MY 4TH GRADE EPIPHANY

When I was 9, growing up in Shaker Heights, Ohio, my younger sister and I were often home alone. Unless Grandma Roy counts as a babysitter.
Hardly.
She sat in the kitchen nook and never moved.
When she wanted another beer from the fridge, she yelled. We ran, grabbed one for her. Old Milwaukee, usually. Then, snap, fizzle, grunt. Pour, guzzle, belch. Repeat. Never a "thank you." This was her life after having most of her tongue removed because of cancer.
Virginia Faint Roy stopped smoking. But she still bitched and moaned. It was harder to understand what she was trying to say. But it was never nice. In fact, I can't remember her saying anything kind.

"Rob, I don't know why your son brings his books home. He never opens them."

Remember tongue.

Our mother was in law school. Our father worked for an advertising firm in downtown Cleveland. It was 1979. We were latchkey kids before the word was popular.
Pamela was 6. We had two main locations for our favorite activities, our own "upstairs/downstairs" in a brick Colonial with three floors and a slate roof. 
The third floor was where our mother studied for hours on end. She went from smothering us to almost being a stranger overnight.

Meanwhile, down in the basement, Pam and I pretended we were Olympic Figure Skaters.  Usually, we were U.S. Pair Gold Medal Hopefuls, Tai Babilonia and Randy Gardner.  I held Pam/Tai up over my head while moving ever so gracefully across the shag carpeting, circa who the hell knows how old it was.  We did the death spiral, tandem spins, double loop/triple axle combo and the big show and career stopper, their heartbreaking fall.

There was our standby, "Mel's Diner."  Pamela was Flo, dishing it up just so.

     "Kiss my grits!"

I was Mel.

      "Alice!"

Every afternoon it was a box or two of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese with Grandma Roy drinking beer and our lovable Golden Retriever, Shamrock, nearby wagging her tail.

One day, I stayed home from school and ABC interrupted its programming with a Special Report about John Hinkley shooting President Ronald Reagan.  Frank Reynolds was Anchor.

I was glued to the TV.

     "I want to be a newscaster when I grow up!"

That announcement came a few months later.  I call it my 4th grade epiphany.

No one took it seriously at first.  But eventually, they started to believe.

Grandma Roy wasn't exactly a one woman cheerleading squad for my cause.

Every afternoon she'd sit in the kitchen while downing a half case of Old Milwaukee.  Then, she belched.

When she wanted a good chuckle, she sang a few bars of her favorite Peggy Lee song:

    "Is that all there is?  If that's all there is my friends, then let's keep dancing."

It always made my mother cringe, which is exactly why Virginia Roy sang it.

Ahhh, Grandma Roy.

She raised quite a chip off the old block.

When Daddy came home, he just couldn't wait to make us dinner.

Would we be having cow tongue tar-tar, ground cow heart hamburger patties fried in the pan on the stovetop, or would Daddy bring his teflon sauce pan over to show us what he was stirring up that night, perhaps a red tomato sauce with something white and cube shaped in it?

     "Toe-foo," Robert Roy enunciated.

That's right.  No noodles, no vermicelli.  Tofu.

At school the next day, I opened the brown bag lunch he prepared.  I pulled out a peanut butter sandwich on wheat bread with banana and pickled relish.   
One day, there were sardines.  And cow tongue.  At school.  4th, 5th and 6th grades at Fernway Elementary.  1979.
Everyone else had Wonder Bread.  Me?  
Crap I couldn't trade with anyone.

Somehow, my sister and I survived while our mother was up on the third floor studying.
She tried to quit law school, but no, Rob Roy would have none of it.  

He didn't say a word to her for two months.  
In the short run, he got what he wanted.  She returned to Case Western Reserve University Law School and graduated near the top of her class.  But she hated it.

I found black and white negatives of my mother and father in various sexual poses taken years earlier.  They were hidden underneath their bed.  That is more than enough about that.  Be glad I am sparing you further description of those traumatizing visuals.

Daddy loves to say "G-P."

"General Principles"

It's my father's way of never having to explain anything or give a meaningful explanation whenever something he says or does is called into question.

I also found vibrators in their nightstand.  Enough said about that.  I'll stop there on "G.P."

