A Stroke of Genius Named Jane

I can't stop thinking about my friend Jane. She is in a convalescent hospital following a stroke, and that's all we knew until we visited her recently. We intentionally waited several months from the time of the incident, hoping for improvement and allowing her time to adjust to her new circumstances. I asked myself, in her condition would I want people swarming to my side to see me at my worst?

So now she is apparently at her best, but to say that her best isn't what it used to be is a gross understatement and an insult to the woman I know and love. In my naivete I thought (hoped) that she would be making progress all this time, and that the healing would continue. The hospital staff assured me a few days ago that this is not the case. Jane will live out her days being bathed, dressed, and fed pureed foods, by others.

It seems odd to speak of her in the past tense, but necessary. She was a brilliant woman. An attorney most of her life, but always engaged with life apart from her career. She read voraciously, and anytime she found a topic that caught her interest, she "went there." She investigated it with passion, and if possible she went there literally... travelling to places she had studied, to get to know them firsthand. She would come home running over with stories that braided "way back when" (history) and "then" (her visit) and "now" (her reliving the personal experience) like Dorothy's hair in the Wizard of Oz. Something you can count on. Jane's voice danced across details and her eyes sparkled like spotlights showing her off as the star of the show, and the show was the life she created for herself.

Yet she was keenly interested in the lives of others. When she asked about my scattered family, for example, she always remembered everyone's name, where we left off the last time we spoke of their circumstances, and she genuinely wanted to know more. She asked questions not like an attorney holding interrogatories, but more like a top notch therapist needing to delve deeply enough to gain an understanding. If she could have she would have phoned each one of my kids and grandkids, written to or e-mailed each one of them, visited each one of them, the way she approached every other topic of interest. But of course her time and energy were limited, even though her curiosity and caring were not.

She had the idiosyncrasies not uncommon to geniuses, sometimes viewed by others as flaws. Her glasses were often smudged, her clothes unkempt, her plans disorganized. But those were part of what made Jane... Jane. She had a laugh that still rings in my ears, a wonderful laugh, heartfelt and hearty. She loved to laugh, and laughed a lot.

Now she looks at visitors with no expression on her face, although she does look at her visitors. If her eyes wander off, she somehow brings them back. There's no way of knowing if she can understand what we say to her, and although the staff assured us she can say "yes" and "no," she said nothing while we sat with her, holding her hands. Made no sound. Other than the sound, now and then, of someone trying hard to cry but unable to do even that to her own satisfaction.

If I know anything about Jane, I know she wants desperately... to understand what happened to her, and why, and what she can do to have her life back. But this, of course is speculation. Staff assured me she cannot process mentally. I almost hope that's true. I hope she has no inkling of where she is or why, or even who these people are, holding her hands and holding back their own tears as they try to say the right thing, whatever that means at a time like this. If this is the case, if she has no intellectual awareness, then there is nothing left of Jane there in that wheelchair, except a shell.

And the question I'm left with is whether or not to visit that shell again. I will, at least once more, in time, because my recent visit has left me bleeding at some level where a band aid won't reach. She tried to cry several times throughout our visit, including as we left. I promised her we will be back and I'll keep that promise. Because, I tell myself, shells don't cry. And the next question becomes: do we want to go back, should we, what's the point if we... make her cry? But crying may be all she has left.

Some would say, "It's about you. You visit her to make yourself feel better." But, trust me, seeing her doesn't make me feel better. It hurts. Bad. Maybe what it comes down to is being there to share her suffering. If creating heartache for myself lessens hers, I'm willing to do that. Again, there's no way to know. But if pain is the only place Jane and I can connect, I'll go there for her, rather than leave her there alone.

Alone is a nice place to visit, but no one should ever have to live there. Because that's not living. Not even close.