Greetings!
"When it's over, I don't want to wonder if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened, or full of argument."
From Mary Oliver's "When Death Comes."
I met the man, Dean Brooks, in 2006 though I'd heard of him from years before. He and his daughter and friends came to a signing on the Oregon coast where I spoke. I could tell even from his wheel chair that he was a tall man, elderly, white-haired with a sparkle in his eye. He was 89 years old. He told me that he had been introduced to my books and had read them aloud to his wife in the months before her death. She was a great reader, he told me, and she loved the rhythm of my words.
Our friendship progressed through the miles. Jerry and I met his family of remarkable daughters and some of their children. India and Jim visited our ranch; we stayed with them on a trip to Everett. When I came to town, Dean and his family would meet for dinner and in the years following Dean would often call to find out how Jerry and I were doing. He loved music. He laughed easily and often. He was a man of faith. He'd fill me in on projects he was devoted to. He'd been the superintendent of the Oregon State Hospital during the years that I was a community mental health director so I knew of him. He'd played himself or rather the superintendent in the film One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest filmed at the hospital largely because of his efforts and employing patients during the filming, many behind the camera. He never stopped being involved in projects that advanced the cause of the mentally ill.
In this new century, Dean's concern led to relieving the suffering of the mentally ill housed in prisons, horrified, really, that when the large institutions began to close in the 1980s that funding for treatment in the community was diverted to other things. That left many mentally ill without the support to enable them to survive and thrive outside of the institution. Many ended up in other institutions: prisons.
Dean never hesitated to reach out to people he felt could make a difference. He'd read a book (Crazy :A Father's Journey Through America's Mental Health Madness by Pete Earley, for example) and he'd call the author and enlist them in a national effort to change the mental health system. He became friends with screen writers, film directors, legislators, parents, actors and others affected by mental illness themselves or through their families. He tapped mental health advocates around the globe. He helped found the Dorothea Dix Think Tank, a national organization devoted to finding ways to decriminalize mental illness and help people find appropriate treatment. Pete Earley wrote a fine piece about Dean upon his passing at www.peteearley.com.
Dean's latest influence on me was his encouragement that I write about Dorothea Dix, an early reformer in mental health. "People have already written about her," I protested. "Not a novel," he reminded me. "Novels are how people get to really know the person, what she might have felt." He'd urge me to work on that novel and finally, in 2011, I said I'd see if my editor would be interested. She was and thus became One Glorious Ambition: the Compassionate Crusade of Dorothea Dix. The book is dedicated to Dean and his three daughters Ulista, Dennie and India, all women passionate about public service and care of the mentally ill.
But Dean's support of my writing didn't stop there. He asked Pete Earley if he'd read a draft for possible endorsement. Through his daughter Dennie, he got an endorsement from a board member of the new Mental Health Museum in Salem. He introduced me to award-winning screenwriter Charles Kiselyak who is working on a screenplay about Dorothea Dix. Dean commissioned a bronze bust of Dorothea from sculptor John S. Houser that sits in a place of honor at the museum. And then he had crafted what we affectionately call "Little DD" made by John Houser so I could take DD with me on book signings or events. The picture you see was taken weeks before Dean's death. He is gifting me with the use of "Little DD" and yet reluctant to let her go.
I'm reluctant to let Dean go, too. One day not long after I met him, he sent me a copy of the Mary Oliver poem "When Death Comes." They'd read it at his wife's memorial. The last line of Mary Oliver's poem reads: "I don't want to end up simply having visited this world."
Dean did not just visit this world. He passed away on May 30 at the age of 96. He was the epitome of compassion, using his strength and wit and wonder to touch the lives of thousands. I will miss him and the words he always said at the closing of a phone call or a visit: "I love you." I believe he truly did love me, and everyone he encountered on his journey to improve the lives of the mentally ill. So like Dorothea Dix. Such a model of a man worthy of remembering.
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