Dr. Rachel Remen passed away on Saturday.
Kitchen Table Wisdom. My Grandfather’s Blessings. Two of the most important books I’ve ever read, and I recommend them to anyone and everyone.
She went to bed in her college dorm room one night and woke up six months later after a coma from blood loss, her first sign of Crohn’s disease. She made it through not just college but medical school after that.
She got offered head of pediatrics at Stanford, her dream job–but turned it down after seeing how they treated one of her young patients. She was determined to alter the culture of medicine for the better since she knew it well from the patient side as well as the professional. People went into it to be helpers but the process stomped the empathy right out of them. That had to change.
I have lived long enough and been a patient long enough to feel it is fair to say she succeeded at that.
A memory: meeting up with a man I grew up with since third grade after finding out he lives here–and realizing as he told me his story that he was in one of her stories, it all matched up, though you’d never be able to figure it out just from what she wrote. His dad and Rachel were old friends. She counseled the son when he was ready to walk away from medicine and helped him instead become a great doctor by working through his pain with him, to see that his compassion was the very strength that his pain was making visible. I have long been grateful to her for that.
She gave a reading at a local independent bookseller sometime in the early 90’s from her book, “My Grandfather’s Blessings” and then took questions from the crowd. I wrote about that here.
For those with long memories, Don Meyer was an elderly friend who used to comment on my blog all the time. Before he went into hospice, he had a visiting med student from UCSF attending to him once a week, they had some program going, I’m not sure of the details. But: Don got chatting to him about Dr. Remen and the young man said with great pride that she was one of his professors.
So through that avenue I sent a request that offered context to the evening at Kepler’s as to who I was, wondering whether Dr. Remen would like a lace shawl knit just for her?
It wasn’t going to be a wedding ring shawl–those take months on tiny needles and I didn’t know how long Don would be getting those visits–but fingering weight soft, soft baby alpaca in cream, I figured that would be pretty universal.
Dr. Remen’s response to my query was to send me her home address in great delight for me to mail it to directly. Afterwards she went me a much-treasured thank you note.
She was 88. The world was so lucky to have her as long as we did.