"My Declaration of Independence"

 

            Over the last half year, a friend caused me pain and sorrow. The details don’t matter. In the past, the old me would’ve accepted her cut-and-paste explanations that appeared in a few texts and with birthday and Christmas cards. My weaknesses to walk in another person’s shoes to understand their reasons would’ve made me not only accept her excuses, but empathize with her. My desire not to cause waves or do anything more that would risk our friendship would’ve led me to mentally offering her a period of grace to remedy the hurt.

            My self-talk, in the past, would’ve gone like this: She really is extremely busy. She isn’t intentionally leaving me out. She wants to see me, but other people take priority.

            “Past Me” would’ve provided even more excuses for her beyond the artificial ones she repeatedly gave. I would’ve talked myself into believing her wishes superseded mine. I would’ve responded to her minimal contact with upbeat, understanding texts or calls.

            My best friend died this spring from Alzheimer’s. Sometimes she initiated contact with me, and we’d circle round, round, round and round with her memories or her latest obsessive topic. Her steadfast love for me never wavered. When she called me twenty times a day, I’d stop whatever I was doing to rerun the same conversation. It didn’t matter. I could remember the girls and women we once were, even if she couldn’t. With our last conversation, we talked of music and our dogs. She knew me in that moment, and held me special in her life.

            This other friend’s rejection, no matter how I tried to justify or rationalize it, made me realize that “Past Me” needed to be buried once and for all.

            I wrote a letter.

            Hand written.

            Posted just like hundreds of other letters sent to this friend.

            I released her from any obligation she may feel to continue our bond.

            I wrote my own Declaration of Independence. I repeated her many excuses sent to me that proved she no longer needed me. I reminded her of our history together and added that the tapestry that we sewed together had tied its final knot.

            This Declaration marked an important change for me. I’ve come to realize that friends should grace my life and not diminish me.

 

Copyright 2025 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

“More Time”

 

            "Sabrina: More isn't always better, Linus. Sometimes it's just more." 

 

            One of my favorite scripts is the play Sabrina Fair by Samuel A. Taylor. Every year, I re-center myself with either the Bogart/Hepburn/Holden 1954 version or the Ford/Ormond/Kinnear 1995 adaptation. I don’t over analyze why this play takes a special place in my heart. Sometimes, things just are a certain way, and you embrace the enchantment.

            When Julia Ormond’s Sabrina reminds Linus “Sometimes it’s just more”, my soul resonates. So many people I know have bogged themselves into the quagmire that more must be better, and spend a tremendously horrendous amount of time, energy, and funds into pursuing the  “Next Best” while their become entrapped in misery. None of their possessions—houses, cars, airplanes, boats—matter.

            My best friend from high school died a couple of months ago from early onset Alzheimer’s while another cherished soul lost her battle with cancer the other day. I struggle with wishing there had been “more” for them. More time for them to sing. More time for them to laugh. More time for them to love. More time for them to be.

  

Mary Edmondson Poarch

           

Copyright 2024 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

“Suzette”

