Roll Back the World by Deborah Kasdan

Author:Deborah Kasdan [Kasdan, Deborah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: She Writes Press

Five months pregnant in July 1969, I lay on our lumpy secondhand couch with Julie and Barry to watch scratchy black-and-white television images of astronauts visiting the moon. Julie was staying over at our apartment while Mom and Dad were away. Dad had found a month-long professional conference to attend in Israel. My mother accompanied him and went on tours while he was at his meetings. When the conference ended, they would bring Rachel home with them from the Tel Aviv hospital. None of this seemed real to me. Not the space shot, and certainly not whatever was happening with my parents and sister in Israel.

Rachel’s return was a far cry from her triumphant appearance in 1962. Instead of the sinewy, glowing teenager she’d been then, she was now a prematurely aged woman, heavy with defeat. They readmitted her to St. Louis State Hospital. There she would stay through an endless cycle of discharges, crises, and readmissions, again and again, for another ten years.

NASA could put an astronaut on the moon, but where were the breakthroughs that could restore Rachel’s balance? Where was the giant leap for mankind that could help her? All that science offered her were tranquilizing medications with terrible side effects, most notably the twitches from tar-dive dyskinesia, and weight gain. Plus endless, relentless days of apathy. I had no idea of what her future held. Nobody did. Schizophrenia was a hopeless diagnosis. But my attention was turned inward at this time, to the new family I was creating. I had a baby on the way.

It was hard for me to become hopeful, even when Rachel, in a stabilized state, showed signs of improvement. I grieved for the sister who burned to be a poet and explorer. I wanted Rachel to get well but couldn’t accept her the way she seemed to me now—bland, defeated, and indecisive. Two years later she would write:

October 25, 1971: Dear Debby, I was home visiting for two days last weekend and the past weekends too, of course. You may know I passed the nurse’s aide course, but the only job I could find was babysitting. It’s something different to do, and I enjoy it. I read to the baby, change her diapers, take her to the park. Then, there’s another child who goes to kindergarten. In the afternoons I type at a job [at the university]. It’s hard work, but I’ve been doing it. The girls in the office are nice. I’ve been reading and doing a little bit of art. Now I’d like to try macramé work, but don’t know that much about it. Maybe I’ll get a book or take a course. My plans for the near future are indefinite. . . . Hope to hear from you soon. Love, Rachel.

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