Dr. Harrison’s Life | Shishur Sevay

…the tenacity of a mother searching for her lost children

02 Nov 2013 2 Comments

by Dr. Michelle Harrison in Dr. Harrison's Life

I have some posts in mind, about who I am, and what led me to where I am today, in Kolkata, mother to twelve orphaned girls. When you know me better, you can see that my life today is a logical outcome of who I am, and who I have been throughout my life. I don’t remember exactly why I wrote this four years ago. I was trying to explain myself.

“They Turned Them Back In Stalingrad!”

From the mind and memory of Dr. Michelle Harrison, 29 November 2009

The year was 1942. My mother had gone into labor on Thanksgiving, the 26^th of November that year, and had delivered me in the afternoon of the 27^th. The following morning my father came to visit her in the hospital. He leaned over to kiss his beautiful young wife, and with pride and joy announced, “They turned them back in Stalingrad!” She said, “But David, the baby…” “Well,” he told her reassuringly, “there is always plastic surgery.” I had first appeared to the world in the shadows of World War II, and with my face a bit caved in.

My appearance was a terrible shock to my mother, as the nurses had initially, and mistakenly, brought her a beautiful ten-day-old red haired boy. She adored him for the hours he was with her. I do not joke, but on my 60^th birthday she was still remembering and talking about that baby, how beautiful and perfect he was, how happy she was holding him, talking to him, how shocked she was when they brought me to her. Part of her shock was guilt. She blamed herself for my face because, “no one taught me how to give birth.”

So, by the time I was one day old, there were stories to tell, stories and themes, personal and political, that would be with me throughout my life. As for my face, it mended on its own, probably within a day or two, but that part of the story is never told. I think I just had an ordinary newborn smushed-in face. To my mother though, I never really looked right. She longed for the “perfect” ten-day-old red haired boy she had held in the hours after giving birth. She also longed for a son, which she never had.

I have another day-of-my-birth story. I became a doctor. One focus of my work was the early relationships of mother and child, in pregnancy, childbirth, and the newborn period. I once participated in a meditation and hypnosis workshop where we were supposed to regress back to our lives before we were born. But I could only get back as far as my birth. The delivery room was cold and gray. I saw myself being born; I looked around and there was my mother, frightened, lying on the table. Then the doctors were holding me upside down, dangling me by my feet as was the custom. I was screaming and screaming at the top of my lungs, “You are doing it wrong! You are doing it wrong!” No one was listening to me.

In 1982, I published a book, A Woman in Residence (Random House 1982; Penguin 1994; Kindle Edition 2013), an autobiographical account of my training in Obstetrics and Gynecology. It is an expose; it is about the institutionalized abuses of women; it is about how childbirth should be practiced, not how it is practiced. It is my strongest voice, and the words no one listened to in the hospital room that day I was born. I am persistent. I have the memory of an elephant, and the tenacity of a mother searching for her lost children.

Michelle Harrison

The Anguish of Seeing into the Future

23 Sep 2013 2 Comments

by Dr. Michelle Harrison in Daily Life, Dr. Harrison's Life, Health

Torment has taken up residence in a part of my soul. Most of me is OK. Life does go on. The people around me would probably describe me as a bit sad, distracted, able to come out of it, and then returning, in quiet to this terrible place of loss, and also of confusion…. the work of “framing” the experience of Tuni’s brief life and her death. And then, central to my anguish, is The Dream.

The Canal

This is the canal I saw in my dream the night of 10 August 2013. The photograph is taken from the window of the Operating Theatre during her surgery on 13 August 2013.

I dreamed there was a canal in front of me. It was night. On the other side, dead babies were being put into this canal one after another, floating downstream in the murky water. I was standing on this side, holding Tuni in my arms. Seema was with me and I was screaming and screaming, “No, not my baby. She is different! She is different!” My baby would not be put into that canal! I can still feel and hear myself screaming. I’ve not stopped screaming from the center of my being. I can’t.

Monday 12th August we admitted Tuni and took her to her room. I looked out the window, and there was a canal, but not exactly like the dream…. Still, I was upset. Yes, I thought of taking her out…. I spent the afternoon with her. I’d hoped for some “quality time” with her but she slept most of the day. I guess it’s what she needed. I lay next to her and took pictures of us with my phone. It was a time of just being in the present, and the peace of being with a sleeping child.

Tuni sleeping the day before surgery

She woke in time for me to feed her.

Feeding Tuni

In the evening the massis she most enjoys came to replace me. They played most of the night and in the early morning Tuni fell asleep. She was still asleep when I met up with her in the pre-op room.

I had asked the surgeon if I could watch the surgery and he kindly agreed. In the morning he met me in the pre-op room and then took me around, showed me the cardiac icu (It has a different name there) and introduced me to doctors in the lounge. I changed out of my sari and into scrubs… hair covering, and mask. I felt right at home.