 
            Suzette’s easy smile and throaty laugh drew me to her side when I entered the room. Sitting next to her in German class changed my life forever. Our fourteen year old souls recognized a link that bound us together for more than fifty years. Our surreptitiously passed notes carried our idealistic passion for life woven together with Suzette’s worries about her parents’ divorce and my angst over fitting in at school. We spent school hours together snickering at our own follies over high school crushes. Once her parents divorced and her mother moved into the apartment complex in our neighborhood, our afternoons and evenings stretched together. We applied to Trinity University and were both accepted. My father’s job change and my family’s move to League City meant I shifted to Texas A&M, with its lower tuition and housing costs.
            That separation, one that could’ve undermined our friendship, brought us even closer. Thick volumes of endless letters wove us together with our dreams and doubts stuffed into envelopes taped together with our optimistic hope. I understood her perfectionism, her passion for languages and music—and life. When she came back from her first trip to France, thin from living off of cheese, bread, and language, we celebrated her tale of a local woman’s astonishment that she was an American—and a Texan at that!
            Life events swept us up and along: marriages for both of us, child for me, divorce for her. My roots sank into one home and career while her passions for music and languages swept her to California and Tennessee, and many places in Europe. Our letters became less frequent, but we shared all of the burdens of adulting as the years passed. When Suzette began her first struggles, though, she didn’t let me know.
            One day in 2019, Suzette called me with the news that she’d returned to Texas! Her new address, fifteen minutes away, thrilled me. Our reunion became bittersweet within minutes as she told me about her hardships back in Nashville. She recounted struggling to focus at work and eventually not being able to hold down jobs. Both her sister and her mother had helped her find a doctor in Texas that she hadn’t seen yet. By our next visit, her optimism gave me hope that new medications would start impacting her thought processes. Her life became a script on an oversized calendar where she notated minutiae to hold onto moments. Unable to get a driver’s license, I’d pick her up for shopping or lunch out when her mother wasn’t available. Her sister could only find a practical, stark apartment open within easy driving distance from her mother’s place. We softened it with wall hangings, rugs, and soft throws. Someone had furniture in storage, and her place gradually filled with her gentleness. When she couldn’t remember how to work her DVD player, we’d run over for an in-person review with my husband bringing his guitar for music and food. When she met someone through her mother, she moved into a nicer place that ended up flooded by frozen pipes during the Texas freeze. We talked often. Eventually, she moved into a cozy small RV nestled by the river. I met her boyfriend, fell in love with her small dog, and tried to hold onto Suzette with each visit.
            I worried when she didn’t answer her phone. I left tons of messages for her. Eventually, Suzette called to let me know that she was in Florida to be closer to her sister, and to have more help by moving into assisted living. Sometimes Suzette would call me and loop into conversations. I always picked my phone, no matter where I was or what I was doing. We’d chat about her dog that she missed. We talked about my family. We talked about her day, my day, and anything that grounded her to the present. For many weeks, my messages went unanswered, but I left them in case an aide or her sister checked them. During our last conversation in March, she knew me.
            I hold onto that.
          Suzette’s friendship made me a better person. She taught me kindness. Her passion for music helped me understand my own son’s healthy obsessions with music and art. Her openness and generosity guided me through many difficult times. I will gather strength from the girls we used to be and women we grew into to make it through this next life passage without her.

Backwoods Volunteers

Suzette in France

Suzette 2015

Suzette with me- 2019 in Gruene, TX

Copyright 2024 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman
 
   

“The Weight of Her Sorrows”

her beloved child

unique

irreplaceable

each day a miracle

she shelters

advocates

her joy wrapped in loss

 

her life partner

unchanging

dedicated

each day a miracle

she lingers

vigilant

her love imprisoned by illness

 

her treasured sister
precious
prized
each day a miracle
she weeps
alone
her life changed by chance
 
her independent life
unconventional
melodic
each day a miracle
she fades
diminished
her essence cut by dementia
 

   

Copyright 2023 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

“Labels Make a Difference”

 

            The news of Robin Williams’s suicide sent me spinning. I recalled his interviews where he admitted his struggle with substance abuse and depression. The two often go hand-in-hand because many people with depression “self-medicate” with alcohol or drugs. I don’t want to go into the biology of the brain when considering both addiction and depression, but I do want to talk about the label “Mental Illness.”

            Why do we treat individuals suffering from brain chemistry disorders as though they are second class citizens needing to feel shame for their differences? We section off mood and psychotic disorders into an entirely separate category from the rest of our bodies, and that differentiation impacts how our society views wellness. We cling to a mindset that illnesses that affect the brain and personality are personal weaknesses.  

            No one blames the patient who slowly slips away with Alzheimer’s disease, nor ridicules the Parkinson sufferer for not controlling his motions. Instead, we run marathons to find cures for these diseases. And yet we treat patients with depression as though they’ve done something wrong. They are somehow responsible for the malfunctioning within their brains. If they really wanted to, they could “snap out of it” because they have good lives—people who love them, care for them.

            By labeling an entire range of disorders as “Mental Illness”, we’ve fooled ourselves into a belief system that these diseases aren’t as important to treat or cure.  Every time a tragedy rips through a family—like with a suicide; or a society—like with a mass killing, we pretend to care. For a week or two our media bombards us with signs, symptoms and treatments. But nothing really changes.

            And so sadness envelops us the day after another loss. I’ll read all kinds of articles about “Mental Illness” and feel frustrated because the label itself carries its negative connotations. And labels make a difference to that fourteen-year-old girl starving herself to shed another five pounds, to that seventeen-year-old who cuts herself just to “feel something.” Labels make a difference to that mother who cannot bond with her baby, to that alcoholic grandfather who must drink just to function.

 

Copyright 2014 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman