KICKING ASS AT PARK TERRACE ON SUPER BOWL SUNDAY

As previously written, my New Year's resolution was to visit our friend Suzie more. And I've kept the resolution. After my unsuccessful attempt on January 1, I've been back two more times, including a Super Bowl Sunday visit yesterday.

I didn't post anything to the blog after my last trip out to Park Terrace, because I didn't feel like I had anything good to say. But I feel better after yesterday's visit, and I wanted to share the story with you.

I arrived at Suzie's room yesterday and found it empty. A family member of one of her neighbors suggested that Suzie had gone downstairs to the TV room for some sort of church service. I went back down to the first floor, but Suzie was nowhere to be found. Finally I found her in the common room on her floor, watching the Super Bowl pre-game show with a number of the other residents.

It was great to see her out of her room, socializing, to the extent that she and her neighbors are able to. I gave her a kiss hello and asked her if she wanted to head back to her room to hang out. Suzie said yes.

Once there, Suzie immediately asked me to turn on the TV and to give her the remote. The previous time I had visited (a few weeks ago) she was glued to Spanish-language game shows for most of my visit and I found it hard to engage her in conversation.

"I didn't come here to watch TV!" I said. "I came here to talk to you."

"Okay," she said.

For the next hour or so I tried asking Suzie questions about how she was feeling, how her therapy was going, how her parents and sister were doing, what she thought of Park Terrace, who had come to visit recently, if she had watched the presidential inauguration. Suzie seemed engaged with me and able to understand my questions, but completely unable -- or unwilling -- to reply with anything more than a one-word answer.

This is the same situation I had encountered on my last visit to Park Terrace, and it really disturbed me.

When Suzie was in the city, at the Rusk Institute over on the East Side, I saw amazing progress in a short period of time. By the time she left there, she and I were having conversations -- brief, yes, but real dialogue. I felt very optimistic about the prospects for her future.

But the last time I saw her at Park Terrace -- months after my last visit at Rusk -- Suzie seemed to have regressed badly. There was a spark in her eyes at Rusk, a fire, an anger, almost. And rightly so. She has plenty to be pissed off about. But I saw that anger fueling her in very positive ways, inspiring her to do the hard work that she needed to do to get better.

On my last visit to Queens a few weeks ago, I found her to be distant, complacent and sedate (or, perhaps, sedated). There was no fire anymore, just defeat. That was hard for me to watch.

I saw aspects of that again yesterday. Suzie would make a brief effort to answer a question and then she would quit, shaking her head in defeat. I saw it in her eyes - a moment of clarity, and then frustration.

"Can't" she would say.

"Why are you doing this?" I asked her. "Why are you giving up? Are you giving up?"

"No," she said.

"Then answer my questions," I replied, standing up and looking her right in the eyes. "Keep trying. Mess up the words, get them wrong, but keep trying!"

And then, finally, she did. I saw something click in her, and she engaged. An hour earlier she couldn't string together two words, but now she was answering questions.

"What year is it?" I asked.

"2006?" she said.

"Nope. Try again."

"2008?"

"Close I said," pushing my thumbs up in the air.

"2009?"

"Yes," I said. "Great job. Are you hungry?"

"Yes, she said. "What time is it?"

"It's almost five o'clock," I answered.

"Time for lunch," she said.

"You mean dinner?"

"Yes," she said. "Dinner."

Then I asked her again her if she was able to think clearly in her head, but having problems communicating what she was thinking.

"Yes," she said. "All the time."

"The only way that will get better is if you try to do it over and over and over and over," I said. And then I pantomimed cracking a whip, and made the "kaa-cha" sound.

"Thanks," Suzie said. "Kaa-cha! I like you."

I'm not an expert on any of this, nor am I trying to tell anybody what to do. But I know Suzie was doing better when all of us were visiting her on a regular basis on the city. She was constantly engaged, challenged and surrounded by people at full capacity. Some of Suzie's neighbors at Park Terrace are in pretty rough shape. I feel enormous empathy for them, but Suzie is my primary concern. It's human nature to adjust your speed to those around you, and I think that's (in part) what's happening to Suzie.

It's up to us to counteract that.

Janine and Mia and Betty and others are carrying the bulk of the load here, and I think they are doing an absolutely amazing job. It has been personally inspring for me to see the way people have rallied around Suzie. It's just an incredible group of people, and I am very proud to be part of it.

So I will continue to do what I can do -- which is to hop on the E or R train out to Forest Hills, jump on the bus for ten minutes and get to Suzie's room and start kicking her ass.

Because that is the only way to bring back the old Suzie that we all knew and continue to love.