B is for Basil assaulted by Bears (an Edward Gorey alphabet)
Dear friends and readers,
I cannot speak of this as I would to Jim – it’s not allowed in public, it’s dangerous probably. So here is my more usual stance, to friends and friendly readers. If there are sheer voyeurs who come here or anyone who reads this blog hostilely or with sneers of contempt, shame on you; even if no one can out you, minimal decency should make you: go away. Rmember what happened to Gorey’s big black bug who jumped up and down and made personal remarks …
I saw a good lawyer, recommended to me by a friend whose sister was a successful lawyer in the Fairfax area for many years. From a practical standpoint the news is not good. Bad. John Carroll is a strong good man, intelligent, decent. He saw nothing wrong with my statement — I wrote a 3 page statement explaining precisely what happened that day and that my blanking out was the result of weeks of stress and deep grief from Jim’s death, a long day’s driving with no time to eat or sleep, having been pressured to bring a doll to a place I couldn’t find so very bad stress, after weeks of not sleeping enough. I said I never realized I could do such a thing and explained all the measures I was taking to prevent it ever happening again. I included a sheaf of medical reports which showed I have no medical condition (nothing indicating any epilepsy for example), three providers’ reports one of whom wrote it was “extremely unlikely” this would ever happen again. He and I talked for half an hour, and then he said he will try for me; he begins by writing a letter to a commissioner saying “what gives?”. I fulfilled all the conditions the DMV asked for twice, and yet a medical review board meets and votes to carry on the suspension. Why?
And why is the news bad? What he said was I ought to have “due process of law.” That means in the constitution you have the right to challenge a decision; it may be when you go to court, your challenge is denied, but you should have the right to make it. However, said he, “The DMV is not known for its adherence to constitutional rights.” If we don’t have due process, we are not in a good position to lift this suspension, and I am at their mercy. I fear I threw $17,000 out on a car. He was puzzled (as am I now) that the sale and the license and registration was allowed to go through. He said it should not have been were I suspended on that day (but didn’t know this). He will try to look into that. Will I ever get to use that car again? Will it rot sitting there? should I pay for a garage? how do I find a garage to put it in? I’ve no idea what to do when it comes to such things. It seems to me without Jim I am ever coming up against practical things in the world I have no idea how to deal with. When I said this, he said he thought they would lift it eventually. Maybe they are waiting to see if I am epileptic — but I won’t show it in such short time. It didn’t quite make sense. A friend on a list-serv said the date of May 17th was liking pulling a rabbit out of a hat, no rationale.
I told him I had phoned the DMV medical office a second time on Monday because astonishingly to me no letter had yet arrived. I had asked why to be told it was my business to request a letter (“we didn’t know you wanted that” was the dry hard sarcasm); she tried to imply I wanted May 17th, but I replied I got that date from the DMV; she tried to imply it was my responsibility to ask for a letter and medical forms but that cannot be true. She deliberately (I now realize) both times wanted to get me to hang up so she would not have to send any thing, so they would not have to give me any explanation. He then said it would not be useful to call her again. “Don’t phone them again.” (Nonetheless if a letter comes send it to him by scanning it into my computer. I told him I don’t know how to fax anything.)
The lawyer did say if an emergency comes up, and I have no one to turn to (which I will not) and I must use the car, well … go ahead it was implied. Yvette cannot drive. It’s a misdemeanor and yes you could be put in jail, probably for a night, but who knows (in the present atmosphere). The problem nowadays is computers enable cops to type in tag numbers and it will come up that my license is suspended as a flash. As a principle and for my safety I should not drive while we are trying to resolve this. A good friend told me to go out into my car every few days and just run the engine to keep it warm.
