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A Lesson And A Legacy

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 31, 2008

She was the first among my friends to die and she left me the legacy of a special conversation. She taught me about opening jars.

Our friendship began as a business partnership of sorts. She had a disability that I was writing about. Shirley was at least 10 years older than I and had a panic disorder for the better part of her life. We became friends at a national conference on anxiety disorders where she was a seminar panel participant. She had started a self-help group and was talking about it.

Lovely, tall, stately, elegant, she was the plainest-spoken, most down-to-earth person I had ever met. She talked about being a homemaker who became locked in her home by her disability. And she talked about fighting her way through her fear and pain and then helping others to do the same.

As she became a nationally recognized authority and mingled with well-credentialed professionals in the medical field, Shirley marveled that she, who had never gone to college, was listened to with respect and attention by the mental health community.

In my work editing a mental health newsletter, Shirley became a warm and friendly source of wisdom and information, and we spoke on the phone quite often. She was invited to become a board member of the association for which I worked, and it was in this capacity that our special conversation occurred.

At a downtown hotel, she was briefing the board of directors about her national self-help organization when we broke for lunch. An enormous buffet was wheeled into the room, and I found myself sitting next to Shirley as we ate. Somehow we got to talking about things that were hard for us. The talk was unpredictable, as informal conversations often are. We rambled wherever inclination and inspiration led us, sharing personal stories and laughing as we ate.

Before us on the table were bottles of soda we had plucked from the buffet. Shirley attempted to open hers but could not. She began to wrestle with the cap. I offered to help. She refused my offer.

"You know," Shirley began as she struggled to break the plastic seal on her soda, "I can never bring myself to ask for help opening a jar." She grunted as she twisted and turned the bottle with frustration. Finally the plastic snapped.

"Why not?" I asked.

"Oh, you know, I like to keep trying until I find a way. I want to keep my independence every way I can."

Startled by her stubbornness and impressed by her persistence, I sat back and thought about what she had said. Here was a woman who had fought decades of mental illness and stigma and risen to national prominence, who had crafted a warm and loving marriage and raised a family of fine children, who had devoted the better part of her adult life to helping others fight the battles she had, and who was handing me a legacy of sorts. At that moment, neither of us knew that she would live only one year more, and neither of us recognized the impact of our conversation.

Her words were the distillation of 70 years of struggling to survive in a world that shunned her disorder, that ridiculed her fears, that misunderstood her biology.

Panic disorder, a real, serious and treatable biochemical condition, had forged in Shirley a determination to find a way to do whatever she wanted. And she had plopped her example of courage unexpectedly into my lap in the middle of our lunchtime chatter.

For her, opening a jar represented a microcosm of the challenges she faced in life. What continues to amaze me is the power of her example.

Last night, almost 10 years after the end of her heroic struggle with cancer, I was wrestling with a bottle of wine and thinking of her. I tried twisting the cap. I tried the metal vise I have for opening jars. I ran hot water over the cap. I used the handle of a knife to tap against the stubborn black plastic. Finally, I grabbed a dishtowel and covering the bottle, I twisted with all my strength.

As the cap loosened and began to move, I thought of Shirley. We all leave unexpected legacies and touch the lives of others in ways we will never know.

Shirley Green was the founder and director of Agoraphobics Building Independent Lives (ABIL), a national self-help organization headquartered in Richmond, Virginia. Her passion to help herself and others continues to be felt.

Judy Kramer can be reached by e-mail at JudyandOz@tampabay.rr.com.

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