Blog 3376 – 01.30.2025
Cleanliness Is Next To Godliness
For all but the last couple of years during my soon to be thirty-six years of being married to my lovely and loving wife Linda Lee, I admit she has perhaps not been the best house keeper, me either to be honest. Our home was quite cluttered (but comfortable) as to varying degrees neither one of us was very good at letting things go, other than house work that is.
Almost two years ago after a painful and scarring bout with shingles and taking some pretty heavy duty medication prescribed by her doctor, Linda had what I describe as a psychic break. She was delusional, not herself at all, and quite paranoid and so I called my son Jay to help me get her to the nearest hospital emergency room, for I knew she would not go willingly. I was correct, still Jay was able forcefully, yet lovingly to help me get her to the hospital. After being hospitalized for testing which took about a week her psychiatrist advised me that she was not eating or taking her meds and that the hospital could not force her to eat or take the medication, but that a behavioral rehabilitation center might have better luck. Linda and I had had our wills done a year or so before and had Durable Powers of Attorney done as well so that we could as necessary act on behalf of one another. I therefore signed to have Linda put in the nearest behavioral facility that was taking patients and that would accept her insurance. It was especially awful for us both (her more than me I am sure) because Covid lockdown at the time meant that I was not allowed to visit her there as I had been at the hospital except for a couple of days they had her in a locked down room on the Covid floor at the hospital. I called her nurse twice a day to check on her and they said they were getting her to eat and take her meds.
After two weeks they called me to come get her and take her home. They gave me no real diagnosis or even clear instructions as to what I was supposed to do except to fill two prescriptions and be sure she took them. Of course she refused to take them or to eat much of anything so a couple of weeks later fearing that she might starve herself to death if I did not do something, I called my son again. Jay’s wife Lauren is an RN and so was her mother Judy and they recommended that we take Linda to Judy’s hospital for a second opinion. We did.
And though the doctors said up front they would not need to run all the same test again they ended up doing just that and still no clear diagnosis finally after about a week they told me to take her home. I refused a couple of days trying to force them to give me a diagnosis. They did not only to say that she probably needed to be in a long care facility which her insurance would not cover and we could not afford. And so I brought Linda home.
She has never been the same and has an almost constant battle during her waking hours with voices that are threatening her or the life of our granddaughter Emma Grace. Linda is convinced that I can hear those voices and even accuses me or her mother who spends most Mondays and Fridays with us of saying things to her that we absolutely never would say.
Those voices torment Linda in several ways. They tell her that the food I just prepared for her is someone else’s, same with her clothes, and constant threats of harm to her or our beloved Emma Grace. But one of the most mysterious things the voices have her doing is cleaning the house. Nightly she spends hours scrubbing both bathrooms and several times a week sweeps and mops the whole house.
The book of James says that we show our true faith by our actions. Those actions if not faith based, but rather moved by our phobias and obsessions are very unhealthy. How can cleaning be unhealthy you say. Well, the way Linda goes at it wrestling furniture around and jerking this and twisting that, I am ever fearful that she might hurt herself.
It breaks my heart to see my wife so unhappy. She told me once in one of her more lucid moments, “I will never forgive you for putting me in that place.” I am determined to never ever do that again if I can help it, but to allow Linda the freedom of her own house to clean or not, to eat in or not, but to have as much freedom and independence as possible for one so oppressed by voices that no one else can hear.
My third wife, Sandra, my dearly departed daughter Emily’s mother, was diagnosed bi-polar and schizophrenic and even institutionalized for over a year in state psychiatric hospitals twice in her life. The seven years that I was married to Sandra were good preparation for being patient with Linda. The New Testament says “tribulation works patience.” I never pray for patience for I have had more than enough trouble without asking for it.
Is cleanliness next to godliness really? I am not so sure. Actually Peanuts’ character Pig Pen has always been one of my heroes. If it comes to neat or happy, I choose happy.
Your friend and fellow traveler,
David White
P.S. Linda Lee’s battle like all of our battles here are mostly with ourselves and in our own minds, but the day is coming when peace shall reign and we shall study war no more.
Down By The Riverside Pete Seeger 7 24 1963
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