It's a miracle, Blanche, I'm "stayin' alive."

Cue The Bee Gees:

         

           "Well, you can tell by the way I do my walk.  Stayin' alive.  Stayin' alive.  Ah, ah, ah ah..."

Ughhhhh.

Every Christmas Eve, we gathered around Grandma Roy's 8-track tape player at the Friendly Towers in East Lansing, MI.  She had a fake table top tree decorated with one strand of multi-colored miniature lights and nothing else somewhere in her apartment.  But that 8-track tape player was the closest we ever got to an annual holiday tradition.  Actually, more on that in just a sec.

She usually played Bing Crosby and David Bowie's "Bah-rump a bum bum!"  I have to give her credit for her taste in music, even Peggy Lee, which is hysterical to me now but like a good son, I always agreed with my mother and, quite frankly, Virginia Roy was a real beyotch!

Grandma Roy held a cig in one hand, the long ash growing longer and longer and incredulously, even longer.  We're all sitting around her 8-track tape player wondering if she will ever tap a tap tap, peace on earth, can it be it into her plastic molded early 70s avocado green ashtray before it falls into one of our glasses.
With her other hand, she meticulously split one can of Coke between the three of us.  Grandma Virginia (never Faint of heart but that was her maiden name as the story goes) Roy, of course, was working on another beer and not sharing it with any of us, damn her!

Now back to Grandma Roy's favorite Christmas Eve tradition.  Who knows what she did on Christmas Day?  
I'm sure Daddy knows since he always brought her a plate of food from the Marcus family celebration.
Her big moment usually came after the serving of the Coke.  She sat down at her wood table with two matching chairs in front of her big black steel framed Mies van der Rhoe-like or actual windows (my vote is actual.  It was a very cool building across the street from Lansing's State Capital.)   
She lit up another cig, took a long drag.  We sat there.  She exhaled.  Slowly.  A long, melancholy gaze at the State Rotunda.  A slight tilt of her beauty parlor wash and blow dried covered head, and just when the moment seemed right:

      "Bahh, Christmas!  Another year.  Like I always say,
BALLsssssssss to Christmas!"

After discovering the porn and the hardbound edition of "Lolita" and the "Kuma Satra" about heterosexual intercourse positions, my younger sister, Pamela, had a life changing moment.  

She got all zombie like while watching "The Best Little Girl in The World" on TV.
The very next day, Pam was anorexic herself and took that made for TV movie to heart and then some.
She mastered the art of starving for attention, getting friend chicken smashed into her face, walking around with a feeding tube shoved up her nose for ten months at Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago.

Her eating disorder "evolved" into bulimia, meaning she blew chunks every time she ate something.  Probably still does.
There I was along with the rest of my family enjoying some really good fried chicken.  
Pam just sat there.  She didn't eat one bite.  
Then, drama.
Guess it wasn't "finger lickin' good" after all.
But for Daddy, it was shove it and force it and push it and cram it into my daughter's face and in front of Grandma and Grandpa Marcus and the rest of our dysfunctional family.

Cue Britney:

   

"I think I did it again.  I made you believe I swallowed a pen.  Oh, baby.  
It smells like Orange Crush but don't miss out on my lethal ketones.
And to have no electrolytes, that is just so stupid like me.  

Oops, I blew chunks again.  I played with my food, got Daddy mad, too.  Oh, Bank of Daddy.

Oops, I escaped Renfrew again. With help from John Loves Park.  Is Kevin dead yet?   

I love my porcelain goddess.  Worship her all day.  Haven't learned a thing.  Wishing my boobs matched my crazy coconut cunt carpeting.  

John Loves Park and I watch Days of Our Lives.  
Even Marlena is betting on the Bic to kill me. 

Barfing for attention that is just so disgusting like me.  

O, Oprah, Oh No!  
Oops, I barfed up a lung, ripped a hole in my heart and Big Gulped that pen.  

Oops you think I'm all that.  I have a hot butt.   

So stick your big black cock in it!

Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah

All aboard!  Pamela, before you die, I really want my sandwich back.    

But I dropped it and my kids off at the pool.  

Karen Carpenter go fish.  

Even if you gotta lick that Mama Cass ass and give it your best heiney lick.

Aww, that is so hein!   

Oh baby baby???

