I have been aware of “Jennifer” for almost fifteen years. I can’t say I really know her, but at one point I made a concerted effort over the course of a year to visit her in the psychiatric hospital. She’s pretty, she has a daughter who lives with her an ex-husband, and for the past two years at least, she’s become progressively very, very, delusional. From what I’ve seen, and from what others tell me, she wanders the streets every day, alone.

She has nobody in a position of real caring to help her. I mean family. Her mother lives far away. I tried contacting the mother at one point to find out how I and others could be of more help, and was rather rudely brushed aside. If the mother had been smarter, she could have swallowed her understandable anger enough to establish contact with people who were willing to visit her daughter and would gladly welcome her suggestions as to how best to help her daughter. It’s blindingly obvious that involving non-relatives is a poor substitute for a having a mother in close proximity, but it’s certainly preferable to having no one.

I tried calling Jennifer’s state appointed guardian today. The office phone rang and rang and rang, then a message clicked in that nobody was around to take the call (despite the fact that my call was during office hours). The message instructed me to call back later. So, I called back later, and got a woman shouting to me over the loud music in the background that the guardian was out, call back later. I called the office for the third time that hour, was told, after checking with the guardian, that he was busy, and I should e-mail him. Long story short, I found out she’s back in the hospital.

This is a contained opportunity to do more.