It's Doris Perry's birthday today, April 2. No point in calculating how old she'd be now... she's been gone since 1992 and she was 73 when she died at her own hand.
You had to know Doris to understand the way she lived and died. She was unique, one of a kind, with so many facets to her personality she changed like lightning from mirthful and downright funny to somber and deeply sad.
I knew her well enough to know those parts of her. I was a 19-year old freshman at Trenton State College when Doris arrived on campus. She was 41, having just completed her Ed.D. in counseling psychology at the University of Florida in Gainesville.
She was 5'8", slender and beautiful. Hired to inaugurate a student counseling program at TSC, she needed a student assistant. I happened to be in the right place at the right time and eagerly jumped in. It was the best thing I could have done... then and later when times got tough and the Doris I knew and loved began to change into a stranger who alienated everyone who loved her.
But I digress. Doris was fashioning an experiment to be part of her post-doctoral dissertation... she had decided to prove the theories of renowned psychologist Dr. Carl Rogers, who posited that the first five years of life determine the self-image we carry with us for our entire lives and what we do to protect that image... we deny or distort experiences so they are congruent with it.
The experiment involved 100 student volunteers, who took two psychological tests to determine degree of neurosis and then donned several pair of glasses specially made to show their images in plain pane glass all the way up to fun-house distortions. The kids described themselves as they appeared in a three-sided mirror and were recorded providing their responses. The more profoundly neurotic students saw no difference in their images, regardless of type of glass and the other kids varied in degrees, proving that we have fixed ideas of who we are.
I spent weeks transcribing those interviews... sitting at a card table in a corner of Doris's already tiny living room, using a typewriter and a Webcor tape recorder my parents had given me for high school graduation. What an experience! Trying to decipher Doris's southern drawl was often hilarious and we would laugh until we cried. I often got permission to stay overnight when our transcribing sessions ran late, so we hauled a mattress from the upstairs dorm down the steps to her apartment. Naturally, it got stuck midway and we ended up sliding down its length, laughing all the way. Often, when the work was suspended for the night, Doris would encourage me to talk. She was a wonderfully empathic person who allowed me to open my heart and soul about everything I needed to share. Her careful counseling let me see myself in new ways and as we grew closer, I felt she was making a profound change in my outlook on my the traumas I had undergone.
Simply put, Doris saved my life. I wish I could have done the same for her. As the years went on, the pain from a bad fall on the ice drove her to an addiction to pain-killers. She found a doctor who prescribed in excess whenever she asked. When she retired back to Gainesville, she was beginning the slide that eventually destroyed the wonderful mind and heart I loved.
I made several trips to visit Doris during the early years of her retirement. She had old friends, a lovely home with a pool and was happy to be back in Florida. But as the years went by, she became ill, both physically and mentally. In 1991, I got a frantic phone call from her... she was 88 pounds and weak. The next day, I flew to Florida and brought her to the hospital where she was treated for diabetic shock. I would not have known the woman who responded to my knock on her door. Nor did I know the woman who, I learned, had refused the help, love and affection of everyone in her formerly large circle. She was alone except for a wonderful housekeeper, and at the time, me and a man she'd mentored for decades. They were still in touch and I assume he remained a trusted part of her world.
When I got home, it was only a matter of weeks before she drove me out as well. Her bitter voice on the phone accused me of things I had never done and she ended the call by telling me she never wanted to hear from me again. I was stunned, hurt and devastated. Not long after that, her housekeeper called to tell me she had found Doris in her car, engine running, in the garage. It had been carefully planned, apparently, and there were only three of us left to mourn her loss.
Doris was complicated. She loved intensely and I never saw the capacity for hatred until the drugs ate away at her mind and left a shell of the woman she'd been.
I can't dwell on any of that. I can only visualize the smile, the infectious giggle, the warm, sympathetic eyes and the quiet voice that reflected my feelings as we sat for hours in her study. I can only feel the love she gave me for most of the 31 years I knew her.
That is how I will always remember Doris Perry.
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