Twelve Patients: Life and Death at Bellevue Hospital by Eric Manheimer Page B

her. Her philosophy and the life she passed on is all in this book, handwritten in Spanish. I borrowed it from Tani and told her I wanted to share it with a very special person who would understand it and keep it to herself. She has shared her journals with me as she completes them. What I know of her is what she has written. Much more than what she has said. I think life has been too painful for her to say it out loud even to people she is starting to trust, even a little. We all leave her.”
    We sat across from each other and didn’t say anything for a few minutes. Lila looked at the picture, the colorful animals flying across a sky darkened by an eclipse of the sun. She saw her mother and father in the center of the picture and pulled it closer to her.
    “Dr. Eric, I will read it and then talk to my husband. I understand what you are saying. And I understand what you are asking. We are a poor family. We don’t have a lot. Except one another. My husband works all the time and worries about our expenses and our health. He is a good person and loves his children and his grandchildren.”
    Our conversation drifted to the neighborhood and how much it was changing. The apartments were going co-op, and Lila was worried about the future of rent control and the New York State legislature, but she liked the safety and the variety of families that were moving in. “I feel more Jewish than ever before,” she said with her usual smile.“I used to see Rabbi Schneerson being driven around on his way to visit people at Downstate hospital. He was a wonderful man and a real community leader. Look at how the community has grown.” She had moved over to the window and parted the white gauzy curtains while looking down on the street. “You know, it doesn’t matter really which religion you believe in. There are many religious people who cannot love anyone or accept love from anyone.”
    At that point we both moved toward the door. I grabbed my coat and my ancient brown leather briefcase. We hugged at the door and she kissed my cheek. “
Voy a llamarte, Eric
. I will call you, don’t worry.” I retraced my steps to Clarkson Avenue, where I’d parked across the street from the large campus of Kings County Hospital. I’d spent ten years here learning how to become a doctor. It all flooded back to me as I unlocked my car and paused for a few moments looking up and down the streets that were increasingly less familiar. The new buildings’ red brick hadn’t had a chance to weather, and the glass-and-metal entrances were surreal. I took my time driving down Flatbush Avenue and over the Manhattan Bridge. The traffic was heavy, the potholes merciless on my aging Volvo, but I savored just being in Brooklyn, another time zone, another planet in the galaxy of New York.
    Back at the hospital, I met with the child team and let them know I had met with Lila Pagan privately in her home in Flatbush. Briefly I went over the visit, leaving out most of the details. More than anything I did not want to raise anyone’s hopes that the Pagan family could or would be able to take on the responsibility of becoming foster parents for Tani. In addition to making this decision, they would have to go through the process of applying to be foster parents and enter into a long process of interviews, background investigations, and multiple home visits by social workers before being accepted. They were an intact family, emotionally connected, financially not desperate, and had a physical home that was appropriate. There was also a record of the
abuela
’s care and dozens of kids over many years well looked after. The system had almost seventeen thousand kids in foster care in New York City at any one time. There were thousands entering and leaving annually. Many kids had impossible needs.
    The system at the moment had “seized up,” according to one social worker I had talked to about Tani. A mother had left a very young child with her younger boyfriend. The