Waiting for Irene Nonfiction

Waiting for Irene

by Catherine Montague
After giving time a chance to do its healing work, Im ready to revisit the days I
spent in a Philadelphia hospital, waiting for Irene. As in Hurricane Irene. By now, only
people with homes and families directly in the storms path will recall how the entire
Atlantic Coast feared her approach.
The day before Irene arrived, I walked around the original site of Pennsylvania
Hospital. Everything fit the colonial archetypered brick, white-trimmed windows,
columns flanking the entrances, half-moon arches over the ground-floor windows and
doorways. Along the front of the oldest wing, signs directed me to the cornerstone, signed
by Benjamin Franklin himself in 1755. I read that Franklins efforts established the
nations first hospital with a combination of public and private funds, to care for the sick
poor of the Province and for the reception and care of lunaticks. Here I was, a stranger
from the lunatick side of the continent, wandering the deserted grounds and watching
the clouds gather.
My unforeseen trip to Philadelphia was prompted by my son's medical
emergency, the week before his college classes started. By the time Irene started
drenching the Atlantic Coast, hed been a Pennsylvania Hospital patient for seven days.
His pneumonia had improved but the staff wanted to keep him until after the hurricane.
All flights out of Philadelphia were grounded that Saturday, even though weather
forecasters downgraded Irene to a Category 1. This offered little comfort to people living
further south along the coast, directly in her path. Trapped in the calm before the storm, I

Waiting for Irene - Nonfiction

felt anything but calm. All week, Id covered my own fears and frustrations with a
blanket of therapeutic optimism, trying to stay positive. I couldnt let myself fall apart,
with my own discomfort overshadowed by suffering patients and their terrified families.
And now, a hurricane on the way.
Before he showed up at the emergency room here, my son tried to get help from
several doctors, even making a phone call to his physician back in California. The return
of his panic attacks, supposedly resolved eighteen months ago, obscured new problems. A
few days wasted on medications that didnt work, thats all it took. Somebody missed a
warning somewhere, and now the aftermath of pneumonia along with his underlying
depression left him too weak to start his semester as planned. A typical mom, I blamed
myself as well as those doctors for failing to read the signs ahead of time. I understood
why people were getting so excited about Irene, even if she seemed to be losing strength.
Nobody wants to tell people not to worry, and then watch them scramble to clean up the
damage when things get worse than expected.
On this morning of day seven, the last Saturday of August, my husband and I had
scarcely ventured beyond the hospitals modern, high-rise main building. Most of our
waking hours were spent in our sons room, sometimes playing cards or dominoes,
sometimes taking turns keeping him company. Our normal lives in California, preparing
meals, driving to work, or walking our dogs, seemed so far away. On top of the tense wait
for his discharge, we were waiting for Irene. Thinking I might be stuck indoors the next
day, I visited the gardens surrounding the oldest part of the hospital.
To the south of the Pine Building, an old-fashioned garden hides behind high
brick walls, creating an intriguing, secretive atmosphere. Maybe the protected garden

Waiting for Irene - Nonfiction

would relieve that weirdly unreal feeling built up during my time indoors, where I drifted
through a sea of artificial light and air. Brick pathways led to a circular hub, ringed with
curved wooden benches. The gardens layout presented colonial-style symmetry, yet
plants were swaying loosely over the walkways, branches and fronds springing across the
tidy brickwork patterns.
Normally there are Saturday tours of these old buildings and gardens, but the
entire hospital staff was preparing for Irene's arrival. Televisions in every waiting room
and lobby blasted out news, warning that the Schuylkill River would rise fifteen feet by
Sunday, that SEPTA would shut down late Saturday, that anyone without a compelling
reason to stay in Philadelphia should stay home. I had the garden all to myself as the
wind started to rise and the sky grew darker.
I found several brick-edged planters with familiar flowers and herbs: lavender,
nasturtiums, marigolds. According to signs posted near the old cornerstone, the hospitals
Physic Gardens were laid out at the very beginning, although their present arrangement
only dates to the bicentennial in 1976. How many people have felt their aches and pains
eased over the last two centuries by the beneficial touch of roots, leaves, and blossoms?
The gentle residents of the garden rustled and bowed, unafraid of the coming storm. I'd
told my son he was in the safest spot in the entire city. Ben Franklin and associates built
the place on the highest groundwhere the air was the most healthful, safely out of reach
of the rivers.
High above the central wing of the historic buildings, a weathervane topped a
domed cupola. I couldnt see any movement: either the intermittent wind was insufficient
to swing the pointer, or the venerable metal had become fixed, pointing north towards the

