The following is a true story, although names have been changed.

Dolly Brand was a pain in the rear.

Everyday she would hobble through the lobby of the apartment building where my dental practice was located. Not only would she bug me, but she would bug the superintendent, the landlord, the mailman, all of the janitorial help and anyone else who would have anything to do with her. She wouldn't take steps - she would shuffle. Each step must have been only three inches long. Her face said, "Who am I going to annoy next?" but she was always smiling.

It wasn't like a real annoyance, it was more like a "Just leave me alone" annoyance. She would say something with her little smile on her face and shuffle and I just wanted to say, "Please, leave me alone... I'll do anything.. Just leave me alone."

Dolly just wandered through the lobby in almost complete control of the building. Everyone who saw her got out of her way - except me. Unfortunately I was her dentist. She would come into my office and ask me so many questions, "Should I have this treatment done? Oh, it is too much... No, I can't have it done... Maybe I should... I deserve it... Should I have it done?... No, it is too much... Let me do it... No, I won't do it... Yes I will... Maybe I will..." Dolly was one of the last ethnic Jewish people living in the building.

The building, at one time, had been a very fine residence in New York City, but through the years it had slumped off. It was not the prestigious building it once was and it wasn't cared for at the level that it was at one time. Dolly was one of the last vestiges of the old time clientele. Most of the building's new clientele were black, Puerto Rican, Indian, Haitian, Pakistani and any of the other new groups that were now coming to America.

Dolly was having a ball. She didn't realize the building occupants had changed. She was just shuffling along. I realized, after analyzing Dolly from afar, that when she was picking on someone, she was screaming, "I'm alive... look at me... I can get a rise out of you... I can make you react to me."

When you're dead, you can't make someone react to you - unless you write them out of your will. Whine and you make impact on people. Dolly could get a rise out of anyone. Negative... but so what.

One day, Dolly said to me, "My daughter lives out on Long Island, Dr. Greenberg. Can you give me a ride to her place?"

"Sure Dolly," I said. "I finish up at 1 o'clock so be standing outside my office. When I go home, I'll drive you out East to Long Island."

"My daughter is going to pick me up at the Hicksville Shopping Mall in front of Gertz."

I had nothing to lose. I was going there anyway and I was what they call the last generation of "good Jewish boys" and I always felt that I should take care of the elderly.

Sure enough, for the next 10 Fridays, Dolly would be there, a little cloth bag in hand to do her weekend thing at her daughter's.

We would take an hour ride to Hicksville from Jamaica talking about various subjects and she was truly fun to be with. She had her own ideas, but she was not as annoying when we were driving. We would have nice conversations, I would drop her off at the Gertz shopping center and sure enough her daughter would be there waiting to take her mother for the weekend.

One day Dolly said to me, "Dr. Greenberg, my daughter has been after me to move out to Hicksville."

"Oh," I responded. "Your daughter wants you to live with her?"

"Oh no. My daughter does not want me to live with her. For some reason I don't think that they need me. As much as I think that I am a nice grandma and everything, for some reason I am not getting the signs that they want me to stay there with them."

From our conversations I surmised that even her daughter and grandchildren could not take Dolly for more than a weekend.

"So where does she want you to live, Dolly?"

"She wants me to rent a room in a house in Hicksville."

I looked around as we were driving. There are all two family homes and they were old, dark, dingy, wooden houses.

"Dolly, are you sure you want to move out here?" I asked.

"Well, my daughter thinks I live in a bad neighborhood," she responded.

"Maybe it is not that good of a neighborhood anymore, Dolly, but you seem to be happy there. You have the super to talk to and the mailman and certainly the landlord and me and whoever else you stop in the hall," I said snickering.

"No, my daughter says the neighborhood is bad."

"So, why doesn't your daughter take you into her house?"

"For some reason she never made that offer, but she wants me to get out of Jamaica."

"Your daughter doesn't even come to pick you up Dolly," I said. "I drive you out to your daughter each week so she does not really know the neighborhood. When you spend time there, it is not so bad."

"My daughter says it is a very bad neighborhood and that I should really get out of there."

"Okay Dolly, you know I am not going to give you any advice, but do what you want. I'll be here ready to drive you any Friday you wish."

On one of our regular Friday afternoon trips heading out to Long Island, Dolly said to me, "Dr. Greenberg, I'm moving out to Hicksville in a rooming house."

The next time we went out there she pointed it out to me. It was an old, beat-up building in downtown Hicksville. Some parts of Hicksville are really deserted. It is just nothing - an area where nothing happens. People don't walk, everyone drives. Dolly couldn't drive. I wondered how Dolly could exist there.

Dolly moved. From time to time I would get calls from her at my home address because I did not live too far from her. "Dr. Greenberg, guess who is at the Nassau Coliseum? Lawrence Welk! I never miss his shows. Are you and your family going to see Lawrence Welk?"

"Dolly," I said, "Of all the entertainers I enjoy, Lawrence Welk is not on the top of the list."

"Okay Dr. Greenberg," she said politely.

Dolly continued to call me from time to time.

"Dr. Greenberg, would you like to go to Long Beach or the Roosevelt Field Mall?"

"Dolly, I don't usually go there," I said. We would continue to chat a little and then she would hang up. I never really took her any place because I felt that her daughter should take her to these places, but this was obviously not happening. I could sense Dolly's frustration.

About two or three months passed and I spoke to some people in the building and I inquired about Dolly. "Have you heard from Dolly?" I asked.

"Haven't you heard? Dolly died."

"Dolly died? Oh my goodness!" The news hit me in my gut.

In my own mind, in my own thought, I said that Dolly had probably died of loneliness. Okay, it's not a great medical discovery. Loneliness. How do you die of loneliness? Your heart stops beating from loneliness? But Dolly needed human contact. She needed to annoy someone. She needed those little steps to walk up to the super with that little smile, say something outlandish to him and walk up to the mailman and walk up to me. She didn't have that human contact anymore. Contact that she so desperately craved.

Dolly died, in my opinion, because of her daughter's snobbery. Her daughter could not handle her mother living in a "not so nice neighborhood." She would not take Dolly into her own house, but she could not take telling her friends, "My mother lives in Jamaica."

In spite of what I said about Dolly at the beginning of this story, I realized from our little trips together that Dolly was actually a nice person.

I wish I could say the same about her daughter.

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