She was Other

The media ate up the story. “Fracking queen Florence Branch on death bed” one news service announced. She amassed a $60 billion fortune and became the wealthiest self-made woman on the planet. A resident of Newark, Delaware, Branch lived in a $150 million mansion and owned a dozen other businesses and managed even more investments. None of that, she viewed, was as important as her philanthropy. In fact, she sold off all her companies, started a foundation and even put her house on the market. After serving starving children in Africa, she had lived in a tent in the jungles of Tanzania. Florence’s sacrifice, altruism and self abnegation contributed to her current position in a hospital back in the States in her home in Delaware. She had slit her wrists in an act of further denying herself and vowed to show the world her complete selflessness. Her nurse came to her bedside for her rounds.

“How’re you, Miss Branch?”

“Don’t want it. Don’t want it.”

Nurse Tasha noted that Florence was stable but still delusional. She had lost a significant amount of blood and started to mutter nonsense. These were the clearest statements she had uttered the entire time that she was an inpatient.

All the gasps for life couldn’t save her now. Those begging, grieving, huddled masses seeking succor were nowhere to be seen at her last moments. A world that had asked and taken all that it had pleaded for from Florence now watched from a distance.

the slow, agonizing demise of a woman who compromised her principles in free markets and rushed to give back. But what did she take in the first place? Silence. Nothing but the incessant patter of rain against the window offered an answer. No charitable organization, no clergyman could come to Florence’s rescue. Not after all the actions she had completed on behalf of the poor, the sick, the weakest in society. Now, she floated in and out of consciousness. The Honoré Award for Peaceable Actions Committee conferred upon Florence just a few years ago their highest prize. Florence, frail and suffering from dysentery could not accept the award but did (painfully) write a lecture of declination that her publicist delivered at the ceremony. The papacy pledged to make her a saint but her spoken agnosticism prevented her from receiving that name.

No prayers or wishes could save her now, the woman who gave her money and time to ensure that others were better off than she. Where were the others now? Why did she live for their sake but they never returned the favor? The Queen of England attempted to make her an honorary dame based on the merits of her humanitarian efforts. She received royal correspondence but she never accepted the title. She vowed to remove herself from all of her endeavors. Her billions, the house...they meant nothing. Instead, Florence felt pain with each and every loss of dollars or hours. “As long as it hurts…” she chanted to herself. The immolation she faced brought her spirit to the depths of ruin and impoverishment. She had thoughts that all of her efforts would bring her joy but alas only despair appeared in her oft-battered soul. Her diaries spoke of a tortured, bitter, puny shell of a woman who once presided over corporate meetings and negotiated with shareholders over business conferences. Her four children (two sons, two daughters) received no endowments or inheritances from Mother Florence. They could do nothing as she had orchestrated for her wealth to be donated to the neediest of the needy, not her own values, her children. So they did not visit Florence while she wasted away in the hospital. But her doctor did come by her room. Dr. Laila Hargrove took Florence under her care.

“Good morning, Miss Branch, how’re you feeling today?”

Florence responded with a gasp and subtle murmurings.

“We’re going to provide you with a new medication to help you sleep better, okay?”

Florence turned her head, dismissing the question.

Dr. Hargrove looked down at her feet, then walked out of the room.

Florence’s remaining balance of a few thousand dollars and her health insurance kept her in the hospital. But no, in her current state of intermittent consciousness, Florence had no designs to rise from that hospital bed and give more of herself. And now, as the hour of her last breath drew nigh, the only thought that she had left in her mind resonated, ricocheted back and forth; did I give enough?

Dr. Hargrove returned to Florence’s bedside with Nurse Tasha.

“All her life, she sacrificed for others. Even creating enormous wealth, she had others in mind for which to give her fortune. But wait. Isn’t the fact that she developed a revolutionary way to extract gas from the earth her major achievement? Doesn’t the fact that she built a multi-billion dollar company mean anything?” Dr. Hargrove asked.

“I don’t know,” Nurse Tasha said. “I think it’s better that she gave away her money and took time to volunteer.”

“I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with charity, all I’m asking is what makes a person moral? Should he or she generate riches or have them sent to the less fortunate? Where does it end?”

Out of the corner of Nurse Tasha’s eye, she noticed that Florence had frozen her face and appeared to not breathe. The doctor and nurse rushed to Florence’s side in efforts to revive her. To no avail. She had expired in a matter of minutes of which the two women had spoken.

Dr. Hargrove then called for the mortician to retrieve the body. Nurse Tasha wept. “She cared for everyone but herself,” Nurse Tasha said.

“And that’s the real crying shame,” Dr. Hargrove said. Two orderlies placed Florence's arms at her sides and wheeled her to the morgue. A report of her death read “An altruist angel has died at the age of 89.” Dr. Hargrove switched off the light and closed the door. She straightened her collar and adjusted her stethoscope and marched forth to visit her next patient.