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The Working Man

Posted on October 25, 2007 by Staff

By Lee Smith

Writer Lee Smith celebrated the life of her son, the late Josh Seay, when she addressed the Caramore Community and friends at their Client Achievement Celebration last year. She spoke of Josh’s debilitating mental illness and early attempts to find stability. The support of his family and professionals and his participation in Caramore’s residential and vocational programs ultimately led to a more satisfied, productive life marked by his pride in being a “working man.”

October is National Disability Employment Awareness Month. The Caramore Community, on Smith Level Rd. in Carrboro, has served the interests of the mentally ill since 1976. — Peter Kramer

Though my beloved son Josh Seay died almost three years ago, I am not here tonight to mourn him, but to celebrate his remarkable life, a life made possible in large part by Caramore. The exact cause of Josh’s death was “acute myocardiopathy,” the collapse of an enlarged heart in his sleep. Josh was 34; for half his life, he had battled a brain disorder which first struck at 17, while he was in Boston at the Berklee College of Music summer program.

That’s when the hospitalizations began — first, a lengthy stay at Holly Hill in Raleigh, followed by several short heart-breaking tries at normalcy, life back home with us, stints at local schools — then off to long-term care at Highland Hospital in Asheville where he lived for four years, sometimes in the hospital itself, sometimes in a special house on the grounds, sometimes in an apartment with participation in their day program. For a while he was better, then not. Then really not. We brought him back to UNC Neurosciences Hospital, where several doctors told us he was so ill that he would never ever live outside a hospital again, and referred him to Dorothea Dix. But then Josh’s luck changed: once he got to Dix, they put him into their test program for the brand new wonder drug Clozapine, which had just been legalized in this country.

And up on that beautiful, windy hill overlooking the city of Raleigh, Josh started getting truly better for the first time. Suddenly he could participate in a real conversation; he could make a joke.

It was literally a miracle.

The doctors said he could go home soon, but to our surprise, Josh didn’t want to. He loved the hospital, where he had made some friends and played jazz every afternoon on the upright piano they had brought into the dayroom for him. When we attempted to take him off the hospital grounds for dinner at a restaurant or maybe a short visit back home to Chapel Hill, he’d often say, “Well, let’s go on back now,” when we were only halfway to our destination.

It was a shock for us to realize that Josh had come to identify himself as a patient, and only as a patient, pure and simple. And he wanted to remain a patient forever. The last thing he wanted to do was to come home.

But the folks at Dorothea Dix were determined to kick him out, and fast. So in desperation we met with the social workers and looked at whatever programs were then available in the community (and we are lucky to have any at all, I might add — so many communities really don’t). We looked at Club Nova, which was just getting started then, and at Caramore, which we had never heard of, and at several day programs.

And then suddenly my father, who was visiting us at the time, weighed in heavily on the subject: “Listen,” he said. “He’s got to be trained for something. A man’s got to have a job.” Of course this would be the advice from my dad, a mountain man who had worked every day of his life since he was 11, who would go on to run his dimestore until the age of 85 when he died in the middle of his going-out-of-business sale. “A man’s got to have a job,” he said.

So we picked Caramore, the only outfit on our list which seemed to offer real vocational rehabilitation training — though at the time, I frankly never thought it would be possible for Josh to ever hold any sort of job again. But to our relief and surprise, Caramore accepted him, and Josh moved into one of their group homes in Chapel Hill, where he started out working with the lawn crew, then the housecleaning business.
At first, it was a complete disaster. Josh kept running away from the job, or “getting lost” somehow between the group home and the job site. Other times he’d just walk off a job and hop a bus down to Franklin Street. Once he hitchhiked back to our house, where he hid in the basement until John and the whole lawn crew came rushing over in hot pursuit, pounding at the door. I didn’t even know Josh was down there! They came in, dragged him out, put him in the truck and took him back to work.

After about a month, some significant changes began to occur.

