by May Sarton
[For one thing the Molnar-Fentons were supposed to be coming Saturday afternoon to be shown around as I am lending them the house for a holiday while I’m away. Dorothy Molnar and Stephen Fenton came to see me six or seven years ago because, they told me, it was reading my poems that had brought them together and so I was a kind of godmother to their marriage. They were at that time social workers and I was drawn to them both. Dorothy’s oval face and blue eyes reminded me of my mother’s, and Stephen’s black beard and rosy cheeks, his bright eyes full of tenderness, charmed me. So I was deeply touched when two years later I had the announcement of the birth of their first child and saw that she had been named for me, her first name “Sarton.”
Last summer they all three spent a vacation in Ogunquit so I saw something of them and they began to feel like family. When I picked them up at Foster’s, little Sarton, now five, was happy to ride with me. She said, “It is very hard to be five. So much is expected of you,” and I was delighted as I think everyone feels this about whatever age he or she may be. Sarton is a ravishing little girl with a Dutch cut that reminds me of myself at her age and wide-apart blue eyes. She observes everything and, of course, Tamas is in his element and adores any little girl not much taller than he.
So I had offered to lend them the house this summer. I had planned to go to the Cape to Rene Morgan’s that week when the Massachusetts General Hospital intervened. Because I could not show them the house I worked hard putting labels on all the drawers and cupboards to say where things were in the kitchen. Then all Saturday morning I waited for a call while Edythe Haddaway and her friend, Betty, waited to be told to come and fetch me. Finally at eleven I called. A new crew takes over on the week end. They had no message for me. “You are booked for Sunday at one-thirty,” I was told. All that suspense, all the frantic arrangements, the Molnar-Fentons put off, Edythe and Betty put off. It made me furious. I had so looked forward to seeing little Sarton before I left, and making the house feel like a good nest for them, all three.
Dorothy was wonderful on the phone. They will just walk in here at noon on Sunday after I leave and will spend tonight at a motel in Ogunquit. The logistics of all this made me so agitated I felt terribly sick all that afternoon.] As Dorothy compassionately put it, “Nothing goes smoothly for you these days.”
Phillips House, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Monday, August 4
I know now what it must be like to be a dog in a cage not knowing why it is there—hoping, waiting, punished she doesn’t know why or what for—for I lay in a cubicle in the Emergency ward—I had been called at ten and told to go there and be admitted—from one-fifteen to six forty-five—lying with a heart monitor on behind me so I could not move or get up. After four hours I asked to be allowed to go to the bathroom. “A bedpan is all we can offer,” said a sadistic nurse who was as mean as they come. I explained that I found it hard to function that way and she sneered, “Well, you’ll come to it.” Finally a black male nurse got me out of my misery by breaking the rules, and let me into the nurses’ toilet. Relief! I had had breakfast at six, but when the head nurse offered to bring food I knew I couldn’t eat it. Three doctors took, my history. One, a handsome young man, must have passed by me through the room a hundred times in those interminable hours but never smiled or said, “Hang in there.” When I complained about the long wait, a nurse said, “You are lucky. Some people wait twenty-four hours.” Whenever I asked, “Has Phillips House been notified?” the head nurse said, more than once, “Yes.” But when Maggie came at five she was told I was not in the hospital!
Phillips House, Wednesday, August 6
I have become acclimatized to hospital life, I think, and am no longer a trapped hedgehog with all its bristles erect. There have been a lot of tests, as I expected. I had a very good talk with the surgeon on Monday, and he talked in terms of the operation and pacemaker, but that afternoon I was brought a pill, a drug that has not been tried in York, called verapamil hydrochloride, taken three times a day, and my heart sank. No operation after all? I burst into tears.
Maggie Vaughan, the dear woman, is staying at the Holiday Inn during these days to be my support—comes twice a day—brought delicious gingerbread with her which greatly improves jello as a dessert—and ginger ale. She leaves today.