Back in “scrubs” after many years

Surgery went well for the first hour. The shunt was in place and they were starting to close. I was about to sms downstairs to Seema and the rest of Shishur Sevay that I’d be down soon, when suddenly her oxygen concentration fell….. I sensed everyone in the room was shocked to see the numbers on the screen fall. I felt like the hand of fate had just gripped the surgeon, frozen us in the space and time of the dream, It seemed like the moment one problem seemed resolved, there was another. The shunt developed a kink, a blood clot was found, even though the heparin had been given. Her heart stopped and they got it going again. Over the next five hours they put her on heart lung machine, pacemakers….. I’m not sure what else. It was quiet and the doctors talked in Bengali, I was just grateful to be there, but also frozen in re-living the dream.

I was spending most of my time at her head, looking over the drapes, and just resting my hand on her forehead. There were staff there who wanted me out and tried some ploys I resisted…. but then finally another surgeon insisted I break for lunch, as they had brought lunch to the floor for me. I dutifully sat in the Doctor’s Lounge and ate the sandwich and pretended I was in a normal situation in a normal life. Once back in the OT I put my hand on her forehead. It felt pasty; she was alive but her spirit was no longer there. I stood there silently screaming to the universe in protest.

I went to the window of the OT and saw the canal, the one I’d seen in my dream. I took pictures of the canal, and the reflections of my bangles. I took pictures and silently went on screaming. In the dream I’d screamed that my baby was different, so that was enough to me to believe that maybe she was close to death but hadn’t really died. And that is how it played out over the next 16 hours.

Tuni went to the cardiac unit and we came home around six pm. About two hours later the anesthesia dept called and said Tuni had arrested, and they were working on her. Seema and I, and her son rushed off back to the hospital, about 45 minutes away. In the taxi we talked about the possibility of her death. In the Hindu tradition, children up to five are buried, not cremated. We arrived to find that she was now doing better, her heart going on its own. We came home, and the next call was at 7 am the next morning. They were working on her again but didn’t think they would be successful. They said to come in. Tuni lay there with an ever so slight smile on her face. I just held her and cried and cried, as I have so often since she died, as I cry now as I write about this.

Holding Tuni after she died

The conflict in the dream about where she would be buried played out in reality. The hospital and everyone else told Seema that the place to go was the burial ground in Topsia. I can’t explain why, but my baby was NOT going to be buried in Topsia. I don’t like the area. I think Seema thought me quite mad, as I kept insisting I’d heard about a Hindu burial ground on the road the girls take to school each day. I was sitting in the car, Tuni’s body in my arms, determined that she was not going to Topsia. However it was Jojo, Seema’s son who found the Hindu burial ground near us. I’ve written about it in an earlier post. The next day, when Shanti Devi came in the morning she talked about the Topsia burial ground, and the wild animals who inhabit and desecrate it. I just knew….. sometimes I just know.

I miss Tuni terribly. In the Hindu tradition I’m supposed to let her go, so she can travel unhindered by ties pulling her back. I’m not doing very well at that. I pray for her safe journey while I also call for her to be back in my arms. I tell myself I did everything I could, but I still feel inside I let her down, as I’m sure every parent feels when a child dies. I had a bit of “reality check” as I was looking through pictures to use for this post. This one is from the OT.

Tuni in the Operating Theatre.

I think I’ve resolved that I did all that I could. It’s hard to look at that picture and not feel I did what I could, and so did everyone else who tried.

I decided to post my favorite picture of Tuni.

Tuni with her sisters, right at home at Shishur Sevay.

I think about her a lot. I ponder all the obvious questions about destiny and fate. She was an incredible light that filled us, all of us who knew her, all of us who got to know about her. Suravi Changlani, who interned at Shishur Sevay wrote a beautiful tribute to Tuni.

Suravi’s Trubute to Tuni

Dreams such as this one are not new to me. When I was delivering babies I would sometimes have dreams about the baby’s condition. I published an article about my dreams in Mothering Magazine, sometime around 1980. I once dreamed that I went to the home of a patient of mine in labor and there were three chickens wandering around in the kitchen. I’d never been in her home. When I went there later in the day because she had gone into labor, there were three wishbones on the kitchen window sill. But I’ve also had times of just knowing about things that would happen.

Looking at the pictures for this post, and thinking about the last few days of her life, I think now that the dream came from her. She needed to tell me. She needed to let me know, for her sake, for her not to feel so alone as she faced death. She needed me to be her mother. She always knew her life would be short. I’m someone that babies can talk to when I’m asleep and I hear what they are saying and I remember. She needed a mommy to tell. Tuni needed me to bury her in a safe place. Somehow that must have mattered to her. She let me know. I listened and did as I was asked.

I’ll close this post with a quote from my report to the Child Welfare Committee,

“Tuni would not have survived without surgery, so she had a chance at life here. We take comfort that this child once tossed away in the bushes found love and family at Shishur Sevay. While her medical chart in Asansol read “Baby Unknown” her chart at Medica Superspecialty Hospital read “Tuni Harrison.” She died with a name, with a mother, sisters, aunts, uncles, and with dignity. May all this help her on her journey back to the Gods.”

