Humor me if you will and hop into my DeLorean time
machine and join me in a visit to December 21, 2000. Your heroine was a
size eight back then – in both dress and shoe
size – even though her only exercise was racing through various airports for
work. But hey – I can still fit into those size eight shoes from 16 years ago.
And a pointy-toed pump paired really well with my flared jeans. I colored my
hair back then because I wanted to, not because I had to lest I look like an
extra from the Golden
Girls. When I say I colored my hair, I mean it. I favored Loreal
Feria’s “Chocolate Cherry” which I applied in my tiny bathroom on lazy Sunday
afternoons.
After a series of starts and stops as I tried to “find
myself” personally and professionally, I finally felt like I was at the top of
my game in December of 2000. I worked for a major airline (see also: airport
sprinting as a form of exercise) who financed my recently acquired MBA, I had a
career path, I lived in a petite duplex in an almost trendy neighborhood in NE
Minneapolis, and I had a closet full of clothes acquired at the Gap. If that’s
not winning, I don’t know what is. I felt like I had life by the balls – and I
was so busy plotting my future (which included world domination) that the
present decided to slap me in the face with a reality check.
By any definition, I’m a product of privilege and good luck.
My disappointments in life were, in retrospect, the petty stuff of teen angst
and delayed adolescence – things like a bad grade on a test; a mean teacher;
not getting the part I wanted in the school play; being homesick when I left
for college; and not getting promoted at work when I felt like I had earned it.
Aside from a health scare in my mid-teens, I was healthy – and I was woefully
unprepared to cope with illness, sadness, or even true disappointment. My
biggest decisions were whether to spend my paychecks on food or travel back
then.
Wednesday, December 20, 2000. I’d been spending a lot of
time on the road, traveling to exotic destinations like Detroit, Michigan and
Hibbing, Minnesota for work. It would be another seven years until Steve Jobs
would introduce the iPhone to earth, thus changing the way we interact forever.
Only the very wealthy and very important had cell phones back then – and they
weren’t smart. They were Nokias.
Since we didn’t yet live in a hyper-connected world, we relied on landlines and
answering machines to communicate – and when I was on the road, it wasn’t
uncommon for me to go days without talking to family and friends. Thus, I wasn’t
immediately alarmed when I realized that my last six phone calls to Nate had
gone unanswered.
It was bitterly cold with a foot of snow on the ground
already and temperatures hovering near the double-digits below zero. Getting
dressed for work was a daily debate between avoiding frostbite and trying not
to look like a body double for the Michelin
Man. I can still remember what I was wearing – long underwear, black wool
pants procured from a second-hand store that were about a half-inch too short,
a lavender silk blouse and an ill-fitting black wool blazer. My office phone
rang a little after 2 PM. The caller id displayed an unfamiliar local number
but I answered anyway.
It was Nate. I began to chastise him for ignoring my last
zillion calls but I stopped myself mid-lecture because he sounded weird. “Where
are you?” I demanded.
“I’m at Riverside,” he
replied.
“At the café? Did you want to meet for lunch or coffee or
something?” was my naïve response.
“Not exactly. I’m at
Cedar-Riverside.”
“On a street corner? Are you calling from a payphone? Do you
need a ride? Did your car break down?”
“Ahhhhhhhh. No. I’m at
the hospital.”
“What? The hospital? Was there an accident? Is it your dad?
Oh, Jesus – it’s not Grandma Wanda is it?”
“Um . . . no. No. I
mean, I’m at the hospital because I’m in the hospital, Denise. That’s why I
haven’t been able to call.”
“I don’t understand. Are you sick? Why are you in the
hospital? What happened?” In my mind, you went to the hospital if you needed
stitches or had a heart attack or needed surgery. I couldn’t even imagine what
kind of illness had befallen poor Nate.
“I’m fine. It’s
nothing. This thing happened when I was over at my mom and dad’s and they
overreacted and here I am. It’s nothing to worry about. No big deal. Really.”
He shrugged it off like he had stopped in for a flu shot.
“Well, how long are you there? Are you allowed to have
visitors? Can I come after work?”
