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180 Invisible Care and the Illusion of Independence Lynn May Rivas c h a p t e r 1 4 v Twenty minutes into the interview, Bill coughs. I notice that his voice is beginning to deteriorate. Earlier, he told me that he had a problem “dehydrating when he talks a lot.” We are in his bedroom. On a table next to him is a glass of water with a plastic top and a straw. Since he is unable to use his hands, I offer, “Um, do you want, would you like some water?” Bill raises his voice and calls, “Joe!” Then he explains, “I have an attendant.” “Okay,” I reply. I’m disappointed , because I’m asking questions about his relationship with his attendant, and I was hoping to have privacy during the interview. Bill again calls, “Joe!” Then, addressing me, he says, “I’m okay.” He makes still another cry of “Joe” and again tells me, “I’ll be okay.” Joe does not come. Bill’s voice is loud enough to be heard in the rest of the apartment, but just barely. I think I should volunteer to look for Joe or to call for him with my louder voice. But Bill’s insistence that he’ll be okay, coupled with his earlier refusal of my offer to hold the water glass, leaves me uncertain what to do. I do nothing. We continue the interview for another fifteen minutes until Bill again calls out, “Joe! Joe! Hey, Joe-hey, Joe-hey, Joe, Joe.” Bill’s roommate pokes his head into the room and says, “I think Joe’s outside.” Bill says, “Oh, okay.” Then he continues answering my questions. Thirty seconds later, his roommate reappears and says, “Actually, I don’t think he’s in the house. I don’t know where he’s at.” His roommate leaves and Bill says, “Joe is really wonderful, he probably just cut out for a few minutes.” We continue the interview, but I am uncomfortably aware of the fact that talking without water is causing Bill to dehydrate. Furthermore, his voice is deteriorating and he is getting harder to understand—so much so that when I review the tape for transcription, many of his responses are lost. Nevertheless, I say nothing. Ten more minutes pass before he again calls, “Joe-hey, Joe-Joe, are you around?” By this point, I feel frantic. I can’t imagine why he won’t let me give him water. “Do you want me to go outside and see if I can find him?” I ask in desperation, not sure what I should do. Bill responds, “Would you?” I find Joe sitting in the sun directly outside the apartment. I tell him that Bill wants him, and he explains that he was waiting for me to leave. I wonder what Joe will think when he gets to Bill’s room. Will he think that I am unwilling to hold the glass of water? I want to tell Joe that I offered to give Bill the water, that I appreciate his giving us privacy, and that I am sorry to interrupt his break. I resist the impulse, however, saying nothing. I follow Joe back to Bill’s room, and during the last twenty minutes of our interview he stands next to Bill, offering him a sip of water every few minutes, seamlessly. Individualism and Independence American individualism stresses personal independence and autonomy in all of its aspects. The archetypal account of self-reliance is Henry David Thoreau’s Walden (1904). But although Thoreau appeared to have a completely independent day-to-day existence, he came to Walden with a history and with resources. He neither built his home without a hammer nor learned to fish by himself. The nurturing he received as a child allowed him to achieve the robust physical condition he called upon in his time of isolation. Indeed, when we think of all the objects, beliefs, and interactions that make our lives possible, it is difficult to sustain the notion that anyone is self-made. Nevertheless, the idea of the self-reliant man occupies the center of the American imagination. Its persistence as one of our dominant cultural ideals lends it the power to obscure the actual interdependent state of our lives. We do not grow our own food or sew our own clothes. Most of us don’t even cook our own meals. Yet we share a fantasy of being self-made...

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