The Verdict Please

I have a sour taste in my mouth and a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. I keep trying to shed it but it follows me around like a balloon full of static that I can’t get away from. It’s annoying and I’m not sure what the hell to do with the damn thing. I want to stick a knife in it. Bust it. Hear it explode. Watch it fall to the ground. See its limp shrivelled up shell lying at my feet and know that it’s never going to bother me again but I have a sneaking suspicion it will.

I got a call yesterday morning from the head of staff at the lodge where Mom lives. She received the letter I wrote and addressed to “Administration”. The letter was basically a recount, a more factual explanation of what I wrote about on my blog Sunday February 3rd in regards to Mom and her care in the lodge. The reason for her call was to ask if my sister and I could meet with her and a few other people in order to go over the concerns I had expressed in the letter.

We went. 10 people showed up – all staff who were on duty at the time including the actual care aid in question. (I’m not sure who was watching the residents during that time and I wish I would have thought of asking.) The head of staff read my letter out loud to everyone there and then asked if I had anything to add to which I replied that my concerns were pretty much explained in the letter.

She read my words in a kind way yet somehow I felt like “I” was on trial awaiting sentence from the judge and jury. And today, 24 hours later, I still have that icky feeling – the kind I get in the pit of my stomach when I watch someone who’s been beaten by her mate or raped by a stranger sit in the witness stand and while being cross examined is made to look and feel like she’s the one who did something wrong, like she deserved or asked for such atrocities.

I don’t know exactly what happened at the meeting but my stomach feels like I’ve swallowed some sour milk and I’m not sure exactly what to do about it except to spit it out in my blog. At least here I have the freedom to say what I want and need to say without having my words brushed aside or being made to feel like I’m the bad guy in a nice way. I’ve never been very good at this kind of charade where people two-step around the issues and are so practiced at it that they look like the bell of the ball and I look like I’m tripping over my own feet.

I’m not a fast talker and I am a firm believer in hearing what people have to say. But I should know by now that this is something that works well in my counselling office and is not necessarily the best thing to do when I’m the one trying to be heard. Mostly, they talked. I listened. Before I knew it they were talking about how efficient they were at working everything out when nothing had actually been resolved.

These kinds of games are confusing to me and it’s insidious how they actually unfold. I didn’t observe any resolution or solutions. The only thing I observed was talk about the issues at hand going around and around in circles and getting nowhere because everyone was concentrating on not dropping the ball.

What I’m kicking myself about today is that while I could feel my stomach churning and turning more and more sour by the minute, I couldn’t think fast enough to put any of my thoughts into words. Their words kept pouring into me and mine didn’t seem to have a chance to get out. The next thing I knew the lady who had started the meeting by reading my letter was saying how nice it was that everything was resolved and the care aid in question was even being commended for doing a good job.

I, on the other hand, felt like my very legitimate concerns were craftily brushed aside as a “cellular incident”, that no one else had such concerns, and that maybe I’m the one who had jumped the gun and who should bow down and say thank you very much for your time. Although no verdict or sentence was actually handed down, I could almost hear the words, “and the verdict is - guilty as charged”.