Time Fails to Heal the Wounds of Indifference

Ed Silverman choked up a little Thursday when he watched the tape of Carla reproaching the president of the United States.

In her last days, Carla Silverman methodically tied up a lot of loose ends.

The day before she killed herself, she paid the household bills.

From her bed, she found a home for a stray dog--a typical gesture for a woman who once kept 55 cats in her Santa Paula house as she sought families for them.

And she kept writing: Notes for the establishment of a Humane Society cat-rescue program. A pamphlet for older people relocating with pets. A fond piece about her stepfather Vic’s colorful use of language; “my little seaweed,” was his favorite endearment, according to Carla’s “Vic-tionary.”

Terminally ill with cancer at 51, she was wrapping up her life’s business--and that meant, among a hundred other things, sending a message to Bill Clinton.

Propped up on pillows and with an oxygen tube in her nostrils, she spoke in sure, strong tones as Ed, a retired dentist, ran the camera.

“I wrote a letter to you on March 10 of this year and I sent with the letter a sweatshirt, with a picture of Socks, your kitty. And I felt that my letter had a very important message, and the sweatshirt was wonderful, and I haven’t had a response from anybody that the package ever arrived, that you’ve ever seen my letter, or that you’ve ever seen the sweatshirt . . . .”

Then she read the letter that had been so rudely ignored. In it, she laid out a simple battle plan for the politicians and bureaucrats: Forget about juggling HMOs and PPOs, and all the other cumbersome corporate paraphernalia of modern medicine. Instead, amend the Constitution to make health care “an inalienable right.”

“Health care will then stop being something to be begged and pleaded for,” she said. “It will stop being something to become impoverished and humiliated over. I am currently fighting cancer, and even with health insurance--for which I am paying astronomical premiums and a $2,500 deductible--the financial drain is enormous!

“We are prepared to pay our share of more taxes to get our country back in the kind of shape we, and it, deserve . . . .”

Carla’s voice faltered only at the end of the 12-minute tape.

“Thank you very much for your attention. Today is Oct. 5, 1993. It is my “Life Day.” It is the day I have chosen as the last day of my life. My cancer is now terminal and my pain is too great, but my husband will appreciate a response from you.”

That evening, before family and friends, Carla swallowed the pills that ended her life. The district attorney’s office investigated Silverman’s role in his wife’s final act but chose not to file charges, noting that his wife would have died within weeks.

In the years since, much has changed.

Silverman remarried. He now splits his time between Santa Paula and his wife’s home in the Netherlands.

“We have a motor home on both sides of the pond, and we travel all the time,” he says. “It’s a great way to live.”

He also writes. A work in progress on Carla and her ordeal has turned, inevitably, into a broader exploration of life’s meaning.

As for the tape, he never sent it. The White House had ignored two previous letters, after all. And a friend cautioned Silverman that his new notoriety might spell even more trouble for any attempt by Clinton at health reform.

So the tape remained at home, unwatched even by Silverman until just yesterday.

“It’s been seven years to the day,” he explained. “I’ve always had it in mind to do something with this, but I didn’t know what.”

The other night, Silverman turned on the presidential debate. He saw the candidates recite the numbing details of their prescription-drug plans, but heard neither speak of health care with the simplicity, directness, compassion, and urgency of a Carla Silverman on her very last day.

“I thought it was time,” he said.

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Steve Chawkins can be reached at 653-7561 or at steve.chawkins@latimes.com.