Maybe it was the early wakeup hour — or the rigorous, physically demanding schedule — but Josh began to seem lots more alert, lots more animated, even lots more coordinated. He began to make friends at the group home, other clients and staff alike — friends who would actually last for the rest of his life. He grew more talkative. Now he was filled with stories about activities, arguments, meals, outings and gossip. I realized how isolating his illness had been, how good it was for Josh to be in this group situation. Some of his stories were hilarious, like the time the housecleaning crew dared one of their members to jump in the baptismal pool at a local church they were cleaning. When the guy said he’d do it for five bucks, they all chipped in, and he ended up doing it for $4.11. Josh always called him the “Four-Dollar Christian” after that.

One time Josh asked me whether or not I believed in Jesus, and I said, “Well, yes — but what do you think? Do you believe in Jesus?” Josh thought for a while, then said, “Well, I don’t know. Every time I’m in the hospital, there are at least three people in there who think they’re Jesus. So sometimes I think, ‘Well, maybe Jesus wasn’t Jesus at all — maybe he was just the first schizophrenic.’”

Josh’s sense of humor was coming back.

Before long, Caramore placed him in a job at Carolina Cleaners. At first he was terrified, especially by working the cash register and the computer, so Caramore got a job coach to go to work with him for a while, until he was comfortable with all his tasks. Things settled down. Josh made friends on the job; he made money. He moved into Caramore’s supervised Carolina Apartments with a roommate. And best of all, he even got a girlfriend! — also in the Caramore program.

It was about this time that Josh and I were walking along the street and ran into an old family friend who had not seen him for many years. She asked Josh where he was in school.

“Oh, I’m not in school,” he said confidently. “I’m a working man now.”

Of course, I thought. The working man. My father’s words rang in my head.

His other friends and roommates similarly identified themselves by their jobs. His best friend said, “I work in the meat department at Weaver Street.” His girlfriend said, “I work at the nursing home.”

Caramore had given them all an identity — something that their illnesses had taken away.

Work is a normalizing experience. It brings skills that we all need in order to be independent — to grow up and away from our own immediate families — another normal experience which illness can rob us of.

Josh also learned to manage his own medication and get to his own doctor appointments. He moved out of supervised housing and into his own apartment.
For the last seven years of his life, Josh worked at Akai Hana Japanese Restaurant in Carrboro. Of course he had a few “tune-ups,” as he called them, at Neurosciences from time to time, but other than that he never missed a day of work. Here is what Bob Huneycutt, manager and Josh’s boss, said at his funeral:

When Akai Hana opened in 1997, Josh was one of the first employees, a great and loyal worker. For the next seven years, I began every day by going to Akai Hana, and Josh would already be there. He was always the first one there every morning.

“Good morning, Josh,” I’d say.

“Good morning, Bob,” he would say. “The rice is cooking; the shrimp are thawing, the tuna has just been delivered. Everything is under control.” Or, “Everything is good to go.” Then later when he was finished with his responsibilities, he would always say, “Goodbye; see you tomorrow.”

Josh also played piano at Akai Hana every Saturday night, unique sets which mixed blues and jazz along with his original music. He assembled a tape of his own compositions, which, with signature humor, he entitled “Five Not So Easy Pieces,” a title which now strikes me as symbolic of his whole life, which was not easy, as he bravely dealt the hand which fate had given him. Yet his life was full and rich and valid and successful and, yes, heroic — as heroic as anybody’s on this earth, a special kind of heroism which some of us here share. I credit this in large part to Caramore, to the fact that here he learned to manage his illness, to live independently, to relate to people again and most of all to work. It was through Caramore that he became a real “working man.”

2 thoughts on “The Working Man”

  1. clyde says:
    October 28, 2007 at 3:00 pm

    I knew Josh. I once was standing near him when a friend of mine approached. I said to my friend, “This is Josh, Lee Smith’s son,” and Josh, with out animosity, but with a wry smile, said, “Among other things.” He had a sense of self, a certain ease, a kind of awareness which many of us never attain.

  2. Therese says:
    November 2, 2007 at 7:42 am

    This was a deeply moving and motivating story. The sad thing is that the care of the mentally ill has taken a downward trend since Josh’s illness developed. The people of North Carolina will have far fewer than the meager resouces offered to the mentally ill when Dorothea Dix Hospital closes. In spite of touting the new Central Regional Hospital, the fact is funding for the building and staff is sorely lacking. Patients will suffer.

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