She reminded me of my Nana, my roommate in the hospital. I still miss her and wish I could go back to the safety of that room with her. Psychiatric wards have been my safest place, my place where my hot hospital oatmeal warms my body, my blood, my soul. It is there that I feel safe from myself and from the world. And I feel a normalcy there among the other patients that I struggle to find on the outside. I have lived with mental illness most of my life. I always thought if I could just get the next thing I would be ok. A baby to love, a degree, a job. But the problem has always been me, and I don't think it will go away. I still struggle with the feelings I had at 14. The thoughts of wanting to hurt myself, of suicide. My death being my greatest fantasy. I never imagined growing old, only dying young. My roommate in the hospital helped me in more ways than she will ever know. She was 76 years old living with schizophrenia and the moment I saw her I knew she felt like home.
I was taken to my new room to meet my new roommate. I later found out she had spent almost 5 months isolated in her own room, rarely coming out. She and I were moved to a double room on the same day. I think it was strategic. I think the doctors knew how badly we needed each other.
She arrived in my life so shortly after that first bite of oatmeal I had tasted in years. Shortly after my police escort to the hospital, as my desire to die overtook me and I couldn't fight anymore. She came to me after my escape from a mandatory psychiatric hold resulting in yet another escort to the hospital. All of it led me to that room with her. And there was something so special and so important about her.
She reminded me of the summers I spent with Nana.
She looked like a regular 76-year-old lady, like my Nana looked the last summer I spent with her. I felt a connection with her immediately. I ended up in that room with her after I attempted suicide in the Atlantic Ocean begging the waves to take me to my grandparents.
When I walked in my room and introduced myself to her, she announced herself proudly. She had a beautiful name and a beautiful soul. As I was settling into my side of the sterile hospital I talked to her. I told her that I can be very chatty but I'm great with boundaries, so if she needed some quiet time, let me know and I would happily oblige and shut the curtain or give her private time in the room. She replied, “oh dear you can talk as much as you want, you're louder than the voices in my head”. The best compliment I ever received.
Our first night as roomies she asked me to help her button her pajamas, and I was happy to. It really felt like being with Nana. Except she heard the devil telling her to kill people and Nana kept the devil at bay with all of her prayers and faith. My roomie had prayers and faith too, but it wasn’t enough to quiet the voices.
As it turns out though, I'm louder than that mother fucker. She told me I was louder than her devil. I looked at her strength and tenacity, and I knew that if she could fight for longer than I've been alive, I can keep fighting too.
She loved hockey. Hockey isn't for me, but it was the playoffs and I wanted to get her into the common room to enjoy some company with the other patients. I told her that I had some secret ginger ale at the nurse’s station and we could have a little drink. We clinked our plastic glasses, and she told me she hadn’t drunk alcohol in 35 years, I told her that I hadn’t drunk in five years. She said she lived in Vancouver back then and she used to “party with the homosexuals…the homosexuals have the best drugs”. She lit me up with all of her words. I have no idea what happened in that game. I think they won. But it was the best hockey game I ever watched as all the young fellas on the ward made her the center of attention.
Maybe sharing that hospital room felt like home because she felt like Nana. I could see and feel her loneliness the way I felt Mary Magdelane’s. I felt my own loneliness in a way I never had when I arrived at that hospital room with her. When she asked me to help button her pajamas on that first night, I remembered helping Nana with little tasks like that as she got older. It’s an intimate task, helping a vulnerable older woman. So often it is staffed, provided by a worker on a wage and not a family with love. Her pants used to fall down, I would help her dress and set them in a way they fit her better, though she was oblivious to her bum crack showing. I just wanted to help her with some dignity. She needed better clothes, but this was all she had, and we made her beautiful. She had been using sterile hospital body products so I had my aunt bring her some shampoo and conditioner and body wash. Her nurse yelled at me and told me it wasn’t my job to help her. I helped her anyway.
As we got to know each other, she told me she was in and out of hospitals like this since she was 20. That's longer than I've been alive. She came to life as she told me about hers. I relished in her stories. I was inspired by her struggle and her grit.
She kept faith and fought every day. Even on the hard days after her electro-shock therapy. She needed me; within the capacity I had to give at one of the lowest points in my life. But maybe I needed her more. I helped her come out of her shell, out of her room at more than mealtime. I brought her to sit on the patio where we all smoked, and one of the other patients told us we were the best love story there ever was. And we were.
But I ran away from the hospital as I do. In doing so, I left her. And she will never know the impact she had on me. That she gave me back some of my fight. I don’t know where to find her, but maybe if I am lucky, someday I will become her.
