"We're going to come see you, ok Banner?"  That's what everyone calls her, Banner.

"You better hurry, I'm going to die here in about twenty minutes.  I have Aids you know."

We hurried, but we knew Banner wasn't going to die.  And she didn't have Aids. 

"Do you have a cigarette?" she asked  as we arrived.  Not only was her voice worn from smoking, Banner's right index finger and her thumb were both yellow at the ends.  We didn't have a cigarette.  "They won't even let me hold a pack," she said, "I'd eat em!"

As soon as she was well enough to be transfered from the medical hospital to the psychiatric one, she was.  It would be one of Banner's many stays at the state psychiatric hospital, neither the first nor the last.  This time she would be committed from before Thanksgiving until after the new year.

It was during a visit to the psych hospital I found out Banner was the mother of a love child no one else knew about.  The child was born of a torrid affair between her and the staff psychiatrist, who came at Christmas time to decorate the tree in her ward. 

The following holiday season, I had the privilidge of taking Banner Christmas shopping.  She was in a wheelchair, hooked up to an oxygen tank, and still insisted on smoking every time we stopped. 

She also insisted that she was going to buy my car from me, "as soon as she got her license back."  Besides the wheelchair and pyschosis, Banner also couldn't see much.  But who am I to tether a dreamer? 

On our way back to the assisted living facility, she said to me "I sure am glad you got to meet me." 

"Me too," I said.

I laughed inside.  It seemed so backward at the time.  Now, it doesn't seem backward at all.  I sure am glad I got to meet her.

Banner
3/18/39 -5/18/09