Free Nothing Was the Same by Kay Redfield Jamison Page B

occasion, drove to Theodore Roosevelt Island. Life was often normal, although in some ways more wonderful, as we knew that it was not at all normal. We continued our long drives through Rock Creek Park, usually taking Pumpkin, our basset hound, along and listening to the songs of Stephen Foster and Paul Robeson. These were small, shared passions—the park, the beauty of Washington, Foster and Robeson—and they gave a sustaining happiness to our days.
    That spring, Richard was honored by his colleagues on three different occasions, and each was a source of great pleasure for him. Although the tributes were triggered by his likely death, he did not find them melancholic events. On the contrary, he could not have enjoyed them more. The first, a scientific meeting on schizophrenia, was dedicated to him by the psychiatrists working in Veterans Administration hospitals across the country. In their remarks, his colleagues described him as a “towering” figure in psychiatry, science, and medicine. He reveled in the “towering.”
    To a person, they acknowledged him for his pioneering contributions to understanding the brain and schizophrenia, for improving the treatment of schizophrenia and other psychotic illnesses, and for his generosity as a teacher of young doctors and scientists. At a dinner in his honor, the director of the National Institute of Mental Health, now provost at Harvard, talked about Richard’s groundbreaking work in psychiatry. Then he said, to great laughter, that Richard’s good papers had been published in Science , his rejects in Nature . Richard loved every minute of the conference, as he loved an equally generous and warm day of tributes from his colleagues at Columbia University in New York, where he held a faculty appointment and had collaborated with many of the physicians and scientists.
    The National Institutes of Health paid him the unusual tribute of hosting an all-day scientific symposium in his honor, followed by a dinner at the Army-Navy Club. Many of the world’s most distinguished neuroscientists talked about Richard’s influence on their work. They talked, as well, about his grace and formidable energy, his generosity as a mentor, and his scientific creativity. Richard was deeply moved by these tributes. I rarely saw him cry during the years I knew him, but at one point during the remarks I saw tears that he could not hold back. Respect from one’s peers is not for sale, and Richard, of all people, knew this.
    Richard wrote in Cancer Tales that those days of recognition from his colleagues helped him get through his illness and face the prospect of death. He knew that he was loved; he knew he had made a difference. He believed that everyone has an obligation to give back in life, particularly those who have had advantages. Listening to the heartfelt appreciation of so many of the scientists he had trained or worked with made him believe that he had given back as best he could. He did not write or talk much about death, but during this time of tributes he did:
Many people think about death every day. Call me shallow—many have—but it is a rare day when I concern myself with my own death. Long ago, I decided that if I paid my debts I would not worry about death. As I was growing up, it occurred to me that I had been very fortunate—I had been given a great deal and owed a large debt. I had been healthy, born and raised in the United States, was well-educated, privileged to go to medical school and finish my training. By the time I was thirty-three years old and developed Hodgkin’s disease, I believed I had performed a sufficient number of good deeds that I had paid back my debts—I might even be even. Being successfully treated for Hodgkin’s left me in the hole again. So I spent the next few years getting myself on the right side of the ledger. Certainly there were many times I did things that hurt others or committed sins of omission, but by my accounting I stayed ahead and