The Culture of Caring

Some people are just quick thinkers. Capable of reacting in the best possible way in emergencies. Most people would prefer not to get involved and complicate their lives. It's obvious that an Ottawa woman who works for the federal government, doesn't mind complicating her life if it means she can help someone. Someone who is an absolute stranger, but obviously and urgently in need for someone to care.

There were others in the proximity of where this woman was behaving in a bizarre manner. Even if her behaviour mightn't have tipped off someone who has a natural curiosity and interest in the welfare of others, the fact that she was unclad from the waist down, should have done the trick. But it wasn't until Gleny Cateriano, riding her bicycle on her way home from work ventured by that anyone noticed a woman in distress.

The woman was standing beside the Rideau Canal dressed in a red shirt, staring over the railing into the water below. From the waist up she might have looked like anyone else, interested in the canal and looking to see what might be there, below. Except that her shoes, pants and underwear were somewhere else, not on her body.

Ms. Cateriano instinctively understood that there was something quite wrong with this little scene - this was no exhibitionist but someone in need - and she stopped, set her bicycle aside, calmly asked bystanders to call police. And then she quietly approached the woman, watching as she threw her red shirt into the canal leaving her then clad only in a bra, and staring at the water in the canal.

The woman must have been oblivious to the presence of other people, transfixed deep within herself with some unknowable pain of dysfunctionality. Ms. Cateriano spoke to her: "Hello, do you want to talk? What is your name? My name is Gleny", immediately making a soft and personal connection with the distressed woman who responded with a bleak look.

The woman may not have understood the words in her detached and perilous condition, but she comprehended the tone, and walked away from her vigil by the water, telling Ms. Cateriano that she had a dire need to be held. And that is precisely what this perspicacious woman did, with this stranger; she held her.

"All this time, I was just holding her tight. I didn't want her to go back to the water. I was trying to comfort her, just telling her she is beautiful, she is a wonderful person, she was going to be fine."

Sometimes that's all it takes: to take notice of someone's existence, to reach out with words and a touch, to make someone feel that another human being, even one they don't know, cares about them. That's all it may take to wrench them away from the urge to self-destruct, but it will doubtless take much more for health care professionals to lead the woman to a place of healthy equilibrium.

But at least she now has the chance to experience that.