[ongoing].
If there's one valid statement amongst the many definitions of love, it's that love, is inevitable. And with Edith McGregor, a single, striving twenty-eight year old New Yorker, and Adam Bernadette, a man who claims to be from 19th centur...
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O N E | The Storm
There were a lot of ways to start a Monday morning. Preferably with a good cup of coffee, warm smiles, and a slightly upbeat attitude to convince yourself you were going to have a great day.
But mine, however, usually starts the exact opposite way; and today, it was with Mr. O'Neil sitting across from me as he told me tales of his wife and the wild adventures they'd had the night before.
I nodded and smiled as he rambled on, thinking about the thousand places I could rather be than sitting right in front of this middle-aged man on this rainy Monday morning.
I gave him an encouraging smile when I realised that he'd stopped talking. "So, when did she say she'd come visit you again, Peter?" I said, calling him by his first name. It was super important to maintain an acquaintance level with the patients – it gave them a sense of confidence... a little push to put their trust in you.
He was excited. "Tomorrow! She said she'd be back tomorrow night. We would go see a movie this time. She always looks so pretty each time I see her; do you know that?"
I smiled and nodded, "I bet she does. I would really love to see her, it's a shame I haven't met her yet. You should really take a picture, Peter. I'd love to see what she looks like."
He nodded ecstatically. "I will! I'll take one and come show you, Edith. You'll see how beautiful she really is, in her red dress and all. I bought that for her, you know? She looks beautiful in it every day."
My smile wavered, turning compassionate. The truth was that Mr. O'Neil's wife had actually died two years ago in a terrible car crash that only he had been able to survive. Not being able to come to terms with her death, he'd started hallucinating her in his dreams. And although he only saw her at night when he slept, he still thought her so real that it had not yet occurred to him that the places he saw visuals of her were in his dreams. And in every session I had with him, he'd always said she'd been wearing a red dress. The red dress that was probably the same one Mrs. O'Neil had been wearing the night she died.
But he wouldn't believe that... certainly hasn't since he got admitted into this hospital two years ago, so I just widened my smile and took his hands.
"I'm sure she did, Peter. I'm sure she did."
. . . . . . . .
"So, any progress with Mr. O'Neil?" Rahila, my supervisor and a senior doctor asked me from her place in her chair.
I shrugged, handing her a report. "Same thing, different week. He still hasn't realized Mrs. O'Neil is a hallucination. And that's the first step to getting the treatment started. So until he does, there's nothing much we can really do, Rahila."
She nodded, tapping her pen as she stared down at the report I'd handed her. "I understand. But we need to do this sooner rather than later, Edith. He's been in this hospital for more than a year."