Uber cabs are super-expensive. They do show up and usually quickly. Foreign nationals for drivers, men in their thirties in these large black cars that are meant to resemble limousines (they are vans mostly). Very comfortable, the man super-polite. He holds the door open for you to get in and out. There’s bottled water; they make polite talk. Twice now the yellow cab or red top didn’t come, or it was over 30 minutes and none had, so I tapped that Uber app on my iphone and voila ten minutes later there it was. But it’s $60 a ride to and from AU and the same thing to and from this lawyer’s office to my house. I can’t afford that. On Tuesday when I return to AU for the third training session (I had to skip the second because it conflicted with this lawyer’s appointment — it was scheduled ahead because of the snow and I am not the only one of the teachers who will not be able to show up) I will take public transportation — bring a book to read for an hour and a half the way I used to in my twenties when I traveled to Brooklyn College (remote) from my apartment at the top of Manhattan (Washington Heights) about as far as you can get across NYC.
The one bright thing was I have not (not as yet) lost the job to teach Jane Austen. I was able to ask one of the chief organizers about the place I am supposed to teach at. A church on River Road in Bethesda Maryland! If I had a car it’s a drive but nothing onerous (45 minutes) and parking easy but without it I was anticipating a 2 hour Metro plus half hour walk. I wanted someone who was a friend to test drive the way with me; first find the church (what did it look like?) and then what was the walk from the Metro to the church. I feared getting lost in a half hour walk in a totally strange place. Well, he said “Forget it., it’s way too far to walk.” I had no one to take me this coming Sunday anyway. I was so worried I’d lose out in this teaching too, but yesterday morning he moved the course to the one place I can reach by cab, the same building we were in, right next to the AU campus. There’s a shuttle bus to the Metro and the Metro will take me to within 20 minutes of my home where I can walk or take a bus. I offered to make a top of 25 (instead of 15) and he did so. It is the middle of registration and I must hope all my class stays put — I suggested we put the top up to 25 in the hope more will come.
I can’t sleep again. The trazadone (mild prescriptive sedative, anti-anxiety) gives me 4 hours at most; the melantonin (non-prescription) 2 hours. To sleep 6 hours as I did last night I took a restoril. They are so strong I am shaking I slept. I know from long experience I must not take more than 1 a week. I have a bottle full that my good Dr Villafuerte gave me years ago now. My health is deteriorating again. I could not eat any snacks the last two days and am back to losing weight. This is bad for my mental health, to immobilize me so I can’t be with other people. My wonderful grief support person has now volunteered to come to Old Towne (which I can get to by bus) and we’ll meet weekly at Misha’s (Patrick Street coffeehouse.) She deplored this for the sake of my mental and social well-being.
I feel I am being treated as a potential criminal or in fact a criminal. To put someone in jail with no recourse on a charge that is not explained is taking us back to the ancien regime.
What did I do to deserve this kind of harsh punitive treatment? For 34 years I drove and never had an accident; twice I had a tickets for an illegal turn. That’s there in the record. Counts for nothing it seems. I feel like I am a character in Les Miserables and wish there was song for me too or I had a Jean Valjean to be with like Anna Hathaway:
When I left the first training session at AU and it was freezing (18 degrees) so I decided to try the Uber cab for a second time. The woman at the AU running the training session had moved the second one up so I tried to see if I could by cab get home in time to go out to the lawyer, but I couldn’t securely enough to know I’d make the lawyer. To tell the truth I found the first session had little to tell me: I am a trained teacher; the use was (as ever) to meet people and get useful information people just don’t think to put on websites. Like how many classes are in OLLI: 91! or the average top: 25. I had said 15 and realize now that ideal number is not appropriate here. I did meet two people who said how glad they were to meet me at last and one woman who was the speaker so friendly: she reads my blogs and is a long time member of the Victoria list-serv. All this was what I wanted — making friends of people like myself. There will be lectures every Tuesday afternoon. The program sounds delightful: intelligent older people coming back to college (or going for the first time) and study group leaders (=teachers) who are trained in a discipline. One man was a journalist of many years — in Puerto Rico — he grew up in the west Bronx and came over because he recognized my accent immediately.
