine it was wonderful, knowing how lovable and kind and generous Harold was.  I would assume it was great.
     But our lives touched during the middle years 22 or 23 years ago, when things would, all too often, hit bottom.  But because of his faith, and (unlike Job) the unwavering support of a loyal wife, we were able to see the good life return.  I was thrilled to hear from you that things were so good in New Mexico and that Harold was so happy and enjoying every day being part of God’s splendid creation.  I was especially pleased last night when Peggy told me of the peace that old worry-wart Harold had at the diagnosis of his forever dreaded lung cancer.               
     Truly, God blessed the latter part of Harold’s life more than the first!
     Gail and kids, God bless you as you mourn the passing of this great man and my great friend.  I’m grateful our lives have touched and I am a better man because Harold Trent has been my friend.

     Back home after the funeral, I was hunting keepsakes of their Grandpa to give to a couple of our grandsons, Jake and Joel. One asked if I had any poems about him, and one asked for pictures. Not having enough pictures to divide up between all eight grandchildren, I told them I would just scan my collection for a book, including poems, which I started working on right away.      
      After we had finally figured out the name of the monster that tortured him all his life, Harry wanted to share his experience with others, and encouraged me to write about it. I sent articles to several magazines, with no success.  "Nothing about alcoholism", they said. Now I included everything I had written about him in a self-published book, mainly for family. His own writing added the finishing touch to Old Weird Harold.
    An “adopted” daughter, Debbie, had pegged him with the name “Old Weird Harold” after the Bill Cosby character, and he loved it. To him it meant that she realized he was a bit strange, but she loved him anyway.  She and Jay had built a pontoon boat years ago and named it “Old Weird Harold” in his honor.
     Then my sister had a dream about all four of us stateside Gunn siblings going to England to visit our younger brother and his wife.  It seemed like such a great idea, she offered to buy all the plane tickets if we would go. No, it’s much too soon for me to handle such a thing, I thought.  But I finally agreed to go, and it was probably just what the doctor would have ordered.  We had a wonderful time, seeing the historic little villages-- as well as London--and especially visiting in Jerry and Pat's home.  He and I teamed up once again to "make music" as we did as teenagers in the early 1950s.
     I spent most of the year, off and on, wandering around Texas and Oklahoma visiting with relatives and friends, making a few new ones, and wearing myself to a frazzle.
     That day in Albuquerque when the feeling of relief hit me, I suddenly realized getting lost was now no big deal that might trigger one of Harry’s panic attacks. We both had been held captive by the monster that had such a tight grip on our lives. When he escaped the bonds of earth and all its complications, I was also set free.  He no longer needed me to help him survive, being in much better hands now. For several years I had worked very hard on the weight bench to stay healthy enough to outlast him and be able to do the necessary lifting, at the last, not realizing how much stress I was putting on myself. Now the relief was much like what I felt when we quit the farm, with all its constant worries.
     Harold was not one to brag, and was embarrassed when someone complimented him, especially in front of other people whose feelings might be hurt by the comparison. Years ago when I started a display of framed certificates the kids had earned in school, he called it the “braggin’ wall,” and it took me many years to realize it was not a compliment or even meant to sound cute. He evidently thought I was bragging to guests about my outstanding kids. Later I learned that he didn’t even like hanging pictures of them for fear someone with ugly kids might feel offended. So when we  moved into our almost new mountain home, he suggested putting the pictures in albums instead of making nail holes in the pretty walls. 
     One of the first things I did after Harry’s death was to start hanging all sorts of stuff on the walls: Curtains above the bed, plant hangers, plaques, pictures, even sewing thread. An aerial photo of the farm, which had been hung on a stick-pin, looked lonely on the dining room wall, so I added other farm memorabilia, including a stalk of cotton and antique tools. 
