Remembering Anna

You know how there are people you’ll never forget?

It’s a fact of life everyone comes to realize as they get older. We often remember our first girlfriend or boyfriend, our first kiss, maybe even our first love. As a doctor, I remember a lot of firsts, but my memories of patients are usually associated with the illness the person had, and how I was involved in getting them better. My memory of them was seldom about them personally as fellow human beings.

I remember the first patient in whom I diagnosed breast cancer. It was during my internship at San Joaquin General Hospital in Stockton, California. She was a very nice mid-forties woman with a husband and several kids. I had found a lump in her breast during a routine clinic visit, a biopsy of which showed a large, metastatic breast malignancy. She had surgery, but it was too late. She died before the end of my “surgical rotation,” leaving her husband without a wife and her children without a mother. I grieved at her death – but to my surprise – not so much because I had lost a patient but more so because I had lost a person I had come to know. A person – not a cancer. That was the difference.

I remember plenty of other firsts too – my first appendectomy, my first patient in private practice (Mrs. Wilson of the last post), my first patient with AIDS. But sadly, I don’t remember much about these people themselves. I only remember the illnesses that brought them into my life. I don’t remember their names or what they were like as wives, husbands, friends, or kids.

But that is not the case with Anna Bothern.

Anna Bothern was a spitfire. She was ninety when we met and going on thirty! I would have been surprised if she weighed 100 lbs. or was over five feet tall if she stretched.. After years of hard work and struggle, first during savage Norwegian winters and later in Oregon, her face looked like poorly tanned leather topped with a tassel of snow-white hair that never could decide which position to take when brushed. But small in stature, in spite of her age Anna was so full of life whenever she came into my office, it was always a joy to see her.

Anna was riddled with crippling arthritis, but she never allowed pain or immobility to dampen her spirit. When I’d ask her how she was doing – really doing – she would simply look me in the eyes with her still sparkling blues and answer, “I’m just fine.” I knew she really wasn’t ‘just fine,’ but Anna knew, with her age and the degree of her illness, she was doing as well as could be expected. She did want to exploit the obvious.

Anna neither wanted nor took any medication except for occasional Tylenol, which, according to her, was like popping a couple of M&M candies. And she did that only when the arthritis would prevent her from tending to her own needs, requiring a daughter to help her.

Anna approached life from a positive viewpoint, not only with respect to her health but also in everything else we chatted about when she was my patient. She would never fail to ask about my wife, Pat, my teenage daughter, Chantelle, and my preteen son, Adam. She would ask about our home, vacations we had planned, the diet we ate, and our dogs. And she never let up on her advice for me to take time off and smell the roses.

I loved Anna – the type of person she was and the type of person she inspired me to be.

As a young family, we attended a Lutheran Church in town. It was the same church Anna attended when she had a chance to attend a service. On one particular Sunday, the church was celebrating Holy Communion. In this church, participants in communion would walk up to the altar, receive a blessing from Pastor Joel, and take a blessed communion wafer and a small glass crucible filled with blessed wine. It is a wonderful celebration enjoyed by Christians around the world.

Because I was usually ‘on call,’ my family and I always sat at the rear of the church building. If I happened to be called away (which was often), sitting at the back allowed me to depart without interrupting the service.

On this particular Sunday, which included Holy Communion, I noticed Anna sitting by herself on an aisle toward the front of the sanctuary. When the usher called her aisle to approach the altar to partake in the Holy Supper, Anna remained seated. I could tell she felt tired and too frail to walk up to the altar on her own, and no one was there to help her.

Something overcame me when I saw her sitting there alone, wanting to participate in the Lord’s supper. I got out of my pew, walked over to Anna and offered he my arm to help her down the aisle to commune with the Lord.

All eyes were on us as we walked down the aisle. I don’t like that kind of attention, but it didn’t matter. When we approached the steps leading up to the altar, Pastor Noel stepped down to greet us. He placed his hands on Anna’s head to bless her and handed us each a portion of communion bread and wine. We partook of the communion holding on to one another.

Afterward, I walked Anna back to her pew, helped her to be seated, and returned to my family.

I don’t share this memory with you to obtain accolades for myself. Rather, I share because I want you to know what happened just after.

Escorting Anna to the altar to commune with God and having him watch me do so, solidified my relationship with my son and allowed it to skyrocket and persist to this very day. I know it changed his life, as it certainly changed mine. I owe it all to Anna.

As a boy soon approaching his teenage years, Adam was not terribly communicative about his emotions. He was caught somewhere between wanting his mom and dad’s approval for everything he did and struggling to find his own place in the world as a growing young man. Thus, I was shocked and delighted when Adam tugged on my shirt sleeve and leaned over to speak to me.

“That was really nice, Dad.” It was all he said. “Really nice”. Then he patted my knee and returned his attention to the service at hand.

‘That was really nice, Dad’. Five simple works I often wonder if Adam remembers, but words I know that changed his life.

Adam has grown into a remarkable young, loving son, husband, and father of three. As a dad, I pray I had something to do with that. Having help along the way, assisted by an angel like Anna Bothern, certainly made it easier.

I will have more about Anna in a future posting. Stay tuned.