Painting and The Piano (eBook)
An Improbable Story of Survival and Love
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EPUB
2023
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1. Auflage
336 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
979-8-3509-0479-6 (ISBN)
336 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
979-8-3509-0479-6 (ISBN)
The Painting and The Piano is an improbable story of survival and Love. Growing up more than a thousand miles apart and worlds away from each other, Johnny and Adrianne seemed to have all that children could ask for. However, the demons of their respective mothers would tear their fragile young lives apart. Eventually, destiny would bring Johnny and Adrianne together, but first they had to endure the painful toll that alcohol, drugs, and a negligent court system would take on them. With parts of Adrianne's story ripped from national news headlines, their story takes them from the depths of despair and near death to their first serendipitous introduction and the moment each knew they were finally safe. Filled with hope, inspiration, and humor, The Painting and The Piano is an unforgettable story of pain, loss and the undying human quest for happiness.
The Painting and The Piano is an improbable story of survival and love. The childhoods of Johnny and Adrianne couldn't have been more different. Not only were they born more than one-thousand miles apart, but the cultural and financial contrasts between their respective childhoods are equally as stark. Old-money wealth and privilege defined Johnny's childhood in Ladue, Missouri, which is to St. Louis what Scarsdale is to New York City or Beverly Hills to Los Angeles. From the moment of his birth, Johnny's world was private clubs, private schools, private jets, high-society etiquette, and a loving nanny named Lizzy. Middleclass Jewish values, bickering but loving parents, and the distinct character of Long Island defined Adrianne's early life. It was public school, public transportation, Jones Beach, and Lawn Guyland rather than Long Island or tawk instead of talk. However, Johnny and Adrianne's childhoods share a tragic parallel that damaged each to the core of their psyche, their emotional well-being, and brought both to the brink of death. Where their story diverges from so many others is that rather than fall into the darkness, Johnny and Adrianne reached for the light. Thus began their respective journeys of healing, which led from the slow death of addiction to a serendipitous meeting, falling in love and building a shared life dedicated to the service of others. Told as a tandem narrative, Adrianne and Johnny pass their respective stories of childhood trauma and abuse, addiction, healing, and final triumph of love back and forth in alternating chapters. Their stories are unique, but share parallels that create a taut and emotionally compelling narrative. The book is divided into two acts with seven scenes in the first act and four scenes in the second act. A brief Prologue introduces the reader to the story. Placed at the head of each chapter is a brief quote reflecting a key element of the story in that chapter.
The Painting and The Piano is an improbable story of survival and love. The childhoods of Johnny and Adrianne couldn't have been more different. Not only were they born more than one-thousand miles apart, but the cultural and financial contrasts between their respective childhoods are equally as stark. Old-money wealth and privilege defined Johnny's childhood in Ladue, Missouri, which is to St. Louis what Scarsdale is to New York City or Beverly Hills to Los Angeles. From the moment of his birth, Johnny's world was private clubs, private schools, private jets, high-society etiquette, and a loving nanny named Lizzy. Middleclass Jewish values, bickering but loving parents, and the distinct character of Long Island defined Adrianne's early life. It was public school, public transportation, Jones Beach, and Lawn Guyland rather than Long Island or tawk instead of talk. However, Johnny and Adrianne's childhoods share a tragic parallel that damaged each to the core of their psyche, their emotional well-being, and brought both to the brink of death. Where their story diverges from so many others is that rather than fall into the darkness, Johnny and Adrianne reached for the light. Thus began their respective journeys of healing, which led from the slow death of addiction to a serendipitous meeting, falling in love and building a shared life dedicated to the service of others. Told as a tandem narrative, Adrianne and Johnny pass their respective stories of childhood trauma and abuse, addiction, healing, and final triumph of love back and forth in alternating chapters. Their stories are unique, but share parallels that create a taut and emotionally compelling narrative. The book is divided into two acts with seven scenes in the first act and four scenes in the second act. A brief Prologue introduces the reader to the story. Placed at the head of each chapter is a brief quote reflecting a key element of the story in that chapter.
Prologue
WE CAN NEVER LET GO OF OUR MOTHERS
There’s a phrase, “the elephant in the living room,”
which purports to describe what it’s like to live with a
drug addict, an alcoholic, an abuser. People outside such
relationships will sometimes ask, “How could you let such a
business go on for so many years? Didn’t you see the
elephant in the living room?” And it’s so hard for anyone
living in a more normal situation to understand the
answer that comes closest to the truth; “I’m sorry, but it was
there when I moved in. I didn’t know it was an elephant;
I thought it was part of the furniture.” There comes
an aha-moment for some folks—the lucky ones—
when they suddenly recognize the difference.
which purports to describe what it’s like to live with a
drug addict, an alcoholic, an abuser. People outside such
relationships will sometimes ask, “How could you let such a
business go on for so many years? Didn’t you see the
elephant in the living room?” And it’s so hard for anyone
living in a more normal situation to understand the
answer that comes closest to the truth; “I’m sorry, but it was
there when I moved in. I didn’t know it was an elephant;
I thought it was part of the furniture.” There comes
an aha-moment for some folks—the lucky ones—
when they suddenly recognize the difference.
—Stephen King
My dad was driving from Missouri to New Braunfels, Texas, to visit his stepdaughter Chandler, when he lost consciousness and crashed into the side of a building. He was lucky. Even still, he was so close to death in the emergency room that a nurse called me to ask, Are you in a position to make end-of-life care decisions for your father?
I felt my chest tighten as her question made me truly aware of the reality of Dad’s situation. My dad is surrounded by incredibly competent people, and not that long ago he wouldn’t have let me walk his dog on my own, I said, but for some reason he’s made me executor of his estate.
Do you want us to put a red bracelet on him?
What’s that?
