Last day is March 31, 2000. Say goodbye to the neighborhood, the patients, the doctors and nurses, the orderlies, the cooks and all the other hospital employees, all 620 of them. And have a nice day, courtesy of the impersonal world of mismanaged health care. Bethesda's closing leaves me feeling old and young, angry and sad, all at the same time. I'm feeling old because hospitals are supposed to last forever.
Hospitals are big and imposing.
They're thought to be permanent and the people inside do work of permanence, mending bodies, healing lives. So, when the place where you came into this world goes out, when you're about to outlast a hospital, the bones are bound to suffer twinges of ancientness. At the same time, I feel young. Like a newborn. The end for Bethesda recalls oft-told family tales surrounding my first slap on the rear end.