Helen, So High

Helen, So High

On a late September Thursday, 2005, within the definition of a balmy, still fetid kind of "when is this humidity going to end?" indian summer, my mother in law, Helen Hanna flew to Norfolk from her sunny, two hundred year old Connecticut farm house to attend the opening night performance of Virginia Stage Company’s production of Crowns. Helen was 84 at the time and, having arranged meticulously for the elaborate elder care details of her ailing husband of 50 years, she set off on a solo adventure. A gracious Russian immigrant arrived in a Lincoln Town car to drive her to LaGuardia: her sole purpose to support and enjoy, for probably the sixty seventh time in 25 years, the imaginative mind of her beloved son Christopher, artistic director of Virginia Stage Co. Helen, (a young ingenue in her Barnard days) was a life long devotee of the stage, in fact, she met George Hanna, her husband of over fifty years, working in community theatre in Westchester, New York.

The moment I greeted her at Norfolk International Airport she began to regal me with the high points of her bumpy trip down the mid-atlantic coast, specifically, the kindness of a stranger who assisted her navigation of the labyrinthine machinations of Dulles Airport, Washington D.C. Arriving upon the arm of a quintissential southern gentleman, to the gate that would bridge her journey to Norfolk, a fellow passenger informed her that her compatriot had been none other than U.S. Senator John Warner, that dashing and eternal U.S. Senator of Virginia, perhaps more widely known as husband number 4 or 6 or 8 of Elizabeth Taylor. Senator Warner, with his undeniable charisma had won her over and inflated her spirit to such a degree that she was emboldened to flirt I think, just a little. For a few moments, she returned to the ingenue of her college years, Helen Phillips Hanna, ever demure and thoroughly engaged in the presence of chivalry and the attentions of a kind and generous man. For these brief moments, gently led by a man of integrity, glamour, beauty and intelligence, she escaped the role of dutiful daughter turned wife, procurer of tired rattan trays set with tin flatware, applesauce, rice pudding and milky tea, delivered diligently three times a day to a husband, diminished for years by weakening lung capacity, unable, though perhaps unwilling, to lift up off a dusty and ancient sofa to meet the dignity of a table well laid.

I deposited Helen at her winter home, two doors down from the love nest Chris and I have created over our 14 years on East Severn Road. We would share five winters with her in this manner, she and George summering in their diminutive Connecticut farm house, wintering in the milder temperatures of Tidewater, Virginia. For Helen to make this time for herself to enjoy her river cottage south of the Mason Dixon line, was a respite she courageously carved out for herself and in perfect health and mood, I left her to her thoughts.


On Friday, at about 5:30pm , driving home from my jewelry studio, my cell phone rang. Answering, I heard the ominously anxious voice of my beloved, asking me to come to DePaul's emergency room, where he'd taken his mother who thought she was having a heart attack or a stroke. Being asked to arrive at an emergency room is tantamount to blowing a cosmic dog whistle that only I can hear. There is a Saint Bernard with a life-giving cask of brandy around her neck who took up residence in my heart when I was ten years old and I relish being called into service in times of drama, trepidation, worry or imminent death. Adrenaline kicks in and my sense of purpose on the planet is completely engaged. Actualized in my fullest potential, I am Florence Nightengale in a dog suit, ready and on the spot to save the day or die in the attempt. Say what you will, I bring a certain undeniable confidence to the impending death scenario. Fascinated by the process? You betcha! Energized by the beauty of the leaving, absolutely! I just LOVE being in the presence of the peacfully departing.

I arrived to fetid ambulance exhaust wafting into the cloying heat and humidity of a drab hospital emergency room, where the notion of functioning air conditioning has apparently been usurped by an automatic door that refused to close. Among the hurt and ailing gathered in their gloom of pain, there sat Chris with his mother, saying his goodbyes, while Helen slumped in the shabby blue wheelchair she'd been put into, her blouse asymetrically buttoned, unable to keep her eyes open. Her speech was slow, she had difficulty connecting the dots of her thoughts and she said she "just didn't feel like herself, almost as if she were outside of her self". I knew fairly quickly what the problem was.

Shortly, she asked me to help her to the bathroom and there was born the dynamic of helping my mother in law onto the toilet. This moment is important, for there now exists between us a humbling and loving intimacy that we had not, til now, had the opportunity to show one another. While she tinkles, so softly into the bowl, I ask what she has eaten today. She inventoried her breakfast of peanut butter toast, her lunch of soup and a pear, and then uttered the statement I assumed would be next: "oh and I found those little brownies you left for me in the freezer and I had THREE!"

