Rise - "A Ghost In My Path"

If you need background here, have time, and have not already read it, I would suggest reading my previous article, "Surviving Jim" as a companion to this one. Thanks!

Not long before Hannah's death, I took a call at work from a distraught father whose son was hospitalized after a second suicide attempt. He was frustrated by the health care system and the way the insurance company was making the family jump through hoops to get his oldest son insured. The son, at fifteen, had been living for years with his mother in another state and was still hospitalized. He (the father) decided to step in and bring him to live with him, knowing that if he did not act soon, he might lose his son forever.

I did what I could to get the boy an appointment as soon as possible with the psychiatrist on staff who specialized in adolescents. I got all the documentation I needed and called the insurance company to verify that the process of adding the boy to the policy was underway. I felt for the man. Jesse was a bit older than the boy but I knew I would be a mess, if he were hell-bent on suicide.

For several days, I worked diligently on this case, and finally was able to obtain an authorization for services. It required several visits by the boy's father to deliver documents, etc. and I assisted him in trying to obtain previous records as well. When the day finally came for the boy to arrive at his father's hometown, we breathed a collective sigh of relief.

And then the day came for the boy's appointment.

I'll call him Jimmy; not because that was his name but because I can't use his name anyway, and when he walked through the door, it was my brother Jim that I saw in him. I didn't know who he was and he'd gotten the appointment time wrong after all of the confusion of the three week process. I had no idea who he was, but I glanced up at the door as he walked in, and at that time of the afternoon, the sunlight from outdoors was beaming from the open door into the lobby. It seemed to fall directly on the boy and just hold him there for a moment until I could catch my breath.

I think I must have gasped, to see my brother in a now-sixteen year-old form walking toward me. And it's not that he really looked so much like Jim… it's just that his demeanor was so similar, and his gait. When he reached the window, I slid it open from inside and he grinned. It was a Jim-grin. "Are you Julie?" He asked me.

You know I am, I thought. You know me.

But my wits got hold of me. "I am." I said.

"Hi, Julie. I'm Jimmy. My dad said to ask for you." Again, that grin.

I should have known. I should have known, because of all the days in the year, I knew that he shared the same birthday as my brother. I know a lot of people share that birthday, but this one was set directly in my path. Not only that, but he had been diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder previously.

I was so caught off guard. I had a short conversation with Jimmy and before he left my desk, saying he was going to sit on the deck in front of the building for an hour, waiting for his appointment, I could have sworn he was flirting with me. I mean, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was not. He was just barely sixteen and I was forty-five… he was a vision I would have fallen for in a heartbeat if I were fourteen, and I was… well, more like a grandmother than a member of the opposite sex, I was sure. But there was something about his manner which would have made me believe it… had I not watched that scenario repeat itself so many times with my brother. Women always thought he was flirting, but he wasn't. He was the same with men and children. It wasn't flirting, it was just… Jim.

I shook my head as he walked away, and snapped back to the present.

Over the next few months, I watched him arrive for his first weekly and then bi-weekly visits. I watched the tremors in his hands when he reacted to the medication he had been prescribed, and the facial tics. And I watched him as a sense of calm seemed to overtake him after a few weeks on the medication, when the visits became every three and then every four weeks but he was seeing one of our therapists at least weekly as well.

Each time he saw me, he gave me that grin and I knew he would be a heartbreaker. I knew…

It was good to see him doing well. I was hopeful for him and when his father stood before me and related all the ways in which his life was improving, I let myself believe that it would be enough to save him.

When Hannah took her life, I comforted myself by telling myself that at least things were working out for Jimmy, and when he sauntered through that door with his curls disheveled and the twinkle intact in his eyes, I breathed it in like air and let it soothe me. Jimmy was all right and with his father's help and the right medications, he would stay that way.

And when he began coming into the office less frequently, I accepted it as a further sign that he was becoming well.

When his father told me that Jimmy was going to spend a couple of weeks at his mother's house at the beginning of summer, I cringed but I was glad it was only for a couple of weeks. I would miss seeing his face, but was happy he was doing so well that his father and therapist trusted him for this trip.

After two weeks, his father called and rescheduled Jimmy's appointment to the following week because he was having so much fun and getting along well with his mother for the first time in years.

A few days after, on a busy Monday morning, I took a call from a hospital, saying they needed to obtain some medication records and to speak to the Dr. A. I was rushed and distracted as I grabbed my pen and notepad, and asked the patient's name.

As a matter of fact, I was so rushed and distracted that when she told me the patient was Jimmy, it didn't even register, for a moment. After all, we all called him by his middle name and she was using his first name and…

And then she told me he had attempted suicide and was in a coma.

I choked back a sob, and I asked her if I could put her on hold for just a moment. I looked at Faith, the co-worker sitting opposite the room from me, and asked her if she could take over the call. I handed her the notepad with the started message, told her I had to leave for a few minutes.

I slipped out the side door and into the parking lot, to sit in my car and try to calm down. But it didn't work well at all. I was sitting there, shoulders heaving, tears pouring from my face for thirty minutes or more.

I went back inside when the calm finally came. Faith looked at me and raised her eyebrows but I just shook my head.

I didn't ask about the rest of the call, though from a fax received a few days later I was to learn that Jimmy had been admitted to a local psychiatric care facility for inpatient treatment.

But by that time, I had already decided that no matter how much I had grown to love my job, I couldn't stay there. I couldn't take the risk that I would take the call when Jimmy's attempt was successful.

I knew that I would not survive losing Jim all over again.

I often wonder about him now. I have always had an uncanny memory for names and details, but I so successfully shut down, that day that I can't remember anything now, other than his real first name and the name we called him. And the name I gave him today when I decided to share his story.

I pray that he is alive and well, and that by now he is in college, studying something which will allow him to use his charm, intellect and personality to go places in life.

I pray that the darkness is gone from his life, and that the right doctor or therapist has happened upon him and saved him.

I pray that I never hear his name again; or that if I do, it's because he is famous for something wonderful.

I pray that he has learned what Jim never did; how to love himself enough never to take his own life, and that he is a precious human being who changed the direction of the life of a woman he barely knew, just by being himself.