Shaking Spells

Each night, after feet were washed and prayers were said, Mama gave me a spoonful of Phenobarbital. She called it my “nerve medicine”. I always insisted on licking the spoon. She told me I should keep my shaking spells a secret. “If anyone finds out, they’ll think you’re feeble minded. Your Aunt Pearl had shaking spells too. I’d wake up and find her shaking so that the bed would be banging against the wall.” I was secretly pleased that I shared my secret illness with Aunt Pearl.

In bed at night I would lie awake for a long time listening to Ivy breathe. I tried to match my breathing to hers as I repeated my prayers. “Now I lay be down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray … I pray…” I always finished with “and please don’t let the shaking spells come tonight, Jesus.”

But they came. Jesus couldn’t stop the shaking spells and neither could I. The white plastic headboard of my twin bed was stained the handprints I left as I gripped the headboard in my attempt to stop the shaking spells. I never could. The trembling came without warning – not nightly but often. They came in spite of the nerve medicine.

I woke up trembling. The bedsprings were rattling. I reached up and grabbed the headboard and tried with all my might to make the shaking stop. I gripped the headboard and prayed again. “Please make this stop. I don’t want to. I don’t like it.” But the epilepsy was too strong. It overpowered me and forced me to loosen my grip. My screams would wake up Ivy who’d crawled into my bed and hold on to me. We shook together for what seemed like a long time. Finally the beast loosened its grip on me and I was myself again. We lay still. The bed now wet with my urine. I always wet her bed when the shaking spell was over.

Ivy thought I was crying because I’d wet the bed. I didn’t tell her I was crying because I missed Aunt Pearl so much.