The Calendar

Most of the time, when I am working late, I allow telephone calls to go to voicemail.  People who are selling something know that it is a good time to catch someone who normally would not take their calls because the office staff has gone home.  On one particular day, I took my chances and answered the phone and was very glad I did.  It was the mother of a client I had represented many years earlier.  She was calling to tell me how much she had liked the holiday card I had sent.

It is January 2008.  The phone rings.  I pick it up and answer “Law Office”. 

A woman on the other end of the phone says “May I speak to David Pollack, please.

“Speaking”, I reply.

“Oh, Mr. Pollack, how are you?  This is Mrs. N, Stephanie’s mother”.

“Wow, Mrs. N., I’m so glad to hear from you!  How are you and your family”?

We spend a little time catching up – it has been about 10 years since I tried her daughter’s case.  Stephanie had been hospitalized at a Municipal hospital for a respiratory ailment.  She developed acute respiratory distress for which a nurse anesthetist attempted to intubate her in order to place her on a respirator.  The intubation was described as “difficult”.  Not long afterwards, Stephanie was noted to be paralyzed.

Her case was tried, but a settlement was reached while the jury was deliberating.   The case was memorable to me for many reasons, but one in particular involved a calendar.

A bank in the neighborhood had sponsored a contest in Stephanie’s school.  The idea was that the children would draw a picture illustrating “If I save a lot today….”.  The drawings of the winners were published as the picture of the month in the bank’s calendar. 

At the age of nine, Stephanie drew a picture of a bank with a line of customers at a teller's  window.  At the head of the line was a little girl in a wheelchair (a self-portrait by the artist).  Her caption was “If I save a lot today, in the future I could pay for college”. 

I had marked the calendar into evidence during the trial.

One of the first things I wanted to know from Mrs. N was “How is Stephanie doing?”

“She is going to graduate from Stony Brook University in the Spring”.  She was kind enough to add that it had been the settlement money which had made it possible for Stephanie to attend college.

After recovering from the amazement that so much time had passed I remembered the calendar which I had saved.  I insisted on returning it as something I thought Stephanie would appreciate now that she had accomplished her goal of so many years earlier. 

I did however, make a color copy which now hangs framed in my office.