Still sick, still there

His name is Williams, not his real name.He’s in his late sixties. He lost his wife ten years ago and never found his way back. He has become a prisoner of loneliness and an eternal friend of sorrow.They had no children. No siblings nearby. Just memories—and the silence that came after.He cries in every visit. Not loudly. Not theatrically. Just the steady kind of crying that speaks of grief that never left. The kind that doesn’t ask to be fixed anymore.I’ve known him for years now. I’ve tried almost everything. Antidepressants. Sleep medication. Trials of antipsychotics. He saw two psychiatrists and many psychotherapists. He went to grief groups. He followed every recommendation. He always says thank you before he leaves.But nothing helped. Or if it did, it never lasted.He’s not suicidal. He’s not delusional. He doesn’t need to be hospitalized. But he is, unmistakably, deeply sad. And he doesn’t know what to do with it anymore.Some days he talks about his wife. How quiet and kind she was. How they used to read together in the evenings, travel, eat and. . . . Other days, he just sits and lets the tears fall. He apologizes for them, as if I haven’t seen them a hundred times before.There’s a moment in every visit—usually near the end—when he looks at me and asks softly, “Will I ever feel better?”I never know how to answer. Language, sometimes, fails to find a fitting word to express the stirrings of the soul, or to match a sorrow like Williams’ and an anguish like his.We are trained to treat. We’re taught to have plans, to offer solutions, to give hope in the form of pills or strategies. But with Williams, I’ve run out of plans. And yet I keep seeing him. And he keeps coming back.Still sick. Still there.It’s easy in our field to become discouraged by cases like his. To label them as treatment-resistant. To feel helpless. To quietly dread the visits where we have nothing new to offer. I’ve felt that before—brief flashes of frustration, powerlessness, even guilt. But over time, those feelings changed.Now, I see Williams’ visits differently.He doesn’t come expecting miracles. He comes to be witnessed. To not be alone with his sorrow. To sit with someone who knows his wife and remembers her name. Who doesn’t flinch at his tears. Who doesn’t rush to “move him forward.”Maybe that’s what matters more than we think.Maybe when healing doesn’t come, presence is the next best thing.There’s a kind of dignity in continuing to show up for patients who haven’t improved. To sit across from them without rushing to fix what medicine has not been able to heal. To offer quiet continuity when nothing else in their world feels steady.I don’t know if Williams will ever feel joy again. I don’t know if his pain will ever lift completely. But I know this: he is not invisible. His sadness has a place to land. And even if all I can offer him now is space, I will.Some patients don’t get better. But they still deserve care.And Williams is that patient Still grieving. Still hurting.Still sick. Still there.And I’m here, too.Dr. Jabir Jassam is a family physician in Ottawa. He’s also an author and creator and runs the InsideTheMind.ca website.

Still sick, still there

Register for free access or login.

Related Topics