I sometimes go through old photos, looking at the life that was, thirty or forty years ago. I did that a few months ago and found a photo of myself and my friend Debby from the early 1980s, taken in the lab at PHRI where I worked at that time--my first full-time job in Manhattan. She had just gotten married and had moved to Manhattan with her husband; he was starting his medical residency and she was starting her doctoral work in the same lab where I worked as a research assistant. We hit it off almost immediately, and spent our free periods in the lab talking about life, careers, and relationships. I had just finished my master's degree and was interested in doing doctoral work, but as it turned out, that opportunity came much later in my life. I worked in that lab for three years and met some interesting people working at all sorts of jobs--technicians, academics, computer experts, cleaning ladies, and secretaries. I stayed in touch with Debby after I left the lab for a new position at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Our life paths diverged quite a bit after that, but we always stayed in touch. She called me on my birthday every year and we would spend an hour or two catching up on our lives. She had two children to take care of, a house to run, and in her later years she helped her husband with the business side of his medical practice and took care of her elderly mother.
Debby passed away this past Tuesday. She was sixty-four years old and had been sick for about four years with a rare disease called progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP). PSP is a degenerative disease involving the gradual deterioration and death of specific volumes of the brain that control balance, movement, eye movement, and cognition. Loss of balance, falling, the inability to focus the eyes, and dementia are often the outcomes. There is no cure for PSP. Her condition progressed very quickly; I understood that the last time I saw her. Even though we did not see each other much during the past thirty years, I count her as one of my close friends. She was one of the kindest people I've ever known. I don't think I ever heard a mean word come out of her mouth. She gave up her research career to focus on her family. In her later years, she admitted to me that she missed the lab, and I think had she not gotten sick, that she would have gone back to work in the lab in some capacity. But she never got the chance. I am glad that I sent her the photo of the two of us a few months ago. I wrote that it reminded me of our good times together. We look happy and carefree in that photo, and that's how I want to remember her.
