A Sad Memory

Robert was a patient who’d been discharged and readmitted on a regular basis, and over time became very comfortable talking to me. He’d been diagnosed with PCP, CMV retinitis, Failure to Thrive and HIV dementia. He was slowly losing his memory and ability to communicate, so he intently used our time together.

In the beginning he spoke eloquently about being afraid of death. He was both angry and sad about having to leave early, about leaving so much undone, unsaid, unexperienced. Several times he asked if I was afraid of dying and I said I was. Once he asked if I had AIDS and I told him I didn’t.

He was happy to hear that.

Robert got thinner and quieter each time he was readmitted, until he eventually stopped speaking. There reached a point where the social workers weren’t sure where they were going to place him, so he was on the unit for several weeks, awaiting transfer.

When I visited him I’d hold his hand and smile. I wasn’t sure if he understood me, but I’d say his name and my name and where we were. Once I asked him if he could tell me where he was, and he looked at me and tilted his head and smiled. And then blinked.

Eventually he was transferred to Garden Sullivan, a rehab facility for patients who weren’t able to live independently at home yet. I went to see him there several times on my days off, until I showed up one morning and he was gone.

He’d once asked me what my saddest memory was and at the time I’d found a way to change the subject. It felt too personal and, really, I didn’t know what my saddest memory was.

But as I rode the 38 Geary back towards the Castro the day he died, I remembered being a kid at home with my brothers and sisters. We could hear our mother crying.

We’d all stood outside her bedroom door listening to her deep mournful sobs, none of us knowing what to do.

Eventually I knocked and whispered, “Mom?”

She quickly stopped crying and said, from behind the door, that she was fine, just feeling sad, that it was nothing any of us had done, that she’d come out soon.

As the bus stopped and started down Geary Boulevard, I could still hear her, all those years later, weeping uncontrollably, and there was nothing any of us could do.