While I walked my ten over the past several days, I listened to the audio book of the same title, written by J. A. Jance, who just happens to be my favorite author.
I had read the eBook earlier, soon after it first came out. Becky keeps me in music and books to read or listen to and I thank her for it.
Upon first reading, as is normal for a shameless speed reader such as myself, I devoured the main plot, a tale of cold cases, a serial killer, and family betrayals. It is a great story and I highly recommend it.
However, audio books cannot be speed read. You have to listen to every word and take in every nuance. I realized that intentionally or not, another betrayal was laid out for readers, and it was one that affected my family personally and painfully.
I am talking about the main news story of the period when we were all forced to comply with separation regulations unheard of and unimagined in history as we knew it. The COVID shutdowns.
Reaction to the virus by people in power tore our family apart.. literally...and left us with grief and feelings of guilt that will probably never go away.
Mom and Dad married as kids. I was born when Mom was 19 and the boys followed at intervals thereafter. I kind of grew up with the folks. They stayed together through all kinds of trials and joys and ended up as halves of a powerfully loving whole.
Sometimes I would arrive to visit, Mom would greet me at the door, and we would sit down at the dining room table for coffee. Dad might be upstairs and, being profoundly deaf, would not know I was there. He would randomly holler down the stairs, “I love you.” Mom would holler back up, “I love you.”
It was just something they did to keep in touch…to stay close…even when they were separated.
Because otherwise, they never were, apart that is. During each of their several hospitalizations over the years, at least they could visit one another, but otherwise they lived their lives as close as two people can be. I was always somewhat in awe of that, as it takes a lot of giving to share yourself that way.
Then came the disease and the betrayal too. Mom was suddenly hospitalized for an unrelated medical issue. Dad could not cope without her there. I moved in, but diffident, timid, soul that I am, I was a terrible substitute. Things didn’t go well, and I convinced him to be taken to the hospital for evaluation. Mom was released into what we thought was a good nursing home, and he ended up there too.
Good thing, right, both in the same place? Nope, they were in separate wards and thanks to the shutdown, we were not permitted to visit or even talk to their “caregivers” face-to-face. It was horrible.
Dad caught the disease and gave it to Mom during a brief visit between them.
I won’t share the details, but mistakes were made, some of them well-meaning, some of them because people were afraid of the disease and, being unobserved by caring family members, could get away with egregious neglect and abuse.
When they let Mom have her phone and we found out about these things we tried to remedy the situation over the office phone…when anyone answered it that is. They often didn’t and we went hours and days with no contact.
I shudder to think how horrible it was for my parents, the primary victims. Alone, no support, no contact with each other. Dad couldn’t hear, and was hard-pressed to talk on the phone to Mom or to us.
Then he was hospitalized.
All alone. He couldn't even see their family physician, who cared deeply about them, and would have added personal contact to the terrible equation forced on him by the plague. Neither could Mom.
Mom hardly ever had her phone, even after my brother bought her a new one when they “lost” her old one. No phone, no complaints to family members.
Dad was going to be released back to nursing home Hell, when he declined quickly and died.
Mom followed four days later.
The disease was undeniably terrible. We all got it and suffered horribly. Underlying conditions made it harder for some than others.
The betrayal of trust by people who should have had our best interests at heart but clearly didn’t, brought on a nearly universal underlying condition, which contributed heavily to our family’s hardship.
It’s hard to go on living with a broken heart. Mom and Dad just couldn't. I don’t guess the regret ever goes away, but I thank J. A. Jance for writing so brilliantly of the problems, some trivial, some terrible, that we all faced back then.
I think listening to Betrayal of Trust in audio book format helped me come to terms with some of them. Not all of them though.
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