Bloglet, the gentleman's mock turtle soup --
Moss made it sweeter than myrrh ash and dhoup

I am sad and happy. _ respond? 09:50:02 PM, Thursday 27 November 2003

One of my clients died last night at midnight. I don't talk much about my clients here, because there are all these confidentiality rules that I haven't really learned, and so I don't want to break one without knowing it. But I don't care -- I'm going to talk about him. I won't use his name, so it shouldn't matter too much whatever the rules are. On Saturday, I looked into his room to see how he was doing. He was sleeping; I didn't wake him up. He was fine. Friday morning he'd hopped right out of bed and into the shower, just the same as always -- better, actually, because most times it was kind of a struggle to get him out of his nice warm bed into the cold cold world. Tuesday night, I came into work and was told that he was in the hospital, dying. I drove to see him. He was sleeping then, too. I held his hand and put my head on his shoulder... he was warm and sweaty, just like he always was when he was sleeping. Then I left. He didn't wake up. It was renal failure, complicated by congestive heart failure. He was 43, which is a little above the average life expectancy for a man with Down Syndrome. He had this incredible dignity. I mean a real solid sufficiency, a way of interacting with the world that was so concrete and deliberate and concerted that it didn't need speech. I don't think you can have that kind of dignity unless you don't talk. From what I could tell, he thought talking was beside the point. He would look at you. If you held out your hand, he would take it and hold it. He had enormous rough warm hands. He had the same solemn grave expression on his face no matter if he was happy or hurting or royally pissed off -- except if you made him laugh. Serious serious serious serious HUGESMILESNICKER serious serious HUGESMILESNICKER serious serious... just like two seconds of paralytic glee, and then back to his placid self. Cracked me up like crazy. Sometimes he used to pull the fire alarm, just to see people jump. When I say dignity, I mean that it was there, and dominated, his features, which would have looked ridiculous on anyone else I know. His eyes were always crossed, and he had a great grooved tongue that projected halfway between his teeth, but his brow, and his cheeks, and even his figure -- like a lump of frozen bread dough -- all somehow harmonized with his nature. He loved order and neatness and doing things properly. He always straightened the garbage cans when I left them crooked, and gave me dirty, indulgent looks. I would put his plate in front of him at breakfast and fasten his bib around his neck, and he would lift the plate up carefully, set it over a few inches, put the end of the bib on the table, smooth it down, and put the plate back on it, dead center. It was satisfying just to watch him make things symmetrical, put his shoes on, stretch out his shoulders in the morning. He always did things right. Once, just for the hell of it, I saluted him. I dunno; I was always babbling stuff off the top of my head. He'd done something perfect again, and I said, "Good work, soldier." He looked me dead in the eye and saluted me back. I don't know if he'd ever done it before or not, but he knew what it meant. He looked like a General. And another thing of his -- for him, a door was properly either shut or open all the way so that the knob touched the wall. Never ajar. I guess that applied just as well to his life. As long as he was able to do all the things he could do, he was the finest stoic philosopher I've known. As soon as he wasn't, he died. So quick. I only knew him for six months, but I knew every part of his body, and many glorious glimpses of his mind. I won't forget him. _ respond?