Walking the Wrack Line
Where it Mattered Not
By: Buck Rish, MD

From his medical files, the author relates the poignant story of Mary Beth, a young mother who suffers a catastrophic brain hemorrhage causing disastrous mental consequences. She endures many years of treatment in a mental asylum during which time she is divorced, loses her children to adoption, and becomes a ward of the state. Discharged by a judge to a halfway house in her hometown, Mary Beth re-enters society with mental incompetence, a personality disorder, lack of social behavioral restraints, no moral guidelines, memory loss, abnormal sexual behavior, and a seizure disorder. This is overwhelming as she is victimized by the street people with whom she associates. After a record number of recidivisms in the local jail, the court places Mary Beth on probation and arranges employment for her as a housekeeper for the mayor. With her lascivious sensuality, Mary Beth becomes the mistress of the mayor, but the situation ends in the mayor’s beach cottage in a disaster. Mary Beth then becomes the maid for the mayor’s son, a young marine, who inherits the beach cottage. Seeking peace, she walks the wrack line of the beach and, by serendipity, reunites with her original family. Mary Beth’s life is validated when her children use an inherited trust fund to endow a Neuropsychiatric Rehabilitation and Research Institute which offers support, treatment, and rehabilitation for patients with brain dysfunction such as Mary Beth’s.