sometimes you just need a hug

She was in her late forties
She looked sixty
Had been a hardcore drug addict for years
Living on the streets
She had lice
She smelled
She wet the bed

Two female staff washed her hair
and combed out the lice
They wore trash bags and gloves
We bought her adult diapers

She spoke a lot when she came in but as the days passed
less and less
I heard her on the phone once with her husband in New York
She asked him to send her 100 bucks
He said, “I wouldn’t send twenty dollars for your funeral”

One day she walked to the tree in the middle of the patio
and wrapped her arms around it
Hugging it tightly
She wouldn’t move

Staff would ask her what she was doing
She wouldn’t answer
Staff would ask her if there was something wrong
She wouldn’t answer
Staff would tell her it was
Lunchtime
Dinner time
Med time
Bedtime
She wouldn’t answer
She wouldn’t move
and she wouldn’t let go

Clients and staff complained
One said “she’s freaking me out“
I told the graveyard staff
to keep an eye on her
and went home

The next day she hadn’t moved
She had pissed herself
The program director said she would have to let go or he was going to call “emergency psych services”
He told her this was her last chance
She didn’t budge
She never said a word

The ambulance came and two muscular men set up the stretcher to look like a padded wheelchair
One of the men told her, “you’re gonna let go of that tree and you’re gonna sit in that chair… or we’re gonna put you in that chair”

She calmly let go of the tree and sat down in the chair
They buckled straps around her
As they wheeled her away she had the blankest expression I’ve ever seen in my life

I had to notify her emergency contact
Her sister in Virginia
I introduced myself
How’s she doing, the sister asked

Not good, I said