The Wind cries Mary

So, I got to spend a few hours last night in the ER. It was miserable (until the RN showed me how to turn on MNF and even then is was depressing as hell). We were in a temp room while the ER is under construction. Big bonus was that there were curtains separating us from other patients and "arrival" of new patients. I could go on and on about the stories I made up in my head about the other patients and their stories. Unfortunately, I didn't have to make up a story for Mary who was admitted to the "room" behind me. Mary was picked up by paramedics wandering around by the tracks. She is suffering from Alzheimer's and is known to wander her neighborhood. It's in her "record" that her son doesn't care anymore. Unimaginable. She didn't know her name, address or birthdate the first 4 times they asked her. At one point she said "I don't know that right now" as if she expected to know the answer any minute. In between inquisitions by the various hospital workers, Mary would cry and talk to herself, asking why she was there, calling for her daddy or simply asking to go home, her anxious state ebbed and flowed as interns and RN's filed in and out of her "room" (and don't get me wrong, each was genuine and friendly and working hard to do their job, but talking to her like she was 5.) It was a horrifying "conversation" to listen to.

I decided I would blog about the experience, not to be a Pdaddy downer, but rather to bring some little awareness to the reality of Alzheimer's. My Buckaroo lived with it, but I was too young to understand. Listening to Mary tonight made me realize how horrible this disease is and how much work there is to be done. I ran for LUNGevity last year, will run for Team Fox for Parkinson's disease this year and have supported Livestrong, The Hirshberg foundation and Susan G. Komen amongst others, yet listening to Mary beg for her daddy to help last night made me question if any of us are doing enough. I don't know that answer but will be thinking a lot about it and will never forget Mary (we did learn that she was 86, born in 1923. She has forgotten more about life than I know, but can't remember her name...).

When thinking about this post, many titles were going through my head. "There's something about Mary". "Crazy Mary" (Chicagoans will get this) or "The wind cried Mary". The latter is a Jimi Hendrix song. I searched the lyrics today and was dumbfounded by what I found. I think Jimi wrote this about Mary.

Here are the lyrics to Jimi's song. Please support research organizations that give 100% of proceeds to finding a cure. We can't settle for the obstacles that inhibit us today from curing these diseases.

The Wind Cries Mary- Jimi Hendrix


"After all the jacks are in their boxes and the clowns have all gone to bed
You can hear happiness staggering on down the street
Footprints dressed in red and the wind whispers mary

A broom is drearily sweeping up the broken pieces of yesterdays life
Somewhere a queen is weeping somewhere a king has no wife
And the wind it cries mary

The traffic lights they turn of blue tomorrow
And shine their emptiness down on my bed
The tiny island sails downstream cause the life that lived is is dead
And the wind screams mary

Will the wind ever remember the names it has blown in the past
And with this crutch its old age and its wisdom
It whispers no this will be the last
And the wind cries mary"