But when I got out onto the street, my heart began to hurt very bad. I had intense pain in my chest. I was thinking, what am I doing here without Jim? I would not be here were he alive. I began to cry. I sat down on the curb. The world around me was one I didn’t want to be in. Why am I here I asked myself. What am I doing here? Since that DMV phone call this past Thursday I have returned to these 2 hour intervals where I sit and think about death and wonder I am alive and why, and wish my heart would just stop the way poor Jim’s did. I sat with my arms around his chest and watched his chest go still and then the nurse said his heart had stopped. Of course great harrowing suffering had gone on for 3 days (under this super-heavy sedation they were giving him, with pillows everywhere, constant changing of sheets) so it’s not so easy for a heart to stop. I wish it were. He now doesn’t know anything. He doesn’t exist any more. I sit and keen sometimes. I lay on his side of the bed because were I to lay on mine it would be so obvious he’s not there. I wait sometimes ever so quietly to see if my heart will stop too but it doesn’t.
2014 is turning out as hard a year as 2013. I had wanted to go to this 18th century conference in Williamsburg; they are having a masquerade ball. But now I feel after all it would be inappropriate for me. It’s a relief not to have to manage any more than I do now. Which is very little. I just don’t know how to be in the world, how to manage it without him, I continually make mistakes of all sorts, and the world seems to me a place that not for widows like me. I am spending so much money, far too much these past two months. Scary to think about it. Elizanne says I need not have a wider perspective.
I wish there were a grave I could visit. I’d walk there on fine days and sit and read near him again.
Sylvia
Under the Sign of Sylvia II 
I wish I could do something to help. This is very hard.
Yes. I am confronted by a power with a capability to be relentless and apparently one which need not answer to anyone (can that be?) — for the first time in my life.
So sad reading how you feel, Ellen. I know there is nothing I can do, and I am sorry for that. Here in Italy bureaucracy is horribly confused and often one doesn’t know how to cope with it. The good side is that many people simply don’t follow the rules and nothing happens. That’s wrong, but sometimes that helps. And then we have a medical aid that is often basically good, less and less so, but still decent. I wish you any good.
Dear Ellen–To be stuck in bureaucracy as you are over something as critical as being able to drive is so painful, especially at a time when you are already grieving. I am really sorry.
I had a couple of thoughts for what they are worth: In NYS there is a provision for a hardship or conditional license (not sure of the precise name for it) for people whose licenses would have been suspended, but who need to be able to drive to a doctor or to work. If Virginia has that, it could help.
The second is Trazadone: We had a big problem with Trazadone in this house, because it is known to cause cognitive difficulties and also bone marrow abnormalities. The brand name version of this drug was taken off the market years ago. In this house, bone marrow problems happened. Once he got off the Trazadone (we did a long taper), his blood levels improved and he felt better. Subsequent doctors have said that if they get a patient on Trazadone, they take the person off it immediately. So — first things first — if you haven’t had a CBC (complete blood count) done within the last six months, it might be worthwhile asking your doctor to order one.
As you probably know, in the first year after a spouse’s death, the survivor is particularly vulnerable for significant illness herself. So, I hope that you have a primary care provider — or one of your other doctors — whom you like and who can keep an eye on things.
Your posts are a gift, Ellen.
Martha Deed
Thank you for telling me about the trazadone. It was making me sleep; if it doesn’t work any more and is dangerous to my cognitive abilities (that’s all I need), I had better stop. I don’t have great deal of respect for this Kaiser psychiatrist – he recommends continuing medicines which are chosen because they are cheaper than newer ones for example.
Someone said: “Ellen … sorry to hear about what you are going through and hope it turns out okay. It is difficult dealing with any agency and hopefully they will grant you some type of license even if it is to work and back, Kayla”
Me: No they won’t, Kayla. The woman had triumph in her voice. Some agencies do observe due process; they do explain why and you can challenge it. I suppose were I dependent on a job I might find some recourse (this is in part answer to Martha too), but I’d lose the job by the time I’d found it. They care nothing for me and this is not for the public as the papers are all in order and show a repeat is “extremely unlikely.”
Kayla: “that is unbelievable and I do hope something can be done.”
Me: “Why is it unbelievable, Kayla? In the US the prison system can put a man away for 40 years for possession of marijuana? and throw him into solitary confinement if they so please. What’s being done to me is small beans in such a world as we live.”
Kayla: “why I say it is unbelievable is that we think we have freedom and we do to an extent but then when some people become “judge and jury” they think they are doing good but are they?”