Our other holiday oldie but not a "goody:"

"Grandma got run over by her Ford Maverick

On the way to our house Christmas Eve
She told me there's no such thing as Santa
But don't say that during show and tell"

Of course, I did.  Got scolded by the teacher.

In 1981, when I was a 7th grader, we moved again.
Lansing, Laingsburg, Grand Rapids, Bryn Mawr, Acton, Lawrenceville, Shaker Heights and finally, River Forest, Illinois, a Western Suburb of Chicago.
8 moves.
I watched and studied Chicago's Anchors and Reporters.
When I was a Sophomore at Oak Park River Forest High School and an Anchor on the school's TV show called "Newscene," my mother had an idea -- send a questionnaire asking the local on air talent.where they would go to college to pursue a career in broadcasting?
The best part of her idea was including a self-addressed stamped envelope.
I sent out 60 and got 59 back in a few days.  
I admit I had a selfish motive for embarking on this project.   I was hoping Northwestern University in Evanston would win and it would convince my parents to let me go there.
Not the case at all..
The vast majority selected The University of Missouri-Columbia Journalism School as their top choice.
At least 75% said Missouri's Broadcast Journalism program was by far the best.  Northwestern was the runner up but it wasn't close.
I was shocked.
The rest is history.
I hadn't heard about Missouri's broadcasting program and what makes it so special.
The only response that had a negative tone to it came from Deborah Norville.

"I don't think you should leave such a personal choice in the hands of people you don't know and who don't know you well."  

She could have just thrown it away.  The University of Georgia, her alma mater, was tops on her list.
Chicago's TV news teams in the mid-80s were filled with legendary names, including Bill Kurtis, Linda Yu, Mary Ann Childers, Chuck Goudie, Ron Magers, Carol Marin, Jerry Taft, Janet Davies, John Coleman and many others.
I had and still have a favorite -- the late and definitely great John Drury.
Years later, there I was.
I was like someone pinch me now.  Here I am sitting next to John Drury and Diann Burns, two of my colleagues!
Those were two of the most important nights of my life.
"A Son of Suicide" was my way of honoring my mother and trying to make something good out of something so awful.

I'll never forget how Diann Burns, John Drury and every member of the ABC7 Chicago news team working those two nights were more creative, considerate and helpful than ever.  
Together, we created something much bigger than ourselves.
Our goal was to save one life, and, hopefully, more.
I'm proud to say, we exceeded that goal by saving quite a few lives.
For that, I will always be grateful.
We decided "A Son of Suicide" should be written in the first-person voice to help make the first night's story seem and personal yet not come off as exploitative.
I still get chills when I watch it and think about my mother, Diane Marcus Roy, ending her life.
It affected everyone she met, even briefly.  And it still does if not even more so now.
Suicide can't be compared with any other kind of loss.
It leaves survivors of suicide haunted by questions.
Only other survivors of suicide truly understand.
I was more than a little nervous as I prepared to share my most personal story on live TV with more than a million people watching.
It was my first time reporting in studio on the ABC7 Chicago set.
I felt such strong support from everyone, especially Diann Burns and John Drury .
After wrapping up my part on the second and final night, Diann Burns said everywhere she went, people were stopping her to say:  

"how moved they were and how much they care about you and your family."

With a huge lump in my throat, I said,

"Thank you."

John Drury smiled.
Then he looked down, paused, and looked up and directly at me and said:

"It took a lot of courage to do that." 

That lump in my throat grew huge but I managed another "thank you," and quietly walked off set as they continued to read the rest of the day's news.
At my cubbyhole in the newsroom, the phone rang.  It was my father telling me I had done a "great job," and it made my mother and him "very proud."
The moment I made it home to Oak Park, I played my VCR just to be sure.

"It took a lot of courage..."

