My Guardian Angel Ann is a great guardian angel to my children, so, in grandparent style, she bought each of them a picture book and inscribed a message on them.
She also bought Eric and me books. Mine was a book of poetry called “The Living Stones.” And she marked it to a page 30, to the poem called “The Magdalene …. Manic and Depressive.”
“Dick is going to read this at my funeral … without the part about a bad marriage,” she said.
“Are you planning to go soon?” I asked. And we howled (because each of us has been very suicidal during our depression; in fact, she talked to me daily through one of my most dangerous places).

The poem made me feel less guilty about some of my symptoms—that they could, in fact, be perceived as blessings.
Here’s the poem …

The Magdalene … Manic and Depressive
She was a difficult woman.
No one could deny that.
It was her moods.
One day she would shut herself away and speak to no one.
Next day she would be the life and soul of the party.
And expect everyone else to be the same.
I don’t know which mood was the more difficult to live with.
When she was in her cut off mood,
She would stare into space, her eyes distant, her face dull.
She would curl up in a corner.
Miserable herself, she would make others miserable too.
I was sorry for her.
Her marriage had broken and she had no one to love her out of it.
But she was her own worst enemy.
In those moods, no one could help her.
Several had tried, but everything and everyone would be
Wrong, Wrong, Wrong.
Mind you, when she wasn’t like that, it was worse!
There would be a burst of activity,
And demands on us all to join in.
There would be a hectic round of comings and goings
With her voice above all others in a high pitch of excitement and laughter.
I knew the pattern.
The flow of promises made, plans launched, ideas hatched.
Then the crash
and all the disappointments and dashed hopes
and everything and everyone
even more Wrong, Wrong, Wrong.
Lord, what can we do?
Everyone’s tried to cure her.
Children have laughed with her.
Family have sat with her.
Men have loved her.
Doctors have treated her.
Priests have talked to her.
But she doesn’t change.
What can we do?
My Son, when I walked the earth
I knew such a one.
She saw the sorrows that surrounded her,
She knew the pain of loneliness
She felt the world was wrong, wrong, wrong.
She washed my feet with her tears.
She stood by my cross
She brought spices to my grave,
And, my Son,
She was the first to see me in the Garden.
So tell her family
her lovers
her doctors,
her priests,
not to cure her,
but to learn from her.