You all might remember a couple of years ago I started writing my mother once a week besides my weekly call on late Sunday afternoons—as I had hoped the letters seemed to mean a lot to her and I think the letter writing was one of the better things I have done with my life. Mom was in a long term care facility at the time, a nursing home which I think totally shocked and frustrated her and again I think the letters helped he survive her confinement. I think besides this blog, the letter writing campaign was the most constant writing I have ever done. So in that vein I have taken to writing one of my best friends, who is also confined to a long term care facility in Charleston North Carolina.
Dr. Mac, I have written about him before, briefly in this blog, is my friend who, I write weekly. We shared a brief months together, a little over a year, bringing medical services to the migrant farm workers of South West Idaho. A brief time but a time which has forever changed in how I see and measure people. I have written a manuscript and lost this script covering some of my more memorable moments with the clinic program. I have never had the drive to go back and rewrite those lost chapters. I plan to someday but not now. Now, I am writing Mac, letting him know that I am out here and have not forgotten him or the time we spent together. Like my mom’s letters each letter is about 500 words long, touching on key events of my life during the past week especially my bouts with the medical profession which seems to interest him the most and it is good for me to have some sort of parent figure to relate my fears and exasperations of the medical profession to. Mac understand as no one else seems to—since he was part of that profession for a long time and a lot of that as an administrator as well as a health care provider Mac was director of medical services at a large state hospital in Nampa Idaaho when I first met the doctor and later he was the physician for the Clinic mentioned earlier. I was only with Mac for about 18 months.
But Mac aged and so did .We went our separate ways but we sort of stayed in contact, Calling him when I could during the holidays, until a couple of years a go when I learned the Alice, Mac’s wife had died of cancer. Something weird had happened to the doctor causing the family to step in and rescue the man from himself; they moved him from his home in Nampa and relocated him in North Carolina.!
So now I write once a week and try calling off and on but with the time difference and Mac being busy guy seems never to be in his room seeming to enjoy the people at the facility where he lives. He experiences a brain bleed a couple of weeks ago but seems to have fully recovered now. But, I fear the time is short for the good doctor. He is going to have a major bleed or something that will be all she wrote but until then I’ll write him once a week come rain or come shine and when Mac goes, like mom I’ll pick some one new—maybe a granddaughter—that might be fun, write someone who will outlast me.
Dr. Mac, I have written about him before, briefly in this blog, is my friend who, I write weekly. We shared a brief months together, a little over a year, bringing medical services to the migrant farm workers of South West Idaho. A brief time but a time which has forever changed in how I see and measure people. I have written a manuscript and lost this script covering some of my more memorable moments with the clinic program. I have never had the drive to go back and rewrite those lost chapters. I plan to someday but not now. Now, I am writing Mac, letting him know that I am out here and have not forgotten him or the time we spent together. Like my mom’s letters each letter is about 500 words long, touching on key events of my life during the past week especially my bouts with the medical profession which seems to interest him the most and it is good for me to have some sort of parent figure to relate my fears and exasperations of the medical profession to. Mac understand as no one else seems to—since he was part of that profession for a long time and a lot of that as an administrator as well as a health care provider Mac was director of medical services at a large state hospital in Nampa Idaaho when I first met the doctor and later he was the physician for the Clinic mentioned earlier. I was only with Mac for about 18 months.
But Mac aged and so did .We went our separate ways but we sort of stayed in contact, Calling him when I could during the holidays, until a couple of years a go when I learned the Alice, Mac’s wife had died of cancer. Something weird had happened to the doctor causing the family to step in and rescue the man from himself; they moved him from his home in Nampa and relocated him in North Carolina.!
So now I write once a week and try calling off and on but with the time difference and Mac being busy guy seems never to be in his room seeming to enjoy the people at the facility where he lives. He experiences a brain bleed a couple of weeks ago but seems to have fully recovered now. But, I fear the time is short for the good doctor. He is going to have a major bleed or something that will be all she wrote but until then I’ll write him once a week come rain or come shine and when Mac goes, like mom I’ll pick some one new—maybe a granddaughter—that might be fun, write someone who will outlast me.
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