That is what John Drury said.
I couldn't remember hearing him say something like that before.  It felt like it came from a very deep place in his heart.  
He was the best at ABC7 "Happy Talk."  But this felt different.
Drury died in 2007 from ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease.
ALS is always terminal, cripples its victim.
Family members and caregivers are left feeling helpless and hopeless.
There's little anyone can do as ALS takes hold, leaving someone as strong as John Drury unable to do anything for himself, even speak or eat.
What a cruel irony for anyone, especially an Anchorman.
Like bipolar disorder, ALS stigmatizes.   The stigma against people with mental illnesses and brain disorders is so powerful that it's often lethal.  
The fear of being judged by others and by ourselves often prevents people like my mother from seeking potentially life-saving help.
As for courage?
I wasn't about to argue with John Drury.
To me, it felt like something that I had to do.
tt must be easier for others to spot someone with courage than for us to see it in ourselves.
The stigma against people with mental illnesses is worse today than when my mother died 20 years ago.
Rarely do people talk about what's really going on in their minds even though the brain is by far the most important organ in our bodies.
Defeating the stigma and promoting mental health is the most important civil rights issue of our time.
It's as daunting now as when Rosa Parks refused to sit in the back of the bus in the fight against racial segregation.
Rosa Parks, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and others have proven that we can make significant gains and achieve what may seem to be impossible.
We've put a man on the moon.
We can and must defeat the stigma against people with mental illnesses.
Remember what President John Kennedy said:

"Ask not what your country can do for you.  Ask what you can do for your country."

His call to action gave every American a common goal and the excitement build. Americans were inspired to achieve something for the greater good in the race to be first to put man on the moon.

We did it.   
Then on that fateful day, Camelot went dark and a nation mourned like it never had before.
Thank you, President Barack Obama for selling us on and delivering us hope again.
Isn't it about time we embarked on another such monumental mission, one that I believe is much more important to every single human being around the world.
The human mind is often called:

"The last great unchartered frontier known to mankind."

Overcoming the stigma against people with mental illnesses, the root cause of my mother's death, requires a mission to bring change to mind.  I envision a campaign that is bigger and more pervasive and even more exciting and motivational than the race to the moon.  
Our mission, which we must accept, is ending the stigma and eradicating suicide.  
We need a White House Cabinet member charged with leading this effort, coordinating our resources for maximum efficiency and results.  A "Mental Health Stigma Czar" if you will.  Or if you won't, then let'a here your ideas for a better name.  I dare ya.
We'll make thinking about our brains, keeping them healthy, raising money for research and education and everything else that must be done to Bring Change 2 Mind sexy, cool and the kind of cause everyone wants to join, including our biggest celebrities.
As a result, fewer people will have clinical depression and more of us will feel comfortable enough to talk about what's going on in our minds with anyone anywhere anytime.
The number of people attempting and completing suicide will go down for the first time in several decades.
By changing attitudes one person at a time, as Oprah Winfrey puts it, more of us will "live our best lives."
Do your part.  
Now.  
Take the pledge to help end the stigma against people with mental illnesses by Bring Change 2 Mind.
It's an important step all of us must take, an infinite leap in our mental and physical health, which are one and the same,   
More of us will go after our greatest hopes and dreams.
Do it now.
Please leave your comments here and on my website -- www.KevinMarcusRoy.com.
If you can get this in front of President Obama, Oprah Winfrey, Glenn and Jessie Close, Calen Pick -- anyone and everyone who can help make this happen, please do.  

Journalism ends stigma, stops suicide, saves lives.

I'm thinking of a new consortium that brings together our various resources, has a strong leader, speaks out daily, several times a day and becomes the face and voice of this cause that people instantly recognize and enjoy.

Knock knock!

Who'a there?

Orange.

Orange who?

Orange you wondering yet if anything rhymes with consortium?

The only rhyme I've come up with so far is:  consortium / ad nauseum.  I know.  Kinda weak.
So let's hear what you come up with me, people!

Pass it on.  Copy and paste, forward, send the url, link it, sync it, tweet, retweet, smoke and mirror it, carrier pigeon it, smoke signals, chip a caveman tablet it, find my stolen iPad2 again (John Funkey at Roy'a Desert Resource Center and/or Ginger T as in NOT a TOP down the street from me who still has my stolen bedspread from The Saguaro which I got the last time I rented a hotel room my stolen dog, Lindsay.  And I told the assholes that and they still haven't returned those items, stolen clothing and other things I am well aware of.  And still no one will tell me the truth about Lindsay Davenport Roy, my Service Dog and the best animal, love, living thing I have known.  Bar none.  What is wrong with you?!

Love,

Kevin Marcus Roy
619.247.3775