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5/08/00, 3:40 Denver Time
Goodbye Melvin,
Everyone in Memphis will miss you.
Today my friend Melvin left Tennessee to live in Denver Colorado.
At the airport as we started our goodbyes, Melvin asked me to cut the red hospital bracelet from his wrist. Normally I carry a Leatherman to do odd jobs like that, but I had taken it off to avoid problems at the security check. The Northwest flight agent pulled out a pocketknife and cut it off.
Melvin gave me the identification band.
After eleven years of Nursing Home life, Melvin had freed himself of the little plastic tags that demote people to numbers, diagnoses, and charts. The price Melvin pays for a dignity is to move away from his family and his friends.
In Colorado Melvin will manage community supports to live in his own home and make the routine day-to-day decisions himself. For a man that has spent eleven years in a nursing home, Colorado is freedom.
Tennessee is oppression.
I wish Melvin the best of luck. I know he will do well where ever he goes. I will remain here in Tennessee, ashamed to live in this state.
-Tim Wheat
The Memphis Center for Independent Living
1633 Madison Avenue,
Memphis, TN 38104
(901) 726-6404 v/tty (901) 726-6521 fax
mcil@mcil.org
MCIL is a United Way of the Mid-South member Agency
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