We talked a little longer and agreed that I would come by
during the evening visiting hours. I braced the frigid elements and drove to
what is now known as Fairview Riverside Hospital. I parked the car, got in the
elevator, and went to the second floor, where I was stopped by a uniformed
security guard and a metal detector. I had to provide identification to prove
that I am who I say I am and I had to submit to a search and pat down. A spiral
notebook and a book of matches were confiscated from my bag as potentially
dangerous items. I remember thinking, “Gee, it’s been a minute since I’ve
visited anyone in the hospital but I don’t recall these security procedures. I
wonder what the deal is.” Keep in mind, this was in a pre-9/11 world where we
didn’t fear terrorists or submit to TSA screening at the airport. 16 years
later, I’ve been felt up and patted down by government employees, contractors,
security guards, and even a couple of civilian frogs but during
Y2K, I was practically a pat down virgin.
After 15 minutes of interrogation, a large metal door was
unlocked with a loud clink and a nurse escorted me to Nate’s room – and it
finally dawned on me that I had entered a locked down psychiatric ward.
I stood in the doorway of room 217. Nate was sitting on the
bed closest to the window and he was staring off into space as if he was lost
in his thoughts. A young man in his early 20’s was rocking back and forth and
muttering to himself in the bed closest to the door. He saw me, smiled, and
then asked me if I could get him out of there because he had plans to jump off
the Washington Avenue Bridge the following day. I apologized profusely and I
told him I wasn’t a doctor and I didn’t know the release procedures – I was
there to see my friend. This was clearly not the right answer and he expressed
his extreme displeasure with me while also screaming a variety of terrifying
threats.
I apologized once more, tried not to shit my pants, and hustled
across the room to Nate. I will never forget how small, forlorn, and scared he
looked sitting on that hospital bed. I knelt down, held his face in my hands,
looked into those big, blue eyes and whispered, “Oh, Nathan – what happened?
Why are you here?”
He looked straight into my eyes and he said, “I don’t know
what I’m doing here. I don’t belong here.” In that moment, I thought he meant
that he didn’t know why he was in the hospital and that he didn’t belong there,
in the psych ward. I later came to understand that his words came from a deep,
deep place of pain and suffering within and what he really meant was he didn’t
feel like he belonged here – among the living.
Christmas Eve. I brought Nate’s Christmas gift to the
hospital. For security reasons, they had to unwrap and check it before I was
allowed to enter the ward. It was a beautiful hardcover copy of Nathaniel
Hawthorne’s House of Seven Gables – a
book we both read and loved. After I gave him his unwrapped gift, we stood at
the window and looked out at the snow and cold. The evergreen trees in front of
the hospital were decorated with festive Christmas lights, and we stood quietly
and admired the view. I turned to say something when Nate flung his arms around
me and held on as if he would never, ever let go. We stood silently, in what
was either an embrace or the act of a desperate man who was slipping away from
me but holding on for dear life. I don’t know how much time passed – it may
have been two minutes or two hours – when the nurse interrupted to tell us that
visiting hours were over and I needed to leave.
I visited the hospital every day for the two weeks he was
there, and I believed him when he said he was fine. He left the hospital on New
Year’s Eve with a prescription and a plan to make 2001 the year all our dreams come
true. We swore we’d never spend another Christmas in the hospital – and that is
one promise we kept, because Christmas 2000 was the very last Christmas that
Nate was alive. 72 days after he was discharged from the hospital, Nate was
gone.
Christmas – this season of joy, of giving, and of goodwill
to our fellow humans – was always my favorite time of year. I love the
decorations, the cookies, the shopping, picking out the perfect gift. I love
Santa and Christmas movies and caroling. I don a Santa hat, reindeer antlers,
and any kind of themed footed pajamas I can get my hands on. But I can never
forget the sound of the metal door slamming shut behind me as I walked away
from Nate’s last Christmas here on earth – and sometimes, when the caroling
stops, I stare out the window at the Christmas lights with my arms around
myself and I pray.
© 2016 Princess D
