Regina, One in a Million
How do I as a garden-variety Joe, write with any clarity about a young woman who seemed so angelic? I met Regina when she was in her late twenties. She was a completely blind quadriplegic with no muscle function below her neck. And yet she seemed clearly grateful to be alive. I could never have hoped to cross paths with such an extraordinary human being.
Thirty years ago, my wife signed up for a weekend spirituality conference an hour north of New York City. I just tagged along and figured there might be something to learn. I had zoned out as the main speaker started her required announcements such as the direction to the fire exits and rest rooms, but she also passed on a request for someone to help an attendee who had special needs.
After the morning presentations, I headed toward the podium where Regina and her wheelchair were being pushed by her sixtyish-year-old mother. She explained that she mainly needed someone to transfer her daughter back and forth between the wheelchair and the bed. Pity crept in when I saw Regina ensnared by straps from head to toe, but nothing could constrain her appreciative smile.
Over the next couple of days, we got a tiny glimpse of who Regina had been, and who she had blossomed into. Her dream as a senior in high school had been to become a concert pianist, but a rare benign tumor (meaning non-cancerous) had wrapped itself around the base of her brain. She and her mom were cautioned that the lengthy, involved procedure to excise the lesion would affect at least her breathing, vision and motor function but to unknown degrees. Either way, it could also prolong her life. It did all of the above.
Regina’s vision was completely gone, and being unable to use her hands, learning to read Braille was not an option. Her devoted mother apparently fed her a steady diet of audio books, and Regina attended college. Over the next eight years she had earned her bachelor’s degree in one of the social sciences.
Although she spoke relatively few words, and softly due to her impaired pulmonary function, everybody listened when Regina spoke. She “wrote” by blowing short or long puffs into a small tube which triggered a transducer which in turn fed into a primitive computer.
I’m truly at a loss for words as I try to convey what it was like to be around Regina. She was a highly spiritual person as was her mother. They had a homecare attendant in NYC and came to the conference with the attitude that “God will provide, as He always has.” I don’t remember Regina ever talking about herself.
We spent hours together, and both she and her mother exuded gratitude for my help with issues like her neurogenic bowel and bladder dysfunction. I don’t remember her ever being apologetic for the indignities because it was just a fact of life. They were merely obstacles to plow through. She was always looking forward and never back.
Most miraculously, she never played the victim card. I don’t even think she owned one.
Regina garnered respect for just being her authentic self. She returned to each presentation and breakout session with kindness, humility and insight beyond her years.
The most telling experience I had was when I sat across from Regina at a long dinner table - and we were all talking about the human tendency to judge. I shared an involved story about an acquaintance named “Brad Anderson.” He was a fiftyish-year-old guy who had been the head of the recreation department at our large Methodist Church in Eastern Tennessee.
Brad always seemed down. I would try to engage him, but he seemed to strain to even look me in the eye or say hello. He had a most enviable job - doing pool maintenance, juggling different sport schedules, and recruiting participants.
At that time, I worked as a physician assistant for four orthopedic surgeons. One morning I got a page from the ER to come see a 79-year-old woman, who’d broken her hip while walking across the kitchen. X-rays confirmed that Emma Anderson had what’s called a pathological fracture where a bone breaks, in this case because it was replaced by a tumor from her metastatic breast cancer. At her request, we surgically repaired her hip so she wouldn’t have to spend her last few weeks or months in bed.
Early the next morning, I was making my rounds on our post-op patients when I headed in to see Emma. There sitting next to her was her son Brad Anderson. Up until that moment I had never made the connection. He was the only visitor that came to see her most of the ten days she was there. Two different times I greeted Emma and then asked - “Where’s Brad?”
The answers were hard to take in. One day she told me he had an eye doctor’s appointment a couple hours away because he was blind in one eye and was starting to lose his vision in the other eye from a rare disease. The other time, she said he was visiting Mr. Anderson in the nursing home. “His father doesn’t remember who he is, but he loves to have visitors.”
I asked Regina - How could I have possibly been more judgmental and wrong? She responded something to the effect - “Even with suffering, he doesn’t have to be bitter.”
Regina Set a Very High Bar.
Many of us have heard some variation of - “When we’re gone, people won’t remember what we’ve said, they’ll remember how we made them feel.” That’s certainly the case with Regina. She made us feel empowered to make a positive difference and to be grateful for that opportunity.
Wonderful testament!
Thank you for using some of your precious time to write this and share it with the world.
Fresh off of reading sad news this morning, reading about Regina was wonderful.
Never question the value of what you are doing here, Mark.