Sneaking In.

When I was a kid visiting a parent in the hospital was not allowed. I don’t mean that as in visiting hours only, or accompanied by an adult. It was No Children, period. It was considered to be too unsettling for the patient to see their children; or so the patients were told. Of course that was a load of crap; the most unsettling thing for a parent when they are in the hospital is not seeing their children. And the children feel the same way. Somewhere around 1970 that all changed; and now hospitals are probably too full of visitors for anyone’s benefit. But that will have to be someone else’s story. My story takes place in 1960 when I was about 6 years old.

Everyone should have an Aunt; or two; like Aunt Sissy in “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.” It seems like childhood would be incomplete without someone like that in your life; an adult, but not subject to the usual rules. I was fortunate enough to have 2 such Aunts; my father’s sisters Gladys and Gloria. I've written about them before. They were just the right age to be Aunts; being my Dad's younger sisters. That's them with my grandmother "Nana" before I was born. 

In 1960 my mother began a series of illnesses which would color my childhood, and later on take her life. But not before she gave everyone a run for their money; and not until she was ready. Mom was tiny, but formidable. The point is that she was always in the hospital and I couldn't see her. My Aunts thought this was absurd, and so a plan was hatched, whereby we would be able to see our mom.

I remember the turquoise walls of the hospital; it seems like they painted all the health related buildings in that color. They may have called it turquoise, but I called it “puke green”. The plan was fairly simple; my brother and I would go up the stairs to the floor my mom was on. The only hitch was that at each floor the stairway entrance was directly opposite the head nurses station; making detection very likely.

I think it was Gladys who would emerge from the stairway and engage the head nurse in conversation, or question, as Gloria, my brother and I slipped past to the next flight of stairs. When we got to the next floor we would repeat the process until we got where we were headed. Once there Gladys had to do a prolonged version of diversion as Aunt Gloria quickly hustled us down the hallway to y mom’s room. Hey, sometimes we actually made it!

Other times we failed dismally. My brother could never get it right when we would pass each floor. The sequence went like this; Gloria would go first, and then call to one of us, who would then dash across the opening in a streak so as not to be seen. But my brother had a hard time with doing the quickstep and we got caught; and thrown out; more times than we got in. Ah, but you should of seen the glow on my mom’s face when we did.

"Five Days at Memorial" by Sheri Fink (2013)

No other natural disaster in my lifetime has made such an impression upon the public as the events at Memorial Hospital in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina in August of 2005, when, for 5 days and nights, people died and pandemonium ruled at Memorial Hospital.

In many ways Katrina was the perfect storm, in that it exposed many of the weaknesses and laid bare the complacency which has overtaken us as a society. The ignored warnings, the slipshod planning, the sheer waste of all imaginable resources; school buses being left to rot under water when there weren't enough vehicles to get everyone out; all combine with the predicament at Memorial Hospital, where patients were being given lethal injections of morphine without their knowledge, or consent.

If that last paragraph seems sprawling and slightly manic there is reason for it. That’s the way it was in New Orleans at the time, and that’s the way the book presents itself. With a very deft hand, Ms. Fink has drawn a gripping narrative of the approaching storm, its impact and the aftermath.

In the end, more questions were raised by the 4 days of Katrina than answered in the 8 years since the event. Although recent disaster relief efforts in New York City and elsewhere have shown improvement there is still much to be learned from the lessons of New Orleans.

Culled from 6 years’ worth of researching just about every available document on the subject, the author has left nothing out as she tells the story of the events which spiraled way out of control along with the storm. Carefully looking at each of the key players in the hospital itself, the author also presents a bit of the social history which contributed to the chaos and confusion in Memorial Hospital for those 5 days.

During that time, a doctor named Anna Pou initiated the killing by morphine overdose of over 2 dozen patients, some of whom were merely awaiting routine surgery. By the year after Katrina, in 2006, Louisiana’s Attorney General had Dr. Pou arrested, along with two nurses who had assisted her. The case was never tried and all charges were dismissed. In addition, the state was required to pay the legal fees of the former defendants, and the charges were expunged.

The subject of Euthanasia is, of necessity, explored here as well. Beginning with King Saul and his exploits in the Old Testament, where he is wounded and asks to be killed; a request which is denied to him and leads to the execution of the man who denied it; before moving on to the teachings and interpretations of Hippocrates; and then exploring the actions of Bonaparte’s army during the Plague; as well as the teachings of Margaret Read; the author explores the dual questions of just when it is okay to take a life; and for what reasons?

This was a difficult book to read, as it touches upon so many questions we all ask, but often never give utterance to. It is also, in some ways, an indictment of ourselves and the complacency which we are all guilty of. That complacency and the attendant lack of individual responsibility all helped to contribute to the situation in New Orleans. In turn, that situation led to the bizarre killings at Memorial Hospital by the very people who were trained to protect and save lives. This is a remarkable book which will affect the reader for some time to come.

Aunt Gloria - Everyone Should Have One

This is my Aunt Gloria, actually, my favorite Aunt Gloria. Everybody should have one. They play a special role in your life, sometimes without even knowing it! This picture was taken, and this is a guess, on the steps to the brownstone in Manhattan, on the Upper West Side, where the family moved from Brooklyn after my Grandfather passed away. Gloria was only about 4, or 5 at the time, so she must be about 8 years old in this photo. I could be wrong though, and this may have been taken at Aunt Katy's in Park Slope, Brooklyn. She'll let me know. She looks a bit like Judy Garland here, with her nose kind of scrunched up, looking at the camera. Even at that young age you could see the joy inside of her. That inner joy was what made her special to me when I was growing up.

One of my favorite memories of Aunt Gloria involves her sneaking my brother and I into the hospital to see our Mom when she was sick. Back in those days children were not allowed to visit their parents in the hospital. My mother didn't like this rule, and so Aunt Gloria decided to do something about it.

Sneaking into the hospital stairway was easy enough, the hard part always came when we had to exit the stairwell, and then make our way down the hall to my Mom's room. Gloria would usually have my Aunt Gladys with her, so Gladys would go to the nurse's station and distract the head nurse, waving us on behind her back when the time was right. We would then go single file, with Gloria blocking the rear so we wouldn't be seen by the nurse, down the hallway to my Mom's room. They weren't private rooms, so the visits never lasted that long before we were "discovered", and then ejected, by the hospital staff. But those few minutes meant the world to my Mom, and Aunt Gloria knew it.

While re-reading "A Tree Grows In Brooklyn" recently, for about the hundrenth time, I was struck by the similarity between those real life visits to my Mom, and the part of the book where Johnny enrolls Francie in a school out of their neighborhood. They both know that it's wrong - but it's done to right a greater wrong. And, in some cases, the ends do justify the means.

Anyway, this is just a very public rambling about my favorite Aunt Gloria. Today is her birthday. She's younger than me, in heart, and spirit. She and her husband, my Uncle Bob, aka the "Fork and Spoon", reside in Florida and sometimes in New York. They can also be found at all points in between. Happy Birthday, Gloria, from your favorite nephew!