a pearl like no other

Yesterday I found out that one of my favorite volunteers at the Health Learning Center passed away last week. Pearl was a tiny little lady with short white and silver hair cropped almost in a pixie cut. She was a former public school teacher who raised her two daughters on her own after her husband suddenly passed away. I loved working with her when I was at the HLC. She was a smart and sassy lady and nothing escaped her eye. She was often appalled at the way my boss treated everyone so condescendingly and often said that I should replace her - making me chuckle.

I envisioned busting into my bosses office and announcing, "YOU'RE FIRED!", and Pearl would be backing me up with her hands on her hips nodding her head.

Well, that never happened. Pearl and I spent a lot of time at the front desk talking about patrons, my boss, the institution, our lives and our love for the German Dutch Baby Pancake. She would sit perched on one of the swivel stools with a giant plastic travel mug filled with ice chips that she would suck on to subdue the ever constant frog in her throat. She told me about how she married later in life to a career man (I think insurance). She wanted children so terribly and had her first child at the age of 38 and the second at 40. This surprised me, I never really thought that women had children that late in life then. She wanted to have more but the doctor told her she shouldn't even think of it.

She had two wonderful daughters that she and her husband just adored. The were the love of her husband's life. Her husband suddenly died from a heart attack and she was left to raise her two daughters on her own. She had to become re-certified as a teacher and then worked for years as a public school teacher. Her daughters grew up and both married. One lives in Evanston in a large house with no children and the other in New York who has a daughter named Eleanor who has to be most loved granddaughter of all time. Pearl just adored Eleanor. She sang her praises to the highest reaches of our atmosphere. Eleanor sounded like the most delightful, smart, sassy and observant just like her grandmother. Pearl and Eleanor adored each other.

There are hazards of working in the Health Learning Center, they include becoming a hypochondriac, burning out on trying to help (or save) everyone and being smart enough to know bad news when you read it. Pearl came in late to her shift one afternoon and towards closing time she handed me a couple of sheets of paper with her blood test results on it. She asked me to look up the tests to tell her what they meant because the doctor didn't explain and simply told her she had return for a scan of her liver. I went online to my favorite site for lab tests (labtestsonline.org) and looked up the blood tests. One was a general profile the other was specifically to test for a protein that indicates liver cancer. I read the definition of the test over and over trying to see if there was a way that I could say that maybe the protein was just and indicator that something was up. Like one of those initial tests that may show and elevated something that is indicative of something else and more testing is needed. Well, no luck. This test was testing for liver cancer and that was it. I printed out the information and she asked me what it said even though she would read it later. I tried to spin the protein thing as not definitely liver cancer. I said maybe the protein was just elevated and they weren't sure yet. She was upset but seemed okay that I told her. I didn't hear much about it after that.

She was out for a few weeks with bronchitis and came back. She wasn't eating much and kept on losing weight and she was lamenting how she just wasn't hungry.
At this point in time (June 2007) I was leaving the Health Learning Center for a new job elsewhere in the hospital. I had some flexibility in my schedule so I suggested we meet up to go the Original Pancake House for Dutch Baby pancakes. We met on the corner of Bellevue and Rush and had a fantastic breakfast inside. She ate nearly the entire pancake and proclaimed that it was the most she had eaten in weeks. We talked about our families, my new job and the eventuality of me marrying Jeremy. Afterwards, we parted with me to work and her on a bus back home.

Fast forward many months later to Spring when my friend and former coworker in the HLC tells me that Pearl had palliative radiation on her liver. She had an operation where they implanted tiny seeds of radiation to focus on the cancer in her liver so it wouldn't affect the rest of her body. My friend said that Pearl seemed much better, more energetic and feeling good. I stopped over to say hi and visit. I brought photos from the cruise that Jeremy and I went on that past February. She was thrilled. I also told her that we were getting married and she exclaimed, "Mazel tov!" This had to be one of the most genuine responses I received about the news. It just made my heart just swell with love. I promised I would stop by again with photos after we married. I gave her a hug, stooping down to encircle her tiny frame with my arms and left.

I never stopped by with photos. Another missed opportunity to be a good person and keep my promises to the people I care about. I have done it before and I have done it again. I really need to take more active role in the lives of the people I care about. Although they may be surrounded by those who love them, isolating them from me (though I may not be that important) is one less person to have near and the act of isolating myself from them means another friendship lost.