Her Name Was Jean

Jean was 40 years old at the time of her death from anorexia nervosa. It would be two years before Karen Carpenter’s death would bring the condition into the public’s awareness.

I was newly married and living on the campus of a New England boarding school when I saw Jean for the first time. It was early September and the leaves were already turning as the nights grew chilly. The days, on the other hand, were quite warm and bright with fall sunlight. Nevertheless, Jean wore a long heavy wool coat, a knit hat with earflaps, and mittens. She walked two poodles. I would learn during the following summer, that she always wore her heavy wool coat, knit hat, and mittens even when it was 90 degrees and humid. She had no body fat at all, and her internal organs were probably already in some sort of state of atrophy.

What I didn’t know that first time I saw her with the family’s poodles, was that she suffered from an eating disorder. I had never heard of such a thing. Over the next several months, I saw Jean walking the campus sidewalks with the dogs so frequently, it seemed that she must spend all her time doing so. I knew where she lived and knew she must spend time at her home, but there she was, endlessly (it seemed), wandering the grounds of the campus.

Jean’s parents both worked for the school and were nearing retirement age. She had never left home. How many miles had she walked in her lifetime?

During an outing with my husband’s department head, Audrey, she said, “Let’s stop at the fish market before we head back to campus. I want to pick up a couple mackerel.” Mackerel is a very dark and oily fish, one I had never acquired a taste for, so I made a face. Audrey explained, “It’s the only thing Jean will eat that’s fresh. She otherwise will only eat things that are near to rotten, which have no nutrition.” I’m pretty sure I made another sort of face. Audrey continued, “Jean has something called an eating disorder. No one really understands much about it except that she lives her entire life based on complicated rules about what she can and cannot put in her mouth. Yes, it’s weird, but I try to do what I can to make sure she eats something nutritional, and she’ll eat mackerel.” Audrey then gave a dramatic shrug.

Audrey drove to Jean’s home with the fish and we both got out of the car and knocked on the door. Jean’s mother answered and brightly accepted the mackerel with enthusiastic gratitude. “You are so kind, Audrey, the last thing she ate was some carrots and green peppers I’d allowed to shrivel up into—” Jean’s mother couldn’t finish the sentence. She looked like she was about to cry. Audrey patted her shoulder and said, “You’re welcome.” And that was my only real encounter with this family.

The news of Jean’s death came a year later. I don’t even know what the final cause was. Karen Carpenter’s, at age 32, was congestive heart failure. My grandfather died from the same thing; he was 88.

This is all I can say about Jean: She had an eating disorder. She walked two poodles. She wore a wool coat, hat, and mittens all year round. She ate rotten vegetables. She liked mackerel. She died at 40. Her name was Jean.

Copyright DJ Anderson, 2020

Author’s Note: Eating disorders are a serious psychological condition that still do not get the attention they deserve. Back in the early 80s, anorexia nervosa and bulimia were the two prominent diagnoses, but the field of study has expanded over the decades to include a number of other permutations. One of the more recently identified strains is called Orthorexia. Look it up. You probably know someone who suffers from it.