Sophie Kramer

I recently got an e-mail from Joy, the daughter of Helen A., a patient I took care of some years ago. During the last years of Helen’s life, she struggled with physical decline due to advanced heart disease as well as the emotional toll of supporting a son in recovery and her young granddaughter.

Joy wanted to let me know that while going through old papers, she found an old prescription I had written. On it was the title of a novel. All those years ago, I pulled out the pad in my pocket to recommend a story for Helen: “A Year Down Yonder,” the story of a resilient grandma and her curious granddaughter.

Helen’s prescriptions for statins, beta blockers, and SSRIs are long gone. What is left is her story. Stories have the power to build us up, to help us connect, perhaps even to heal. I’m sure I recommended that novel to Helen to let her know that her story mattered to me.

And how lucky we are in medicine to be such an intimate part of our patients lives. Joy also wrote to remind me that I was part of Helen’s story, her own story, and that together our stories still breathe.