DESERT LILY

A LOVE STORY

OF HOPE & EXPECTATION

When I was fifteen-years-old, I heard a giggle that set my heart aflutter and my eye a-searching until I lit upon the cutest most vivacious girl in my third hour Biology class. She was having an animated conversation with a group that was obviously entertained by her laughter. Suddenly, as though drawn by my intruding eye, she glanced my way. Embarrassed, I wanted to turn away but couldn’t, and when she smiled broadly, I instantly fell in love with her. I was sure it was fate not the teacher that seated us close together, and when she said, “Hi, my name’s Donna,” I was so smitten I stumbled over my own name until she said it for me and added, “I know ’cuz the teacher called your name three times before you answered him.”

Alas, love-at-first-sight didn’t turn into a date with Donna. After a year or so, I got the nerve to ask her, but she turned me down … not once, but several times. I didn’t get to first base until after we graduated, although our first date was more like an intentional walk than a base hit. But I was tenacious, and when we were the ripe old age of twenty-two, Donna and I married and began a family. We were so happy, it seemed as though our love would carry us through any bumpy road that lay ahead.

Sometimes, though, love isn’t enough. Things began to change, and I saw my beautiful flower wither before my eyes and sink into a deep depression that soon consumed us both. The spontaneous energy that I had seen for so many years was replaced by overwhelming sadness, periods of panic, fearful outbursts, and compulsive episodes of frantic cleanliness.

My lovely bride, who had been a striking lily, shrunk into a curled ball that sunk like a withered floral bulb in the soil. My yearning for her to overcome her sorrow and burst from her depths as the flower I knew gave way to despair when she repeatedly expressed her fear that she would never bloom again. We felt helpless and hopeless.

Then, after years of treatments and periods of hospitalizations, my mother … a collector of advice columns from newspapers …told us about  Recovery Incorporated, a support group founded by Chicago psychiatrist Dr. Abraham Low in 1937. At Donna’s very first meeting, she learned the mantra “helplessness is not hopelessness,” and although she initially repeated it without believing it, she was on the road to recovery.

After showing improvement, Donna became a Recovery assistant leader and then served as a group leader for fifteen years, including five years as an Area Leader. In the beginning, I was lost and felt left behind. Then Donna discovered Relatives Incorporate, an off-shoot of Recovery that followed Recovery practice as described by Dr. Low in his book Lectures to Relatives. At the start, she thought of Relatives as her defense to keep me out of her way so she could do her Recovery work without my interference. But it wasn’t long before I, too, found support to deal with my own symptoms. After months of training, I began to see that I had to deal with my own symptoms and allow Donna to exercise her own self-leadership. With continued practice, I led a Relatives group for about ten years, serving a time as vice-president of the organization.

Donna was a devoted self-help advocate, and she and I returned our gratitude for Recovery’s method by making a small contribution with our leadership—a minuscule payment when compared to what we gained. Recover was a life saver and guide for our future.

Dr. Abraham Low offered people like us hope when he said, “Don’t go on constantly discouraging yourselves by thinking that your vitality is gone and dead. It is merely dormant. It hibernates. … And you can reactivate it if you stop maintaining that anything in your body is dead. Nature works differently. There is nothing dead in the body if you are alive … (but) it may be dormant; it may be asleep, inactive.” (From Manage your Fears, Manage your Anger, page 68.)

Hope was the water on our desert that nurtured our resolve to overcome the symptoms of mental illness that had threatened to destroy us. Hope braced us to seek the kind of professional care and peer group support that was necessary for full recovery. Though many years would pass before victory could be declared, hope had softened the soil that had hardened our garden and continued to feed us until the lovely lily I remembered from long ago blossomed again.

It is true that love is not enough. But love and hope can provide the driving force for finding courage and utilizing the tools necessary for building a happy and joyful life. The girl I heard that morning in high school grew into a beautiful woman who dedicated her life to her family and to helping others find their way to mental health. Though she has passed away, her story and mine live in the novel Desert Lily.

Oh … and so does her giggle.