Porcelain Angel

Porcelain Angel

    Susan still haunts me like a ghost from a world which no longer exists. Maria Smith Psychiatric hospital closed years ago. I can visualize walking through the corridors and imagining the people as it was nearly two decades ago.
    In my mind’s eye I can still see Susan with her angular cheek bones and wispy emaciated figure. She was severely anorexic and in danger of dying. I will never know if she slipped her mortal coil and migrated to some celestial sphere beyond this realm. She had a singular grace which transcended her physical depletion. Her timid manner belied a fiercely strong spirit.
     On a lazy afternoon walking the corridor with Susan, without thinking I made a wounding remark. On the long monotonous evenings spent in the main area, we played a simple board game which in involved jumping over sticks to eliminate the maximum amount possible. One could be “genius”, “slow”, or “just plain stupid,” according to the label, based on ones success.
     Susan joked about being slow. I said maybe,
“just plain stupid.” She reacted angrily. My intellectual pretentiousness was well known around the hospital.
     Later I confessed my hurtful comment to a worker. He said I should be talking to Susan.
     Later that evening Susan was standing around the edge of the room looking pensive. I approached her and heartily apologized. I told her she was more intelligent than me because she had a college degree. She forgave me with an ease and gentleness which made me melt.
     Saturday nights were movie night at the hospital. I had chosen the “Big Chill”, for the evening entertainment. I sat in front of the TV by myself. My self-imposed isolation was something the hospital had taken great pains to discourage.
     Susan approached me and announced to the crowd that I was her date for that night. She pulled a chair close to me and lay against my side. As the movie unfolded, Susan lay her head on my shoulder and soon fell fast asleep. The warmth of her body against me seemed to seep deep into my frozen heart. I felt her compassion as a gift given freely and out of caring. I sat very still feeling her breathing grow deeper as the movie concluded. As the crowd stirred rising from their seats she woke and silently walked to her room.
    Susan was eventually sent to a special hospital in Washington, D.C., to treat her anorexia. In the face of death she coaxed a seed to germinate in the frozen tundra of my solitude.