Perspectives in Biology and Medicine

falling on deaf ears MICHAEL O'REILLY* cot death they found sorcha quinn cotdead last week, her cold skin the colour ofjonquil, her pale blue eyelid awnings drawn down against the stars. stilled from stirring, into her tiny comma'd shape she held a foetal rag doll, as if it were her pilot-fish, her faithful cotton seahorse; brave keeper of promises. so they brought her remains to the church, and this morning mrs quinn has been wondering just what remained of her past the memories of a yellow kite arguing in the wind down by the harbour where a cold atlandc broke waters only to retrieve itself with whispers of spindrift, that even then were a portent for storms. it is a sin, when they cotdie, to call them children, it is almost a lie, when truthfully they are our very own snowflakes, brave keepers of promises; and how they free-fall down through the sadness of our peace-parade, tumbling silently to individual, innocent deaths. Submitted in fulfillment of the requirement to write an essay on the general practice experience in the School of Physic, Trinity College, University of Dublin, March 1991. *Department of Community Health, 199 Pearse Street, Dublin 2, Ireland.© 1992 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. 0031-5982/92/3502-0775$01.00 200 Michael O'Reilly ¦ falling on deaf ears and stilled from stirring by this unfathomable sacrifice, we outlive them, not even noticing their tiny pastel wingprints, their once-in-a-lifetime skintouchings, their frighteningly, brief, confetti. for mrs quinn, whose daughter wasfound cotdead afortnight ago, and who came to see tL· doctorfor her depression. old they will keep me alive electrically, like a cheap, plastic candle on a christmas tree. a cold broth of mucus clogs on each breath; no star over bethlehem ignites on my death. on a house-call to a man with advanced lung cancer, who does not want to die in hospital wired to a machine, but wants to die at home in the house he built, against the wL·L·s of hL· children, who have not vmted him in over a year. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 35, 2 ¦ Winter 1992 | 201 mongoloid the storybook she bought you came from some warm country far beyond the reach of your palsied arms, your paper planes. and anyway i knew you could not read, or come to harm, or even blame her for her guilty ovaries. her womb became an orphanage, sour after you left it, and once a month three snow flakes fell instead of two, on chromosome twenty-one. if i looked, i could see it clearly stained against the cold window-pane of the lab-slide that wouldn't show the bruises, the cruel cryptic patterns you have been branded with; slitted eyes, an awkward walk that tripped you on shoe-laces you cannot tie, or words that trip you when you try to talk to me as i sit fumbling in the doctor's chair not really understanding what it is for you to stay behind like some brave soldier, in trenches we dig with our ignorance to mind, not to desert the toys when all the other children run away to hide on you, shouting back "retard . . . . , mr mongo!" and you smile out at them secretly needing love maybe even more than they do in your story book. your mother tells me you have caught a 'cold', maybe 'flu' planting flowers, arctic rhododendrons in the rain. what can i do? in paschendale, your malformed lips, petal skinned, blistered pursed even though you could not call for help, and have no-one to kiss away the pain. for Thomas, aged 19, who has Down's Syndrome. 202 Michael O'Reilly · falling on deaf ears a house-call to a man with parkinson's disease you must have loved her once, i can tell by the photograph dusted light as candlemoths she keeps by the window where you sit, drifting alone against the caudate's slick undertow and you only see her sometimes, the doctor asks me do i notice your pill-rolling tremor, your classical vacant stare, 'no need for an e...