Some years ago I mentioned a woman in my lupus support group whose health and mental health were spiraling downward together. She was an immigrant and at that point had no support system here other than us. We all did our best to reach out to her but it was hard to feel successful.

One month, an unusual thing happened at the meeting: only three people showed up. Her, the group leader who is a nurse as well as a patient and a very gentle, quiet soul, and me.

Listening to S, it was a wonder that she had even made it there but that seemed a sign that some part of her still wanted to live.

In the quiet of the room she opened up just enough for us to see what she had finally decided to do and said I’m sure more than she meant to of how she was going to do it.

Which she could have just gone and done already and none of us would ever have known, but she hadn’t, which said to me that she didn’t really want to, she just saw no other way out but had wanted to see us and say goodbye to us first.

We did our best to just listen, to convey that we cared.

And then I raced home and grabbed the phone I could hear on, because my cellphone in those days was not it.

Riiiing.

I know, HIPPA and all that, but can you tell me if you *don’t* have a patient named–? I explained the situation.

The first doctor’s office staff, after some checking with colleagues for guidance on the situation: We don’t have a patient by that name.

Thank you very much! (Calls second office, repeats the question.)

(Checks with colleagues, too.) We can’t tell you that.

Alright, cool, she’s with your practice, I said, I thought so. So: IF you have a patient by this name, this is who I am and my phone number, this is who the group leader is with her name and phone number and she can verify that this is what this patient told us at our support group meeting a few minutes ago.

They thanked me and got me off the phone fast and were right on it.

Five minutes later the woman herself called me. She was furious.

DID YOU CALL THEM?!

Yes. I did.

WHY DID YOU CALL THEM!

Because: I knew you would be angry with me. You. Are. Worth. That. to me. You. Are. Worth. That.

There was a sound that I could only interpret as wanting to be angry but suddenly turning into what started to be crying but she hung up fast before I could hear more.

And then we didn’t know, and we didn’t know, and we could only pray and wonder, but the two of us never told the rest of the group anything more than that we were worried about her, and that was nothing new to them because they were, too.

Eighteen months later she surprised us by showing back up. She tired easily, but there was a resilience I hadn’t seen before. She didn’t mention the suicide attempt, just that it had been hard–really hard–but that she was doing a little better now. And she had learned that when you have autoimmunity affecting the stomach, your body doesn’t process food well at all and studies have shown that that can impair your mental function and cause depression. So they’d been working on all of that.

At the end of the meeting she walked out with me and once there was no one else around to see it, threw her arms around me and thanked me.

Our group went to Zoom with the pandemic and she was part of it for awhile and then eventually she wasn’t and we’ve all wondered and hoped things had held for her. She had come so far.

Our group leader’s phone rang this week.

Our friend’s family had moved to Canada when she was a child and then she’d come to the US.

I can’t imagine how it must have been under the current regime.

It was her. She wanted to touch base and let us know: she had moved back to Canada and had bought a place with her elderly mom and things were going very well.

Our leader marveled, She sounded so, so happy! I’ve never heard her so happy, it was so wonderful!

She was home. Country, family, everything–at long last she had come home.