Waiting for Irene - Nonfiction

modern high-rise wings. The lightning-bolt shaped weathervane seemed to say: Dont
worry, Ben left me on duty here and Irene cant push me around.
Despite the hectic, pumped-up televised weather reports, that weathervane
reassured me. After my sojourn in the gardens, I felt confident and calm enough to
reassure my son. Although hes a grown-up college student, all the hurricane talk worried
him. It seemed that his depression and anxiety took ten years off his emotional age, as he
fretted that my husband and I might not make it to visiting hours on Sunday. I carefully
explained that the five blocks between the hospital and our temporary lodgings were
unlikely to end up underwater: Think about itthose old buildings lasted more than 200
years. No mere Category 1 is going to budge them.
On Sunday morning, I had time for a quick walk past Independence Hall, finding
it deserted except for a small scattering of Asian tourists. The historic areas looked like
the proverbial ghost town. All along the Atlantic coast, the news media talked as if Irene
could be another Katrina. But in the center of old Philadelphia, our family stayed high
and dry, easily arriving for visiting hours. As we played cards, we laughed affectionately
at Ben Franklins prohibition of card games at the original hospital. Our occasional
glances at television screens revealed the capriciousness of Irenes behavior along the
coastline, but we successfully avoided the best efforts of frenzied newscasters to drum up
fear and alarm.
By Monday noon, we were strolling around looking for storm damage. I brought
my camera, feeling relieved and absurdly deflated by the bland normalcy of the
immediate neighborhood. The river rushed fast and high, but I saw nothing resembling
those threatening images on cable news. As usual, storm reporters focused on a few

Waiting for Irene - Nonfiction

dramatic incidents, each one occurring miles away. The only striking image I could track
down, on South Street near the Whole Foods, was a mid-size tree snapped off near its
roots. Sidewalks near the Headhouse were invitingly dry, with only a few downed
branches as evidence of Irenes overnight visit. Once again, the founders of this old town
looked like geniuses: they really knew how to build stuff, back in the day.
I lingered to take pictures along the walls of the Magic Garden on South Street,
especially the triptych of tiles bearing a quote by Pascal Bonafoux. The painter as
portrayed by himself must not be reduced to a subject of history, but must be shown, by
his/her pictorial gaze, to be individual and timeless. Surrounding the tiles, fragments of
mirror glittered, darkening only when I blocked the sunlight by leaning closer with my
camera. The attribution on the lower right, etched on the tongue-colored surface, seemed
to acknowledge my week-long vigil at the hospital: Portraits of the artist: The selfportrait in pain. I had to look twice to find the final ting scratched at the very lowest
edge of the tile. My mind naturally enough jumped to conclude with pain rather than
painting.
As we prepared to return to California with our convalescent, I thought how
demeaning the phrase "reduced to a subject of history" now seemed. Waiting for Irene,
my pictorial gaze focused on places that could represent mere subjects of history to some
people. But every doorway, every brick walkway, every stand of trees and greenery along
my path, now felt individual and timeless to me. Stepping out of my normal time-flow
into the rhythm of an extended hospital stay forced my feelings to bounce between
gratitude for my sons recovery and anxiety about his future. We all want our loved ones
to be healthy, right now, and we also want their surroundings to keep them safe and

Waiting for Irene - Nonfiction

thriving for years to come. Irene came and went, we packed up and took our son home,
and it took me over six months to create this self-portrait. I feel like it happened
yesterdayit almost feels as if it happened this afternoonyet it also feels as if it
happened to someone else long ago, someone from another time. Someone with timeless
wit and wisdom, who once wrote in his Almanac: Time is an herb that cures all diseases.