Pete Earley

My eulogy, which I read at my father’s memorial service.

How do you describe a man’s life in a few minutes, especially a father as special as my dad, Elmer N. Earley?

Perhaps the answer is by my sharing some memories with you.

One of my first memories.

I am afraid. It is raining hard outside. It is late. We are driving from Oklahoma to New Jersey to visit my Aunt Alice and Uncle Millard and my cousins, Lorraine and Arlene. It is where we always go on vacation because they are my Dad’s family and family is important to him. We can’t find a motel on Interstate 40. Only glowing red No Vacancy signs. I am little – maybe six — and I am scared. I curl up in the back of our Ford Falcon station wagon, close my eyes and tell myself that everything will be okay. My father will find someplace safe for us. He will carry me inside and when I wake up, it will be morning and the sun will be out. I know my father will take care of me. All I have to do is fall asleep.

I am safe because of him.

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Women in Fairfax County Detention Center

(3-13-15 This is the third of three letters that I am sharing with readers this week while mourning my father’s passing.)

Dear Pete,

I am a college educated woman who also lives in Fairfax county. In the summer of 2010, I became manic. I knew I was bipolar and was taking my medication but it simply stopped working. The psychiatrist, who I saw in the mornings, didn’t catch on because I had sun-setters. It just spun out of control so fast. By the time my husband tried to get me help, I didn’t believe I was even sick.

He tried to have me committed 3 times.

The first time, I was let go because there was problem with my paperwork — someone put the wrong date on my commitment form. The second time I agreed to a 5 day voluntary hold, but checked myself out of the hospital the next day. The third time, they just let me go. The  same Fairfax officers, who had been to my house several times to try to convince me to go to the hospital, finally told my husband to take my daughter and leave.

I had no idea where my husband and daughter went.

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(3- 9-2015 This is the second of three letters that I wish to share with readers while I am mourning the death of my father and carrying out his final wishes for his funeral.)

Dear Mr. Earley,

I too, am a parent whose son suffers from a serious mental illness: schizoaffective disorder.  He has been ill 18 years, during which time, he has been hospitalized 15 times.  Three of those stays were each one year long. I was told each stay cost an estimated $250,000.

 Every time he was discharged, including the lengthy ones, he was released without medications, without housing, without support or a case worker, or without a follow-up doctors appointment.  In two of those discharges (from California state hospitals), he was discharged without money, a personal ID, a coat or decent shoes in below 32 degree weather.  The hospital staff had lost his personal items.

In one instance, he was released from Patton State Hospital in San Bernadino to the Los Angeles county jail, which freed him at 1 am – again without personal belongings, money, ID, coat or decent shoes.  This was not only  infuriating and terrifying but simply inhumane. He was released to the streets.

Fortunately, his incredibly kind public defender gave him $20 out of his own pocket and called me to let me know their “insane” discharge plan.  The public defender suggested he go to the train station and stay there until morning by which time, I could arrange an e ticket for him.

Who treats people like that — especially medical professionals who are supposed to be helping an ill person?Click to continue…

(3-6-15 This is the first of three letters that I wish to share with readers while I am mourning the death of my father and carrying out his final wishes for his funeral. This letter is from Laura Pogliano, whose advocacy I mentioned in an earlier blog.) 

Hi Pete,

I started to write a reply to you, to thank you for the kind words in your Friday blog about my son, Zac, and my advocacy, but didn’t finish. When I got home from work, I realized why. Hanging on my door knob was a gift from Officer Kim Lankford of the Baltimore County Police Department.

Let me tell you a bit about Officer Lankford. You might recall that Zac decided at one point that he had been shot in the head. He hadn’t but he was convinced because of schizophrenia that he had. I wrote a blog for you about how Officer Lankford had treated my son with respect and had spent time comforting him. Later, it was Officer Lankford who did the welfare check at his apartment when I was concerned and the one who found him deceased and broke the news to me.

I want to tell you about the gift she left on my door knob.

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(3-2-2015) While flying home Friday from Louisiana, I reached a milestone. Somewhere above Tennessee, I crossed the half-million mile mark in jet travel and, yes, all of those miles were accumulated because of trips that I made to give speeches about the need for mental health reform.

The Baton Rouge Area Foundation offered to re-schedule my Thursday night appearance because of my father’s death two days earlier. But I knew that the Foundation’s Patricia Calfee had spent months making arrangements for my speech and I also felt that focusing on something besides grieving for my father might be helpful. I also knew that if my dad had been alive, he would have insisted that I go. He was not one to break a promise. (I’ve posted links at the end of this blog about my Louisiana speech.)

It’s been eight years since I gave a first hand account in my book about how jails and prisons have become our new mental asylums. Sadly, there’s not been a drop in incarceration rates for persons with mental illnesses. Instead the number is growing.

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November 1920 to February 24, 2015

Minister, devoted husband, wise father, loyal friend

“My father gave me the greatest gift anyone could give another person, he believed in me.”

                                                                                                                                                           — Jim Valvano

RIP