Sometimes I just can’t stop crying. I miss her so much.

Chapa Plant for Our Tuni – The Work of Moving On

25 Aug 2013 2 Comments

by Dr. Michelle Harrison in Daily Life, Dr. Harrison's Life

Flowering Chapa Planted for Tuni

It’s been a week since I bathed in the Ganges. I’ve been living in two places at once. I am enclosed in some misty and mystical place with Tuni and memories. I also attend to our life at Shishur Sevay, with our 14 other children. It’s a cliche, but Tuni’s death has brought us closer, and if ever the girls and staff doubted my sincerity, I think they understand.

Sunday: I organized pictures of Tuni by date because I want to write the story, or maybe I just needed to organize the pictures. I wrote a report for the government with pictures and with text… I made copies of her medical papers and the death certificate. I played with Archi in a tub of water. I cut the hair of two of the girls.

Monday; Purba and I took the report to the CWC (Child Welfare Committee). We then stopped by the home of our President, Judge S.S. Ganguly (retd.) to bring him up to date on Tuni’s death. Then we went to the Directorate of Social Welfare to leave a report there, and to hand in our papers for license renewal.

Tuesday: It rained all night Monday and the roads were flooded by morning. It was like snow days in the US. Some staff could make it through, others not. There is a special cozy feeling to such days. I cleaned my office. I really did. The girls cleaned the metal grilles… grounding work for all of us, and time to be together.

Wednesday: More rain… school closed until Monday. I slept a lot. Things fine here…. we are all recovering. We talk about Tuni. In our evening prayers we pray for her safe journey

Thursday: Met with some people who want to help us raise the funds for an elevator. Estimates had come in by email that morning. This is exciting

Friday: I remembered in the night that the men at the burial ground had told us we could bring a plant. I wasn’t sure exactly where it would go or what it was for, but it was unfinished business. They wanted a Chapa Plant with fragrant white flowers. We had planted a small Chapa in 2006 and now it towers over the house. Bijoy and I went out and bought two plants, about 4 ft high, and a neem tree sapling for our house. Then we drove out to the burial ground where we were warmly received. We planted the trees in the rain. It was good. I’ll write more about this at another time.

Planting a tree is not part of any specific tradition, but I needed to do it. It was a marker…. a third marker. The first was her death; the second was that I bathed in the Ganges; the third was that I planted a tree.

Back at home, life was continuing as usual. I took this picture of Barnani reading to Kalpana and Ganga.

Barnani reading to Kalpana and Ganga from her frvorite story book.

Another haiku from years ago

Practicing winter

Does not blunt the icy shards,

Mother’s heart is pierced.

Good night from Shishur Sevay in Panchabatitala, where New Alipore meets Behala in Kolkata, West Bengal, India, South Asia, Planet Earth, The Milky Way Galaxy, in the Universe.

Michelle

Today I Bathed in the Ganges

17 Aug 2013 6 Comments

by Dr. Michelle Harrison in Culture, Dr. Harrison's Life, Orphans, Religion

Tuni at Rest.

Today I bathed in the Ganges. Tuni Harrison died on the 14th of August 2013. She had heart surgery the day before, but her heart gave out. Today, three days after her death, Bijoy and I went to the river, with a Priest, and gave rites to send her on her journey. We offered clothes, food, milk, flowers, incense, and so many prayers. And then we immersed ourselves in the river three times, and pushed water out into the river three times, and I cried because I want her journey to be wonderful while I also want her back in my arms. I accept, but I am bereft. Even as I send her off to be with the Gods, I also call for her to come back soon. I’ll be looking for her. I will always be looking for her. When she came into my life I felt as if I’d always been looking for her. When she died I felt that I’d lost someone I’d always known.

Souls sang to my heart,

The winds taking them afar,

My nestlings flourished.

Yes this is true. My children, my nestlings, flourished. And when they were grown, I went looking for where the winds had taken the others. Tuni came home to me, and now she is gone… Like a little God, she came and filled our hearts, and the hearts of so many around the world, and then she left….. with the slightest smile on her sleeping face.

I am raw. My life is raw. I am immersed, as if in the Ganges. Tuni came for a purpose, a light and a gift, but I think we are only at the beginning of her impact in our lives.

In the days ahead I will write and post pictures of the last seven days. It was just a week ago that I took her for an evaluation and the doctors decided we could not wait for surgery as her blue spells were increasing, and medication was not helping. Here at Shishur Sevay we arranged for an oxygen concentrator and bought a pulse oxymeter. It was frightening when she would turn blue, and cry and then go limp…..

Today I bathed in the Ganges.

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Shishur Sevay

…the tenacity of a mother searching for her lost children

The Anguish of Seeing into the Future