Ordinarily Tuesdays and Wednesdays are busy days. Not only are these the days when I craft my posts to this site, but on alternating Tuesdays, including this past one, it’s also when I clean my house for Julia, the biweekly housekeeper. (I would not want Julia to discover how I really keep my house most days!) This week the receipt of a letter from the law firm handling Lee’s suit against a drug manufacturer whose product allegedly causes several types of cancer, including the deadly pancreatic type that took her, interrupted my schedule.
Quite recently, in the span of about one week, I received two calls from my “case manager” at the firm. Her first call was welcome since I had not communicated with anybody there since last Fall.
However, in both calls she was trying to pin me down for specific medical information about Lee. This was a cost savings device, I supposed, given that obtaining Lee’s extensive medical records would be a cumbersome and expensive endeavor. I cooperated with her inquiries to the best of my ability.
Unfortunately, I do not maintain or have easy and ready access to medical records for Lee. Both times we spoke, the case manager was polite but clearly unsatisfied by my answers and explanations. While my impression during our initial call had been the case manager was probably just following orders, her follow-up call had left no doubt in my mind that this in fact was the case. Then, on Tuesday this week, I received a letter printed on the firm’s letterhead informing me that time is of the essence and that I run the risk that Lee’s case will be dismissed by a court if I did not promptly supply certain and specific medical information. The same day I undertook a hard target search of my house for any documentation that conceivably might aid my memory.
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There remain places from the past that I haven’t visited since Lee’s passing either because it was not a necessity or because I felt it would prove to be an unpleasant or upsetting task. Probably, it was a bit of both. For me, reviewing Lee’s medical history is to relive her sad demise; even highly technical records for which I lack any training or appreciation can rekindle my sadness that she is gone. I felt sure that my next search could only succeed in stirring up the dust of hard memory.
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Before Tuesday night, except for some hanging clothes, for nearly three years the right side of Lee’s closet in the bedroom has remained largely untouched by me. Other than my overflow wardrobe, the space contained one large banker’s box, several file folders, and reams of loose papers in two massive, unsteady piles on the carpet. I started with these piles but did not conclude my search until mid-morning on Wednesday. In relatively short order, I could determine the search of the two piles was likely to be a fool’s errand yet completed it anyway just to be thorough. I removed assorted junk mail, unsolicited advertisements for insurance products, extended automobile warranties, banks, and the like, and innumerable charity solicitations, including many of dubious character. Among the literally hundreds of pages of paper I examined, not one item of substance.
On Wednesday, as I finished depositing the last of five heavy document bags into my recycling bins, I wondered, how had so much useless stuff ended up on the floor of Lee’s closet in the first place? For the life of me I can’t explain it. However, I thought to myself, well, at least I’ve got a nice, new open space in my bedroom closet.
Next, I tackled the banker’s box, which contained a few items of permanent interest. For example, I found a “family” calendar from 2016 that someone on Lee’s side must have made because it only features her side of the family. I do appear in it a couple times, for example, on my birth date, which features a calendar-sized photo of me with one of Lee’s nephew’s kids. Cute idea.
Even better, the box contained two pairs of Lee’s shoes: one pair of tall, fancy leather boots with tasteful stitching, and one pair of seldom worn, nearly pristine and first-quality hiking boots. The thing is, in life Lee was renowned for having the tiniest feet that anybody could recall. Even when she managed to find “adult” shoes, these invariably would be so small one might picture them hanging from a car’s rearview mirror. These shoes inside of the banker’s box were adorable keepers, which was why I still had them in the first place. Alas, this box held no legal or medical documents.
Initially the folders in Lee’s closet seemed to hold some promise but these papers related mainly to her career with the City. As I read these papers now, they reminded me how admired and respected Lee was among her work colleagues. I will never forget how two dozen or so of her co-workers arrived to our home unannounced from all over the city in a lengthy car caravan, honking horns and flashing homemade signs of love and encouragement, in the hopes that Lee might at least come to the front windows. I had to go outside to thank them and to report that Lee had passed away the previous day.
Finally, I noticed the small wicker basket that sits in the front room where Lee used to keep her recent mail. In it still were some miscellaneous papers, including the handwritten letter my nephew presented the last time he saw Lee shortly before her death. Lee had been deeply touched by my nephew’s comforting and loving words and told me so at the time. Indeed, it is a beautiful and heartfelt letter.
Also in the basket were the last wedding anniversary cards we exchanged. We did not exchange cards in June 2020, which marks Lee’s last full month of life. Her last simple message to me is an affirmation of the love that she so generously bestowed throughout our time together.
Lastly, in the same basket I noticed a yellowed manilla folder marked simply, “Lee’s file.” In it I found copies of more work documents, including two leave of absence notices that Lee had filed with her employer during her battles with cancer. These two documents, which contained the exact dates of diagnosis of two specific cancers, were precisely the papers I had been searching for all these past hours.
Leave it to Lee to have my back when I most needed it.