I am awfully homesick now and tired of the deadly hospital atmosphere, bland at best, cold and inhuman at worst.
Pat Keen arrives Sunday.
I have wonderful flowers—from friends near and far. After the traumatic hours of admission, I found a lavender freesia plant from Vicky Simon, such an intimate real thing to find in an impersonal room!
J. T. and Cora sent flowers—a marvelous variety all different colors like some dream of flowers—in the center a red and white lily, then pink African daisies, a deep purple flower that looks like a poppy—it is Japanese—those South American small lilies in a very bright orange—more than I can name.
Polly Starr delivered a rainbow of gladiola from her garden in Hingham: pink, lavender, orange—a clap of cymbals.
Judy Burrowes sent an exquisite basket all blues and whites: freesia, white snapdragons, delphinium.
And there were heartening phone calls from R.H.C. in Oregon, from Charles Feldstein, my adopted brother in Chicago, from Pat in Los Angeles, Rene Morgan on the Cape, as well as from friends nearer by.
And I hear the news from home every day from Dorothy and hold in my heart the treasure that she and Stephen and little Sarton are having marvelous days—as is Tamas who goes on long walks with them. Pierrot did not come in Sunday night—he is very shy and easily frightened—but has now decided that all is well and has become part of the family.
Hospital hilarity: a woman just came in and asked, “Would you like to do any needlework?” Since it is difficult for me to sew on a button it made me laugh.
I have been reading Mary Gordon’s Men and Angels, which I found repulsive at first but am now absorbed in, and yesterday Maggie brought me The Hospice Movement, which will be real nourishment, I know.
My friends have surrounded me with love—and that should make me well. I forgot to say that among the phone calls have been two from Fred Rogers—“Mr. Rogers”—the dear man. I could hardly believe my ears. He is off to Nantucket—how glad I was to know he would get some rest though he said, “I have to do some writing.”
Phillips House, Thursday, August 7
I can go home tomorrow but hope to wait till Saturday so Sarton’s holiday will not be cut short. Dr. Garan came in around six—just as my dinner was brought in—to explain why the operation and pacemaker have been decided against. My heart has been shown to be weaker than they knew or expected—and what is weak is the atrium’s electrical stimulus which sends blood into the ventrical. The pacemaker only affects the ventrical, so would “or might only do harm. “The operation is irreversible,” he said. But he also said if I had heart failure, which could happen, they would then as a last resort do the operation! He said, “By all means go on your lecture tour,” and is confident the pill will work. I’ll still have to take Coumadin and do the blood test for that maybe every two weeks. So I’m really back at square one and not sorry to be—if this pill works.
[I got into a panic at first because I began to have those cramps again, and when I met Dr. Kelly in the hall, asked if I could see her for a minute. “I am very busy,” she said and walked away. Then followed me to the desk and asked in an irritated voice, “What is the matter?” I murmured that I was afraid the old symptoms were coming back and the pill might not work, a natural enough fear under the circumstances. “You were perfectly all right yesterday,” she said and turned on her heel.
Now that Dr. Garan has made his decision I can see I am to be ignored. They are through with me.]
I want to end this episode of the hospital with these pertinent remarks from The Hospice Movement:
It is a strange embrace we now find welcoming us into the place called hospital. It is one which neutralizes instant
ly whatever life force it is that makes each one of us into a unique individual. Hospital welcomes my body as so many pounds of meat, filled with potentially interesting mechanical parts and neurochemical combinations. Hospital strips one of all personal privacy, of all sensual pleasure, of every joy the flesh finds delight in; and at the same time, seizes me in a total embrace. Hospital makes war, not love.
I must believe that I am going home to be well, to find myself again, to function as my self.
