Charlie Visits

My brother came to visit this weekend, it has been a very long time…

Charlie lives in North Salt Lake in a nursing home called Green Gables. (I wonder if he has seen Anne of Green Gables…ha, ha, ha…I love that movie :)) He is older than me by 4 1/2 years. He is an artist, very creative, intelligent and I remember his drawings as a teenager, they were fabulous. In high school he created the most amazing candy house I've ever seen, it looked like a temple, it was all white, intricately decorated with dangling icicles, windows, doors, shutters, and so much more. He liked rock music and had pictures of the band Kiss hung all around his bedroom. He used to paint his face to look like the band players…Paul and Gene are the two I remember his dressing up as, I thought it was cool and wish I shared his artistic skills.

My Dad worked at Salt Lake International Airport and Charlie knew the name and size of every plane that came and went from the airport. There used to be a viewing area where you could park your car at the end of the runway and watch the airplanes land and take off. We would go there as a family sometimes and watch, but my Dad and Charlie went there often. June and Charlie got to go to work with him sometimes, he worked on the boilers under the airport. I went once, but since he worked nights of course I fell asleep and didn't get to see much. But right before dusk that one time, my Dad took me up into the tower of the airport and I got to turn on the runway lights, man did I think that was cool.

After Charlie graduated high school, he joined the Army to become a helicopter mechanic. While in the Army he changed some and was soon diagnosed with depression, then bi-polar, next, manic depressive and eventually, after an honorable discharge from the army, schizophrenic. Unfortunately, this has hidden his talents so much that we don't get to see that side of him anymore.

The ups and downs over the years had been very difficult for him until somehow he found this new home, Green Gables. Since he is a vet he has resources and social workers, nurses, etc. that have helped him find some kind of normal. Life was really hard for him, drugs, alcohol, voices in his head telling him strange and untrue things. He traded his car once for drugs, stupid people…I somehow hunted down the people who had taken the car…and the people who handle his money eventually rounded it up and sold it so that couldn't happen again.

I don't get to see him much, but sometimes he comes up here and stays for a few days over the weekend. He likes to go the store, buy a paper, water bootle, Dr. Pepper, cigarettes, white bread and ibuprofen. He usually brings a G rated movie to let the kids watch and often picks one of the kids he feels like spoiling that time and give them a gift of some sort. Sometimes if I give him a little notice he will go to family events like reunions, but he get very uncomfortable in large groups and often wants to go back home after just a short time there. When he is here he mostly stays in whichever room he is sleeping in, going in and out often to smoke outside.

He rides a shuttle company up here called Salt Lake Express and I pick him up at Bob's gas station in Rigby. It typically takes about four hours for him to get here and he seems exhausted by the time I pick him up. Since he takes some sedating drugs for anxiety he will often take one of those after he gets here so on the first day we don't usually see much of him. Even the car ride home is usually just yes/no responses to my attempt at communication with him. Sometimes he tells me about field trips they have taken as a group with the Gables. He does't call anyone else to see if he can visit them, I'm not sure why. But I have thankful for the opportunities for him to come here even when it is hard for us sometimes.