Yes, I had left little chocolate cupcake shaped brownies in Helen's freezer because in her absence, it was her kitchen where I baked medicinal marijuana brownies for a friend of mine with brain cancer. I baked at Helen's to avoid Jesse's inevitable "mom, what is that funky smell?" inquiry. It had been several days since I'd made them and I kept reminding myself that I needed to get them out of her freezer.

When I pulled Chris aside and told him what I knew to be the truth he was furious! Not many people have seen my husband angry because it just doesn't happen very often...but believe me, he was mad enough that my first question was, "are you going to divorce me? " He said, "No, I'm going to go open my show while you deal with this situation you've created." So he and Jesse said goodbye and I sat down to wait for Helen to be seen by a doctor. By the time we did move back to cubicle three her nausea had passed, and she was beginning to feel a little better.

Now, I doubt that many of you have pondered what you'd do in my situation: You've inadvertently gotten your 85 year old mother in law very, very high on the active ingredient in cannabis...THC. You are so very relieved that A., she’s not dying and B., you know what the problem is. But what of the ethical dilemma? In all honesty, you can't make a bad situation worse by adding the cost of unnecessary tests to what is quickly becoming a laughable situation. If you are like me, which is to say somewhat of a coward, you can't even tell her what's going on because it's just too complicated to explain to a very stoned elderly person that your belief in the healing and soothing power of marijuana for medicinal purposes is something you are willing to break the law over. But the real truth is that I'm afraid of being judged and so I cop out and don't tell her what's going on.
And then we proceed to have the sweetest, most intimate time of our nearly 20 year relationship. The beautiful thing about Helen is the way she mirrors the love and compassion we are each capable of. She tells me how much I've meant to her, I tell her how much she's been the good mother to me. When she tries to go philosophical she can't make her thoughts connect into sentences, is frustrated and incredulous at her inability to think in a straight line! Over and over I tell her "let it go, it will come back around." Asking Helen Hanna to let go of something she's after, like coherent thought, is tantamount to asking her to give up chocolate. Or brownies for that matter!

Finally, about 9pm, 5 or 6 hours after she's ingested enough THC to last a cancer patient about a week, a tall, kind and compassionate doctor arrives and begins to interview her. She is still speaking slowly: and challenged to hold onto a conversational thread but this woman is DETERMINED to be understood and given the God-like status she bestows on male physicians and her almost flirtatious manner toward doctors in general, it is just an awe-inspiring sight to see her engage fully with this man asking her to follow his finger as he creates an arc in the air, her determination to touch that hand when instructed as it moves slowly in front of her, her own ability to count backwards and forwards with her own fingers. In other words, she passes the basic neurological tests with flying colors. And let me tell you, she is darned proud of herself and so am I! When the doctor completes his exam and turns to go order scans and blood work and x-rays and what have you, I follow him out and ask for a private audience.

I ask if I may speak off the record, he says,

"Yes, of course."

"I have a friend with brain cancer and sometimes all she can eat is brownies and sometimes those brownies have THC in them and sometimes they don't and I believe my mother in law has ingested THC. "

"Well, that is something we would normally check for."

"And I don't want to go to jail."

"Well, it won't be because of me".

THANK YOU DOCTOR~ THANK YOU SO MUCH!

So, blood work is done and ultimately the doctor comes back to privately tell me that THC is "on board" and that given how strong her vitals are and that she is in my care, they would like to release her and send her home. Don't you love that? "In the care of " the daughter in law who left marijuana brownies in her freezer. I wish I could adequately describe the thrill and collective smirk of the emergency room personnel as, one by one, they heard this story. "hey, did you hear about cubicle three?? 85 years old and high as a kite."

I took my dear mother in law home, put her to bed, removed the brownies from her freezer and went home gratified and humbled to have dodged a bullet that hours before Chris and Helen had briefly thought might kill her. The next morning she was amazed to feel absolutely wonderful and her old self. The treasure of this entire ordeal/experience was her sincere gratitude at being alive to live one more day. And that she didn't miss Crowns! She saw it Saturday night and loved it~
The story would end here if I hadn’t shared the story with my friend Sonja. She’s a brilliant radiation-oncologist and she said adamantly, “you have to tell her”. And why hadn’t I told Helen that she wasn’t dying? The truth is I was so guilt ridden and ashamed that it took me almost a month to gather my courage to call her and tell her what had really happened that night. My fear was that she would judge me, but no, that would be my own reflection looking back at me. My mother in law, Helen? She laughed out loud and said,
“My goodness, I’ve had my first slice of pizza this year, you introduced me to sushi and now I’ve taken marijuana!”

Helen Hanna died on April 2, 2008.

May she rest in peace with lots of chocolate and brownies and tall handsome doctors.