Saturday, August 9
I was moved the last night into a cell-like room at Baker—no one told me I could turn on the television by paying three dollars. It would have been well worth it. No towels. No light over the bed. But the nurses I saw were all very kind—one even recognized my name. I was to leave at ten. They forgot my breakfast. Edythe came at nine-thirty and we got a cart so she could wheel down the flowers I had chosen from the many in the other room and my suitcase and briefcase and pack Betty’s car where Betty waited—and waited—and waited. Dr. Kelly only got to me with the prescriptions at eleven-fifteen! The thing that saved me that last night was reading the Hospice book which Maggie brought. It took me right out of self-pity and ugly surroundings to pure love.
In the hospital I had dreamed of home and saw it all as a dream, composed and quiet, full of beauty and the eternal murmur of the ocean, but when I got back after lunch and was alone here, the house fell on my shoulders like a heavy, weight. All there is to do! For Pat arrives tomorrow night.
Pierrot recognized me and purred when I picked him up, but Tamas does not like the bed I had ordered from L. L. Bean’s with so much joy. It is too big for him and I must change it for a smaller one. At last nasturtiums are out in the garden.
Sunday, August 10
A fine summer day and no thunderstorms for a change! I’ve accomplished quite a lot—mostly dragging in food—how heavy melons are! It took one hour and a half—partly because of getting crabmeat—for I have invited Karen Olch and her friend for lunch tomorrow. The fish market is in the center of York Beach and it took me over half an hour of stop-and-go along the beach itself. How inviting the water looked, lovely little waves ruffling the edge of the ocean and people looking happy.
Monday, August 11
When I sat down to look at the news, with macaroni and cheese in the oven, I found the television was not working! Finally I got through to the right number and a very land young man drove up in about an hour, climbed a tree with a ladder and fixed whatever it was. Pat got here in the warm summer night around quarter past nine—and it was good to see her. How thankful I am to Edythe for meeting the plane, which was an hour late!
It rained in the night and will be hot and steamy for sure. The crabmeat salad is all made and the chicken stuffed for tonight, so I am on my way “with miles to go before I sleep.” I am tired, but able to cope—that is the good news. Hurrah!
Tuesday, August 12
Amazing—I can hardly take in that I do feel better, that I am myself again. I am so happy I managed to have Karen Olch and her friend for lunch and was able, I think, to tell Karen what she has done for me this summer, and under the difficult circumstances that I was not really here in spirit to see what she had done and appreciate it fully. I needed to say this and to thank her properly. The last two weeks since Debby arrived from Tucson have been too backed up, too much to do, too many people to say good-by to, so she is at the raw edge of exhaustion—and it showed when she came here to work. In the early days she was so happy to be here, so dear with Tamas, she seemed glowing with the pleasure of it and worked like a beaver. She is a brave woman, one of five who burst through police to pour ashes on the memorial, a bronze replica of a nuclear mushroom, at Pease Air Force Base on the anniversary of Hiroshima. They were arrested, then the case held off for weeks. I think they got community work as penalty and she will be allowed to do it in Tucson.
After Karen and Debby left I washed the dishes, tidied up and had a nap, or rested, till half past three, time to get the chicken out and light the oven. Later Pat and I had a wonderful peaceful hour on the terrace watching the sunset at the back of the house reflected on the ocean and in the sky. It had been dark blue in the late afternoon, then became absolutely calm like pale blue satin, with a dark line at the horizon which Pat noted made it look like a Japanese print. Finally the clouds took on a rosy glow and the sea became pink.
After supper and in bed at about ten, I heard an owl hooting repeatedly—and finally answered by another owl. I woke Pat up to hear it. Before this she had tried to track down Pierrot with a flashlight. Elusive creature, he loves to be chased and hates to be caught. I went down at ten and called, and then he did come in and ran right upstairs to my bed—but it was hot and he did not stay. The floor is best for him when it is over eighty, but the night was pleasantly cool by the time I got to sleep.
Wednesday, August 13
Pat is a tremendous help this time—sees things that need to be done and does them, and we are having a peaceful, talkative, homey time as I had hoped we might. From her room the raccoon’s mischievous attacks on the bird feeders are only too audible—the wire clatters and bangs.
