When Paul officially retired from his job at Carville in 1986, he scarcely noticed a change of pace in his life. Margaret stayed at her post as head of ophthalmology for one more year. In September 1987, after twenty-one eventful years at Carville, it was time for the Brands to say good-bye to the many staff members and patients who had been their friends for over two decades. It was a time for tears but also a time for looking forward. Paul was now seventy-three years old, but he was not yet ready to just sit around all day.
Chapter 17
A Greater Loss
After leaving Carville, Paul and Margaret set up home in Seattle, Washington. They bought a small house on a hill overlooking Puget Sound. From their living room they could see the green and white Washington State ferries plying the water between Bainbridge Island and Seattle. They chose Seattle because Patricia and Christopher and their families lived nearby and because an international airport was within easy driving distance.
Paul and Margaret were no typical retired couple. One of the first things they did was hire a part-time secretary to help with their travel arrangements and answer the deluge of mail they received. The Brands continued to pour themselves into their leprosy work and Christian speaking engagements. The University of Washington honored Paul for his lifetime of medical achievements by naming him emeritus Professor of Orthopedics.
In May 1993, Paul and Margaret traveled to Montana to celebrate their fiftieth wedding anniversary. All their children were present, along with their twelve grandchildren. During the celebration the family presented Paul and Margaret with a handmade quilt made of photographs taken through the years. In the center was a photo of their wedding, Paul in his morning suit and Margaret in her wedding dress made from rationed fabric. The couple looked confident and trusting. They had no way of predicting that it would be three children and five years later before they would all be able to live in one house together as a family. Other photos on the quilt showed the children climbing trees in India and standing dutifully beside their aunts while on furlough in England. There was a photo of Granny Brand on horseback, her body hunched over but her spirit bright. There was also a photo of the staff and patients at Vellore—so many friends, so many good memories.
When Margaret saw the quilt, she burst into tears, and Paul struggled with his own composure. How wonderful, he thought, to have lived such a full life, surrounded by so much love and so many amazing people.
Indeed, Paul’s long, full life was not yet over. Following the success of his 1980 book Fearfully and Wonderfully Made, Paul collaborated with Philip Yancey on a second book titled In His Image, published in 1984. Two years later Paul published a textbook, Clinical Mechanics of the Hand, which was used widely in medical schools and colleges. In 1993 he published two more books, The Forever Feast, and another collaboration with Philip Yancey titled Pain: The Gift Nobody Wants. The latter was an insightful book that sought to bring a new understanding of pain in human beings. Dr. C. Everett Koop, Surgeon General of the United States during the 1980s, wrote the foreword for the book. In his opening line he paid Paul the greatest of tributes: “Whenever I let my mind wander, and wonder who I would like to have been if I had not been born C. Everett Koop, the person who comes to mind frequently is Paul Brand.”
Paul and Margaret continued traveling and teaching. Each year they visited Vellore to teach and visit with old friends and colleagues. They could no longer visit the facility at Carville, which in 1999 had closed down, though the research division was transferred to Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. People still continued to contract Hansen’s disease in the United States, but now the disease could be treated like any other disease at local clinics and hospitals. The days when leprosy patients had to be segregated from the general populace were over.
In August 2000, Paul and Margaret traveled to Vellore once again. This time it was to celebrate the one-hundred-year anniversary of the Christian Medical College and Hospital. Paul thought about his old friend Dr. Ida Scudder. What a visionary she had been when she arrived one hundred years earlier to establish the institution. How it had grown over time. Paul marveled at his own long association with the place. For fifty-four years his life had been closely intertwined with the hospital and medical college at Vellore. Even after he left India and his work at the institution, he had been back every year except one to teach at the medical college and consult with the doctors and surgeons.
In May 2003, Paul and Margaret celebrated their sixtieth wedding anniversary with a dinner party at the home of Patricia and her husband, Michael. One month later, on Margaret’s eighty-fourth birthday, Paul fell down the stairs at their home in Seattle and banged his head. Margaret drove him to the hospital, where he underwent emergency surgery to relieve a blood clot on his brain. For two weeks following the surgery, Paul lapsed in and out of consciousness. Early on the morning of July 8, 2003, he died peacefully in the hospital, one week short of his eighty-ninth birthday.
A small, intimate graveside funeral service was held for Paul on beautiful Vashon Island in Puget Sound. The family wanted to say good-bye to their husband, father, and grandfather privately. They also understood that Dr. Paul Wilson Brand belonged to the world, and as many family members as possible attended memorial services that were held for Paul in Seattle, London, India, Africa, and South America.
Following his death, many obituaries were written for Paul, but none summed up his life better than The Star, the newspaper Stanley Stein had started at Carville and was still being published from Baton Rouge.
Dr. Brand’s work lives through his dedication and encouragement to others. His skills, talents, spirit and humble humanity has made life worth living for all that knew him through service to his fellow man. A truly remarkable man, gifted and inspired beyond belief. He visualized a better and healthier world for all people and constantly worked toward this goal. . . . No one knows who has suffered a greater loss; those of us who knew him, or those of you who did not.
