Weird stuff from my own personal archive

After the death of another geriatric patient this week, I was reminded of an earlier writing from  the  time of  the Open Diary hacker black hole  fiasco.

The lady who passed away this past Saturday was a very special woman… Bipolar, with the sort of life history that comes with that diagnosis…Peace Corps work in Afghanistan in the early 60’s, Secret Service work for Presidential administrations through to Ronald Reagan.

Believe me, we checked it out. She really protected various Presidents for many years, and had the federal pension to prove it. She was a true spit fire, a very intelligent and curious woman.

 After she was discharged from our care in late September , there was a large mass found in her abdomen, and she died very quickly from cancer.

(Luckily, she was released after only 2 months of involuntary care…..the judge who presided in her involuntary committment hearing believed that she was no danger to herself or any other. I am so glad for this outside arbitration, otherwise there would be this sort of  paternalistic atrocity occurring on a daily basis in the psychiatric hospitals. It’s not easy being eccentric, anymore.)

She was a very colourful character at our hospital, and in the community, and well loved, I am guessing.

I know that I loved her.

 

This writing is from August of this year, after the death of another patient, who spent many years in the hospital.

 

“Earlier this week I found a woman cold and blue in her bed, 5 minutes after her last check when she responded in the way that catatonic patients do….she watched us.

We dragged her off the bed, and performed CPR and called the EMT’s/medics ( what a beautiful bunch of people they are!) and managed to revive her after some 15 minutes of physiological death. We transported her from the brain disorder hospital to the body disorder hospital, where she was placed on an ICU, respirator in place, pupils fixed and dilated.

This is the sort of ‘kindness’ we provide…. somewhere between minutes 4 and 10, we start to wonder what sort of inevitability we’re fighting against.

But there are ‘rules’,

and policies and procedures.

The woman we ‘revived’ died 2 days later, quite evidently brain dead, following a DNR order her relatives most compassionately signed.

I tried to write a eulogy for the memorial service that will occur next Monday for this woman…. because even in a ‘mad house’, there is a sense of community, and the need to acknowledge milestones, and the passage of time. Life goes on, even in these ‘asylums’. I follow the Old Testament reading from Ecclesiastes.

Eulogy for Irene

“Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher…… All is vanity.”

This is the way that Ecclesiastes starts. I love this part of the Bible best, because it always seems so sensible and true. It goes on to tell us that “time and chance happen to all”, and that our days are surely numbered.

It tells us to “eat, drink and be merry”, and to enjoy our lives, and all its workings, before we go to our graves. It tells us that the best anyone can expect and achieve, is to find pleasure in our lives, and companionship in one another.

Because some days are harder than others, and it’s often difficult to see beyond our frustrated hopes, and our inevitable sorrow. And we all know how hatred, injustice, and meanness can affect our lives, and create misery.

But we also know the healing and comfort that comes from a generous spirit, and how happiness is born.

In Ecclesiastes, we are encouraged to find love and to give love, because this is “our portion”… it’s both our birth right, and our inheritance to the world: to care for those nearest to us; to appreciate kindness when it happens, and extend kindness in return; to practice empathy, and to offer each other hope; to give each other respect, and solace.

.

We have so few possessions that are really precious and enduring, and even our lives are finite. Yet our capacity for kindness lasts beyond this minute, this year, and this lifetime…it connects us with eternity in a way that pettiness never can, and it is the only gift that survives our death.

Peace, Irene. You were a kind and gentle woman, and I will miss your presence here among us, but I’m also happy for you in this sad moment, knowing that you have moved on to a more restful place.

Amen.”

 

And this is for Mary Francis, who taught me through her exuberant love for life and learning: