A week ago today, my closest friend Michele passed away after a long fight with cancer. A few months ago, after she found out that the cancer had spread to her brain and knew the odds of recovery were very low at that point, she asked me to write her obituary. This past week, I have been interviewing people who knew her well over the course of her live, much longer than I knew her, to collect details for a long obituary to be published in a local magazine. I learned a tremendous amount about her, and my perspective of her has changed radically.
Michele created her own legend. She told people grand stories of adventures in Africa in her youth and working professionally in the Studio 54 disco in New York in it's hey day. She was a powerful and dominant figure in my community. She was a social and political leader who worked for the benefit of her community.
Michele also loved fantasy. She was in her 50's, and yet had all kinds of Star Wars memorabilia around the house. All of her art was fantasy inspired, some Tolkenesque, some of the "Conan The Barbarian" sort. She indulged sexual fantasies, and participated in the "leather" community.
In the last week of her life when she was put in a hospice, she seemed to go catatonic. She kept a blank stare on her face. She would not react to people who came in the room. After her first day in hospice, she never showed a reaction to my coming in to visit with her every day. She held a blank expression, and her eyes would not move even as you moved in and out of her field of vision. However, it was also clear that she was not unaware. If questioned enough, she would sometimes respond to simple inquiries with a one word answer, like "yes" or "no". When offered water, she would reach up and grab the cup. When being fed, she would open her mouth and sometimes take the fork when food was offered. Some people she would react to with emotional facial expressions, like her daughter. I was in the room with a friend who emotionally talked about how much Michele had meant to her, and a tear started running down Michele's face. The day before she died, her brother who she had not spoken to in over a decade came to see her, and she sat up and talked to him in a normal conversation. She was mentally functional right up until her last day, but by most outward appearances, she had already checked out.
In interviewing people for her obituary, I've discovered that she never went to Africa. Most of her accounts of accomplishments from her past never happened either. They were fabricated stories. However, they were stories she repeated often, and made references to in other contexts. They were extremely detailed accounts, which she would intersperse with factual details from other contexts. I really think that she had forgotten that these things never happened to her.
What is even more odd to me is that in researching her life, she actually had some pretty remarkable accomplishments and legacies she rarely to never talked about. She was the great grandchild of Ransom Olds, the founder of Oldsmobile. I only ever heard her mention that once, but I've verified through other parties that it was true. She grew up next to the family home of a former US president, which I independently verified, but I never heard her talk about it. She once held a world bicycling speed record. I never heard her mention it. Her fantasy world was of more value to her than her actual accomplishments. She frequently repeated her fantasies as if they were facts, and ignored her facts even when they were more interesting.
Some of her stories were embellishments of her reality. She said she was related to a president, when in reality, she only lived for a time next to the family home of one. She said she once owned a Rolls Royce, when in reality she once rode in one as a part of her wedding. She blurred the line between fantasy and reality to the point that I don't think she knew where it was anymore.
Having a fair amount of experience with extreme characters, I knew there must be some definition of this condition out there someplace. I went off searching and found "fantasy prone personality". It describes her beautifully. I also found out in my research that she was badly abused as a toddler. She learned at an early age to escape into fantasy to avoid the harsh reality of her life. I think too, in the last week of her life, lying in a bed in a hospice, unable to deny the reality of her own mortality, she checked out of that reality and checked into her fantasy world, where she spent her last days.
Rest in peace my friend.
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