It’s a Do Not Resuscitate bracelet.
Oh.
If his heart or breathing stops we’ll let him go. Another term for it is Allow Natural Death.
The old man was quite a bit smarter than I gave him credit for. He knew I couldn’t even kill a fly.
For several days I sat by his bedside and watched as he slowly came back from the brink. I was glad to spend that time with him, but I was lonely for Adrianne. Although I called her when I could, I felt uneasy being away from her. The world spins a little faster when she isn’t close.
But since that phone call from the ER nurse, things have improved. Dad has gone from near-death to marginally better, and within a few days he was holding forth from his hospital bed as if he was at his own dinner table with a long series of orders and demands. Listening to him, I wondered where the red DNR bracelet was when we needed it.
Now my stepsister Chandler and I sit with Dad as the low light of late afternoon fades into the deep, bright blue of twilight that the painter Maxfield Parrish so often used. Dad’s speech slows and sentences trail off with a wave of his sallow, thin hand, as if he is trying to send us off on an errand without the effort of another word. Waves of pain ripple and crest behind his eyes.
Dad, give yourself another bump of morphine.
He tilts his head toward the morphine pump and follows the thin pipette running into his IV. Give me some water and I’ll push the button.
I hand him the button and he pushes it twice. His jaw slackens as the medicine moves through his body, and his eyes droop. My mind follows him as he fades. He is not the strong independent man I’ve known my whole life, and I am scared to lose him.
It all feels so different from thirty years ago, when I stood at mom’s bedside in an ICU in St. Louis, waiting for her to die. For a woman born into affluence, who’d held such promise early in life, the loneliness of her death was testament to how far she’d fallen.
Adrianne’s birth mother died alone as well, but she’ll tell that story.
I think dad’s pretty much out for the night, I say to Chandler.
We walk to the car and Chandler climbs into the passenger seat. I ease the car into the cool, Texas spring evening.
We are bathed by a halo of streetlight but, high above, the inky sky is suffused by shimmering starlight.
How’re you doing, Johnny? Chandler asks.
I drive slowly along a wide boulevard that runs past quiet neighborhoods. Almost by instinct I head toward Cheeves, an attractive little steak house and café we’ve been to a few times already.
It’s tough to see Dad like this.
She looks at me. You seem a bit lost inside your own head.
I’m sorry . . . It’s hard not to think about Mom.
I remember. She looks out the window. She was a difficult woman.
Yeah, she was. I tighten my grasp on the steering wheel. I don’t like talking about Mom. Adrianne’s was probably worse.
I don’t really know anything about Adrianne’s mom.
My face feels warm. It’s kind of embarrassing to me that you don’t know more about Adrianne.
Chandler turns toward me. Why’s that?
I remember how close we used to be when we were kids, after you and your mom moved into the house, and I’m sorry we’ve lost that a little bit.
Me too, she says.
It has been a long way back to the world of the living for me. Every now and again there are reminders—lost connections, painful trespasses—that bring back how I used to be.
I glance at Chandler. Her eyes are soft, weary looking. That’s okay Johnny. You’re here now.
Adrianne had it worse than me. I tell her a bit about the circumstances of Adrianne’s birth and how that affected her childhood and the rest of her life.
Chandler shifts in her seat. You know, I was at a restaurant with Dad recently . . .
I love her father and have always affectionately called him Uncle Jules. He’s a gentleman in the finest Texas tradition, and a noted psychiatrist.
. . . and we’re drinking wine, waiting for our food, when he starts talking about his work. He’s getting a good head of steam going when I say, ‘Dad that’s all well and good, but what’s the key to psychiatry?’
Of course, he immediately launches into a discourse of the current understanding of the workings of the mind and one thing and another—all of it laced with the usual psychobabble—which is interesting, but I’ve heard it all a million times.
So I break in again and say, ‘Dad, how have you helped so many people? Can you sum it up in one sentence?’
A faint smile crosses her lips.
I thought I’d stumped him because it took him a few beats, but then he gets that grin of his—you know, almost demure—and says, ‘When I meet with a new patient the first question I ask him or her is, Tell me about your mother. Well, they’ll start with that and wander off about their spouse or kids or boss and so on and I’ll say, That’s interesting, but tell me about your mother.’
I don’t get it, I say.
Chandler laughs. I didn’t either so I say, ‘Dad, what the heck does all that mean?’ And he says, ‘If I know the relationship a child has with his or her mother, then I can help that person.’
Did you ask him why?
No, not really. But he did say that one of the core elements to our humanity is the mother-child bond. If that bond is removed or damaged it’s like taking gravity away. All of a sudden that child’s left spinning.
I don’t think you can blame everything on the mother. I turn the car onto Temple’s modest main street of shops and restaurants.
No, of course not. She smiles at me. I’d hate to think what that would mean for my own kids. But maybe it’s a big reason why you spent so much of your life spinning.
Adrianne went through it too.
I can imagine . . . well, I can’t imagine what it was like for her, it must have been horrible to be so young and go through that, but I can see her, such a little girl, trapped in a nightmare.
I pull the car into a parking spot across from the restaurant. Other than the sound of a woman laughing as she walks by with her man, it is quiet.
I look at Chandler. It’s the beginning and end of our story . . .
What do you mean?
What your father said. It was a lot to survive, and that we actually found each other . . .
She’s not from your world, is she?
No. Long Island and a ratty...
| Erscheint lt. Verlag | 13.5.2023 |
|---|---|
| Sprache | englisch |
| Themenwelt | Literatur ► Biografien / Erfahrungsberichte |
| ISBN-13 | 979-8-3509-0479-6 / 9798350904796 |
| Informationen gemäß Produktsicherheitsverordnung (GPSR) | |
| Haben Sie eine Frage zum Produkt? |
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