The Unexpected Life of Lilian DuPaul

Nursing was never my first choice for what I wanted to do with my life. But sometimes things just happen, and so here I am. Doing a job that consists mostly of changing bedpans and bandages and dealing with unhappy patients. It’s not all bad, though, there are certainly some good things that come from the job.

Take for instance, Lilian DuPaul, the patient that changed my life. I’d seen her around the hospital before a couple of times. She’d been in and out of the hospital that I work at for the past couple of years, but I had never worked with her directly before. This most recent time, though, she happened to be one of the patients that fell under my morning rounds.

I first knew something was different about her in the way that she smiled. Like she had a secret she wanted to tell, but wouldn’t. She and I hit it off immediately. I found that talking to her was so much easier than it was with other people. Lilian DuPaul seemed so worldly, and the look in her eyes told me that she saw me, that she knew me. That she cared.

Lilian was a cute old lady, her main ailment being that of cardiac arrhythmia. Each morning I would come in, check her stats, make sure she was comfortable, and then I would sit down to talk with her for a little bit. She always made me laugh, her humor was very crass and funny for someone of her age, and I found it incredibly sad when she told me that she had no surviving family members to come visit her in the hospital.

We mostly talked about my life, about how I got into nursing, if I had a husband (I don’t), and what my family was like. I told her practically everything about myself, so much so that one day I found there was nothing left to tell.

“You know everything about me, now let’s hear something about yourself,” I told her sternly.

“Oh, you don’t want to hear about little old me,” she batted her hand in the air in dismissal.

“Oh, but I do,” I said in counter, “You have a story, I can tell. It’s hidden in your eyes.”

She looked me in the face, appraising me, and I kept my features smooth and calm. After a couple of seconds she seemed to decide that I was worth talking to, because she smoothed her hair down and nodded at the carry on bag she always brought with her to the hospital and told me to bring it to her.

I did as she said and she dug around inside for a couple of minutes, looking for something. I peered into the bag curiously but she tsked me away back to my chair, where I had to wait patiently for her gnarled hands to unearth whatever it was she wanted to show me.

At last, she pulled it out. Within her grasp, and I say that because she was holding onto it very tightly, was a little black notebook. The edges were worn, and upon closer inspection I could see that her name adorned the cover in silver etching. It was beautiful in the simplest way it could be.

“This is my whole life,” she said to me very seriously. “And if I give this to you, you must promise to get my story out whenever I die.”

Her words take me by surprise and I find myself attempting to splutter out an answer, but she shushes me and holds out the journal to me. I take it and immediately feel some kind of warmth emanating from it, a sort of power.

“What is this?” I gasp, flipping open the cover to see the contents of the first page.

“Just read it,” she instructs. “I am going to take a nap, and when you are done you may wake me. Then we will talk.”

I look up at her in wariness, about to tell her that I don’t have the time to be doing this and should be completing my rounds, but her eyes are already closed and she is softly snoring. I turn my attention back to the notebook, and begin to read.

Lilian DuPaul has lived a wondrous life. Within the journal contains stories of her adventures, her travels and flings, her achievements and accomplishments, and most endearingly, the story of her and Michael DuPaul.

They met during World War II, when everything was chaos and things seemed only to look down. He was a resistance fighter in France, and she was just an english girl who had been traveling at the wrong time.

Their love was pure and a spark of light during that dark period, and together they were perfect. Together they felt that they could change the world.

And for a time, they certainly did. Lilian joined the resistance and fought discreetly alongside her lover. Within the journal are pages and pages of their escapades, their plans and accomplishments. Even their defeats.

My breath is taken away when I come upon the last entry. Tears begin to form in the corners of my eyes, and I look up at Lilian, this strong, worldly woman laying in a hospital bed after everything she has been through. Lilian DuPaul has lived a long, fruitful life.

My gaze roams to her face and I see that she is awake and staring at me, expressionless.

“I see you’ve gotten to the end of my story,” she says humorlessly.

“I have,” I say cautiously. “I’m sorry about Michael.”

She waves her hand in dismissal, “That was the way of things back then. He died bravely, and he died loved. That’s all a man could hope for in those days.”

“I suppose,” I say, “But I wish you two had gotten the chance to grow old together. It just seems so cruel to have found your soul mate and then have them ripped away from you.”

“Indeed it is, but my Michael and I will be reunited soon enough, my dear. I can feel it.”

I don’t particularly know what to say to that so I just sit back in the chair and look down at the journal in my lap. I stroke the worn sides with my fingers and imagine what it must have been like to live a life like Lilian’s.

I try to give the journal back to her but she waves me off again and tells me to remember our deal. She falls back asleep and I leave her to finish my morning rounds and get a chewing out for taking my sweet time doing so. Later that night when I come back to visit her I found that she has passed away.

I feel a deep sadness within me, but I remember our promise and I am determined to see it through.

************

It’s only been a few weeks since my life was changed by the most wonderful and awe-inspiring patient, Lilian DuPaul. I have taken her story to a journalist and they have given me $20,000 dollars in exchange for her story. It’s being published tomorrow, and I feel proud to have made it this far in such a short time. I never would have thought I could be a part of something greater like this, and for that I will be forever grateful to her.

I plan to use the money to do more research into her life, to go and visit the places she and Michael traversed during the war, and to honor her memory in the best way that I can. I’m sure she would like that.

I hope that she and Michael have been reunited and are happy together. I like to think that together they are looking down on me, giving me the guidance I need to unfurl the rest of their story, that which was not written down on the pages of that little black notebook.

I keep it with me everywhere I go. Her story is not one to be forgotten, in fact, it is one to be cherished.