     I hung pegboard on the garage walls for a lovely display of Harry’s many tools, some of them having belonged to his grandfathers, his dad and mine, identified by a sign: OLD WEIRD HAROLD’S TOOL COLLECTION
      Here in the foothills of the Sandia Mountains, junipers, piñon pines, and sometimes cactus, grow together in wild profusion, often being shaped strangely to conform to whatever space is available, much like the two of us were re-shaped through the years of conforming to each other’s wishes. Our love enabled us to adjust to the twists and turns, still remaining strong yet pliable. Harold had refused to let me trim the trees around the house, which he treasured as privacy screens. Now that his phobias were no longer a problem, out came my trusty tree saw to improve the looks of the yard.
     Here it is, more than a year since my beloved husband’s death, and I still feel like I haven’t properly grieved. I certainly wouldn’t bring him back to this miserable world, even if I could. I go to bed alone at night, and it doesn’t bother me a bit that he is not there, much like all the years when he worked away from home. It’s as though I haven’t really lost him. I know where he is, and I only have to wait awhile to join him. 
     Surely the pain will start soon, I keep telling myself. All the books say it may take three months, but this is ridiculous!
     And Ol’ Harold thought he was weird.

<>Dear Harry,
<>     Every morn as I slowly awaken, Are you here? is the first thing I think, or out on the porch drinking coffee, and watching the mountain turn pink?
<>     Remember I told you a long time ago, when speaking of death and the one left below,  that one of the hard things with which to contend would be loss of a confidant, listener, friend .
<>Just after the service, the first thought I had was that Mike’s eulogy would make your heart glad when I got home to tell you of all he had said, that your message of hope could somehow be spread. 
<>     I wanted to share all the sights and the fun of the tour of old England with the other four Gunns, and the dozens of cousins I’ve met here and there, and the Edsel I passed on the main thoroughfare.
<>     I’m wearing your shirts, so comfy and long, still pound out and sing your favorite songs, try to keep up the Blazer the way you would do, and turn on your “toe lights” when each day is through.
<>     I know you’ll be happy for this glad event; your whole big retirement is now being sent to my bank account, just as you would want. You can now rest assured I’m not starving and gaunt.
<>     We now have a traffic light at the freeway where we pass underneath going toward Santa Fe. The Bagel House closed, and the auto parts store, so there’s no place to rent a U-Haul anymore.
<>     Just over the hill from our own paradise live David and Coleen—new neighbors so nice—in a house with two decks and a marvelous view, thanks to Tony and Molly, who make dreams come true.
<>     Kooky Red and her roommate today are engaged in building a living-room iguana cage for the fast-growing lizards called Mya and Blue, so that Dianne can soon have her own bedroom, too.
     With pictures and poems, I made you a book named just “Old Weird Harold”, which I undertook when those two sweet grandsons, Joel and Jake,  petitioned me for a special keepsake. In it they will find some things that you wrote, of selling the farm and life’s anecdotes. Your writing is published now, better than Poe, with more wit and humor and useful info.
     I’ve started to cover the dining room wall with things from the farm so we can recall the good things that happened in those happy years before we retired and became mountaineers.
     That squirrel is back, digging under the house; I guess he may think that since I’ve no spouse to deal with his sneaky but cute rodent ways, he’ll now have free reign for the rest of his days. I’m using big rocks to perhaps slow him down, and if that doesn’t work, there’s concrete around to cover the holes like you did at first, and squirrel stew, maybe, if worse comes to worst.
     It’s not as much fun watching “Whose Line?” without you to share in the glee. House cleaning now takes a bit longer, but I’m so glad your soul is set free.
     I need you so often when problems arise, but I try my best to look through your eyes to see a solution just as you would do,and, often as not, use your Krazy Glue. It fixed up the sprayer hose yesterday eve, and I’m slaying weeds like you wouldn’t believe. I’ve done lots of trimming on several trees, declared holy war on the noxious bindweeds, transplanted more cactus, am rocking  the slope, and pamper the grass with water and hope.
     Those scrub oaks have roots much like the mesquite, so many new sprouts, I can hardly compete. So with a small brush and the Roundup I love, I swabbed every leaf,  wearing surgical gloves, and with much trepidation I’m waiting to see if it kills just the bushes and not the pine tree.
     Two sunflower plants, as tall as the eaves, make a natural screen so that no neighbor sees your spot on the porch with that marvelous view,  the mountains that always remind me of you.