Well, we were walking up the ramp, Nancy was at about a 98 degree angle and stopped for a very long pause. She made fun of herself as she walked along because she had to concentrate so hard that she lost track of the position of her body, and would find herself bent at a 90 degree angle before too long.
At this point in Nancy’s life, walking was a chore as she could only really move her feet maybe 4 inches with each deliberate step. When we got back to the house, she said that she needed exercise, so we took the walker out and made a lap around a small area in the driveway. We wheeled her chair out the long dirt driveway and one of the cats jumped right up on Nancy’s lap, muddy paws and all. We took care of her needs, had our tea and conversation, and decided to get outside. I had the priviledge of not only visiting, but taking care of Nancy for a couple hours one day. In addition to what I’ve already shared, there are three specific memories from those visits that I want to write about. I had been granted cart blanche with regard to visits. Nancy lived with her daughter, my dear friend S, since well before I was diagnosed last summer. She was incredibly thoughtful and supportive of my ups and downs during my own treatments, and certainly saw me at vulnerable moments. She was very forgiving anyway, so when I said something in return that was totally out of the ball park, she moved right along with me. I found myself listening intently almost so hard that I got caught up in the visual of her mouth trying to form the words and would miss the point. Nancy sometimes struggled to get her brilliant thoughts from her brain to her mouth and sometimes it just took time to accomplish the task.
Our visits were not particularly long nor were they as numerous as I would have liked them to be, but they certainly were intentional. She raised her hands to rub the stubble, eyes closed, and said “my friend with the perfect skull”. “You have a perfect skull, you know, not everyone could pull this off.” Some days when I came to visit she was still in bed, and one time in particular I leaned over her and said “Good morning Nancy!” and after she opened her eyes and realized who had the nerve to interrupt her slumber, she smiled as I took off my hat. We were having tea and she looked at me after a steaming sip and reached out to touch my head. If we all could be as ready as she was and have our wishes known and followed as hers were, I, for one, would be very grateful. Well, Nancy’s life ended last night and it was on her terms. There’s just so much you can ask from a cast, however talented.You may recall that I had been visiting my 84 year old friend during all of this. Her face, however, remains agreeably filled out. Given her own medical history, Gold’s identification with the anorexic Nancy cannot be doubted, and the views of her skin-and-bones physique are realistic. Story tiptoes around the nature of her cure and dissolves in pious cliches just about the moment the newly saved Nancy takes her first tentative nibble on a bagel, but its message is compelling: Eat something.įilmed in comfortable upper-middle-class surroundings in Vancouver, under Paul Schneider’s laggardly pacing, the film tends to mope at times, as if there weren’t quite enough story for a two-hour slot. Popular at school, she has no apparent reason to forswear food, to pull elaborate subterfuges to hide her affliction, or to resist medical help after her parents ( Jill Clayburgh, William Devane) belatedly recognize her illness. Eighteen-year-old Nancy Walsh (Gold) is the youngest child in a seemingly well-adjusted family.
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