Me: “Ah you mean “unbelievable” metaphorically not literally. Well from the time I was 4 I knew that people are capable to doing anything horrible as you may imagine to others, all sorts of people. And that the idea they are motivated by thinking they are doing good is probably naive — sorry don’t mean to condescend as you have had a far more sophisticated active life and been far more successful than I with people. I’d say the people at the DMV are first of all protecting ther place in the organization and making it powerful and there were a couple of people on that board whose interest it suited to be harsh and indifferent, knowing all the while they hadn’t evidence on their side. That’s why they didn’t want to send a letter of explanation. So maybe a lawyer will help — he said it was dubious because we may not have the right to due process.
I’m so sorry, Ellen. Such a difficult time. Sharing your grief with us helps us better understand all who are threatened with bears or thrown out of the sleigh.
Ellen,
I have been following your blogs on this and my heart goes out to you. I find the situation almost incomprehensible and hope the fact you have a lawyer will help. I will paraphrase Goethe: In solitude we develop our talents; in the billows of life we develop our character. I wouldn’t wish this on anybody but getting through it day by day is a testament to your fortitude and courage.
I had no idea that US Government agencies could be so contemptuous of the law and common decency. It’s a disgrace. Here there is always an ombudsman who one can go to to sort a Government agency out, if they overstep the mark. After that there are the courts. I do hope your lawyer has some success. One can see that if one did not have the money for a lawyer, justice would be totally unavailable.
Clare
Yes the US govt or its representatives or people in the US will boast about how they have rights that the British don’t have because they are made explicit under the constitution as well as the bills of rights and the declaration of independence. The truth is by this early 21st century it has come to pass that many many agencies ignore individual rights of all sorts, and not only sweep by them, they turn the original thing forbidden in some laws into precisely what they are going to do. One of the provisions of the bill of rights say the gov’t will not tax or charge as a penalty money enough to destroy the person. Well that’s what agencies have been doing on and off since the McCarthy era. Snowden gets hysterical (he does) over the NSA storing who we talk or write to; I’ve learned the individual citizen has no privacy against a number of agencies looking into his or her medical records, bank accounts and other central ownerships the individual needs to have or to protect to survive. This links up to the conversation we had on Trollope19thCStudies where someone said (was it you) that the global reach of these states, their militaries and the corporations which feed and support them goes so far they look upon themselves an invulnerable, all powerful, able to act without impunity.
Yes it was me, Ellen. Sometimes I think the world has gone crazy. Everywhere Governments find excuses to erode our rights. Government agencies that are supposed to be held to public scrutiny get away with things. The hospital I was in recently has just suspended the CEO for nepotism. This was only achieved by a brave whistleblower. What’s the betting they get the sack in time. Even here whistleblowers are vulnerable
Clare
Dear Ellen,
I wish you strength in this difficult time. Taking care of your health is vital when you are facing so many stresses.
Here’s a poem from Muriel Rukeyser’s 1948 book The Green Waves. It was a challenging time for her both personally and politically:
Salamander
Red leaf. And beside it, a red leaf alive
flickers, the eyes set wide in the leaf head,
small broad chest, a little taper of flame for tail
moving a little among the leaves like fear.
Flickering red in the wet week of rain
while a bird falls safely through his mile of air.
Warm Wishes,
Carol
Thank you. She is a great poet. Ellen
I don’t like of course – very sorry. Ironic how this draconian and stifling bureaucracy exists in the land of the free – I had no idea ; not an America which reaches those of us who take most of our ideas from film and television.
I am not sure what American reaches the public outside it by film: I imagine the vast wretched poverty may not. I used to say that the cultural norms of a society were more important than its economic system in the experience of life there; now I’ll say that whatever laws are on the books, rights, as literally understood are much less important too – and the cultural norms here now and as enacted by US powerful people and their military are punitive and severely conformist to conventions of power if you want to have a job (so if you want to survive). You saw what happened to the large city of Boston the day two men set off two bombs during a parade: it was literally shut down and hundreds of heavily armed men swarmed everywhere, with computerized information to help them on their hunt. The US is said to be the only “developed” or western or whatever word is now used country to use the death penalty.