Nothing Was the Same by Kay Redfield Jamison

it.
    Richard took me to our neighborhood Italian restaurant for dinner on Valentine’s Day. It was a serious and sad evening. It was the only time we discussed what would happen to me after he died, and it was obvious that he had given a great deal of thought to what he would say. He started by telling me how much he loved me and how happy I had made him. He said he wished he could say that he would be keeping an eye out for me once he was gone but, as I knew, he didn’t believe in such things. He did believe in the lasting influence of love. You have good friends, family, and colleagues, he said. You have a good doctor and work that is important. You will have to take care of yourself. You will have to take your medication and get your sleep. No one will be around to remind you. It was as though he had rehearsed the speech and did not know what to say next.
    “But what will I do without you?” I asked him. “What will I do?”
    Richard came over to my side of the table and put his arms around me. “I don’t know,” he said. “But you will be all right.”
    I had not cried in front of Richard since he had been diagnosed with lymphoma nearly three years earlier, but now the tears were streaming down my face. Richard pulled out his Valentine’s gifts for me, hoping, I suppose, that what he had gotten for me might help. The first present was an NIH file folder, which had a stylized glass beaker on the front; he had decorated the folder with large red and pink hearts. It looked ridiculous, and I loved it. Inside the folder were two sheets of paper. The first was the dedication page for his manuscript Cancer Tales . It was straightforward and very Richard. “To Kay,” it read. “Without whom I would not be.”
    Richard’s second gift was a copy of a letter he had written to me more than fifteen years earlier. I was living in London at the time and was in the midst of a deep and unshakable depression. He had called me one night from Washington and been unnerved by the depth of my despair. He wanted to know what he could do to help when I felt so at the end of the world and beyond hope. He said he knew depression clinically but not personally and he was frightened.
    I reread his letter, written so long ago now, and thought how far we had come in our understanding of one another, how lucky we had been to have each other, and how his misspellings could still make me smile. “I like your spelling of ‘flare’ better than the correct one,” I told him through my snufflings. He looked at the letter and said, “Well, it looks correct to me.” A lifetime of dyslexia had not altered his confidence in how certain words should look.
11/28/85 Thu
Dr, Kay R. Jamison
34 Beaufort Gardens
London S.W.3
England
Dearest K ,
I have seen the green ice and the ten
minute retreats, but last night I heard
total blackness. When I was twelve we
visited Mammoth Cave in Kentucky The
guide said that it was twenty decrees
darker than total darkness, a statement
I have never understood. I still do not
understand it scientifically. I have
now/however, felt it. It is like a
black hole drawing all light into it .
On the phone I felt life being sucked
out of me threw the wires; gladly
given. Unfortunately, there was no
conservation of matter and what left me
was not to be found in the receptacle .
on the other end. It was as if there
was a total annihilation of substance
and energy. It brought back memories of
my most primitive childhood nightmare .
Being with you seemed like the only
answer, Then I could see it, throw a
blanket over it, put a glass of water
by the bed, find its lithium, thyroid
and if necessary get help. I need some
guidelines on the later, I need to know
when to worry. Is length of depression
or depth the crucial issue or some
combination? If I ask you are you
taking your medicines, how specific do
I need to be? If I ask you are you
eating and drinking do I need to ask
you calorie by calorie and