We sat on the terrace earlier on and had tea but Raymond, suddenly assiduous, drove up with his lawn mower which he said did not work after all—so typical—but then he stood beside us and we talked of this and that for a half hour. He looks diminished and much older these days. I am the more grateful that Diane York, a friend of Karen’s who lives in Kittery, will come early Friday morning to take the rubbish—and Raymond will be released at last. She will start work soon on the invasion of wild blackberry that is getting serious among the daffodils.
Yesterday I began to work on the poem for Bramble. I felt it would be the test and prove I was well—and I have worked on it again today and—glory be!—played music, two Mozart concerti.
Thursday, August 14
The beautiful weather holds cool and bright with a little breeze in the evening. I am so happy for Pat. The only misery is her having been terribly bitten by mosquitoes when she lay out on the terrace day before yesterday and was devoured.
We are having lunch with Nancy and Edythe at the York Harbor Inn, and I go to the hairdresser for the first time in two weeks this morning, so time is running away at a fast clip! Eleanor will be here cleaning soon—it is just after nine now.
I am exhilarated by the decision to go on the lecture tour—that rapid descent into real old age has been stopped. And I am going to be all right—after all I felt very unwell all last fall on the road and that was a triumphal tour. The only bother is clothes—but I have enough. I’ll manage.
Pat amazes and delights me with all her talents—she has three pianos in her flat in Ipswich, and brought her flute and also painting materials with her. How slowly one gets really to know someone, but now I feel we are building a solid foundation. It is a treat for me to be with someone who has read so much—thought so much, too. And, of course, in a strange way we meet on European ground.
Jean Dominique’s birthday today—how long since she died? And hardly a day passes that I do not think of her. [And as I think of her I often think of “La Petite Espérance” which Péguy speaks of, and which is so hard to translate. I went back to an essay Jean Dominique wrote for the Brussels Soir in 1939 to find exactly what Péguy had said and what Jean-Do had said.
The great tremor of our souls and of our thoughts has been bathed this year as in 1914 in an ideal season. A pure warm sky has shed on the first days of September an abundant peaceful light which resembled—anguished though hearts were—an immense banner of profound hope. Instinctively, eyes that looked for signs, as they looked out on the thick leaves over gardens and avenues, began to count the invincible reasons that man has to honor life by a happy impulse of his whole being. The majesty of trees became a lesson in confidence and balance, as did the elastic resistance of grass, or the trembling attempt at flying of late butterflies chasing each other above the phlox …
Never
theless more than ever before we must sustain that hope, and we verify at every moment that it is for Péguy (and for God himself when Péguy listens to him speak) the most beautiful, the most necessary, the hardest of virtues.
“I am,” says God, “the Lord of that virtue.
“Faith is a great tree. It is an oak rooted in the heart of France. And under the wings of that tree, Charity, my daughter, shelters all the pain in the world.
“But my little Hope
“Is she who every day
“Greets us with a good morning …
“Faith is a cathedral rooted in the heart of France.
“Charity is a hospital which picks up all the misery in the world.
“But without Hope, all that would be only a cemetery.
“My little Hope is she who goes to bed every night.
“And gets up every morning.
“And has really very good nights.
“I am, says God, the Lord of that virtue.”
When my Dutch friend Hannie Van Till was in a Japanese prison camp in Java for four years, with ten thousand women, she told me that if they had known it would be four years they could not have survived. Hope kept them alive.]
Friday, August 15
Today is little Sarton’s sixth birthday—so life goes on. I can hardly believe that I am well, went down through the wet grasses to pick a few nasturtiums for Pat. This is the first year they are plentiful and I feel sure it is Karen’s feeding of them that did it. Calendulas are out, a very few small zinnias, a few bachelor’s-buttons—only the self-sown nicotiana and opium poppies in their pink ruffles are really flourishing this bad summer for flowers. But at last there is something to pick and someone to pick for. I was too ill even to go down there for months.
