"To call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on earth."
—Raymond Carver
It seems to be the natural course of psychological inquiry to wonder about existence and self. Who am I? What is my purpose in life? What legacy will I leave to the next generation?
Joan McComas, Ph.D., of Kanata, Ontario, Canada, felt confident that she knew those answers. After all, she persevered over two decades to build an academic identity and profession. Initially, she earned her Bachelor of Science from McGill University in Montreal in 1970. A few years later, she married and moved to New Zealand where she became mother to three children, a daughter, born in 1975, and two sons born in 1977 and 1979. As she raised her children, she attended the University of Auckland where she earned a Masters of Science (1982) and a Ph.D. (1990), both in Psychology.
Immediately afterward, Joan accepted a position at the University of Ottawa as assistant professor. Five years later, after receiving her tenure, she was promoted to the post of director of the Physical Therapy program. Her achievements did not end there. Two years later, she was honored to become associate dean and director of the School of Rehabilitation Sciences.
As such, she was responsible for a teaching staff of 24 university professors and eight support staff. Under her care were more than 500 students in both undergraduate and graduate degree programs. She had supervisory responsibilities over an active rehabilitation research program that later brought her international recognition. She also promoted rehabilitation research and teaching as a member of various provincial and national committees.
On a community level, her contributions were numerous. She volunteered on administrative boards, reviewed grants, programs, and academic papers. She became a published scholar on the subject of rehabilitation and won grants to fund research. For Joan, climbing the academic ladder and enjoying its associated privileges was the result of purposeful planning and determination. “I have always known where I was going. I had goals, and I achieved them.”
Joan gave her unwavering dedication to her profession. “To be a successful academic requires a commitment that is greater than in many other jobs. You think about the next steps in your research, or about that student who is struggling, or about that student who is soaring, or about that administrative dilemma in hours that spill over into family time,” she explained.
Despite the demanding nature of her work, she really thrived on solving the daily challenges she faced. She admittedly never felt thwarted by any problem that was handed to her. She had never been confronted with any “unknown” that threatened to impede her job performance. To the contrary, she approached perplexities with a problem solving mentality and always exhibited confident bearing. She loved her work. Up to this point in her life, she had experienced virtually no extreme challenges that had ever required her to reassess her ideals, her purpose, or the legacy she expected to leave as an academic.
Confronting the Unknown
Then something happened in the year 2000 that changed all of that—she was confronted with the “unknown”—a serious neurological disease that had no known name, and it would turn her world upside down for the next three years. Its progression ultimately forced Joan to resign from her academic profession in 2002.
It was a loss she mourned deeply. Identity, purpose, and legacies were all taken away in one fell swoop. Reflecting on this, she said, “I have always felt [that] it is important to leave a legacy, to somehow leave this world a better place. I have left my career, and up until now, my career has been where I felt that I was leaving my legacy.”
However, Joan’s resignation was unavoidable. Her condition, ironically, was unaffected by any attempted rehabilitation efforts. “It was a struggle to walk...to organize my thoughts. It was an effort to read, to write, to coordinate my most basic movements. [My body] jerked all the time, [and] I could not control it. My mind was [no longer] as sharp. I [became] slower, and I could no longer remember as well.” She could see that her illness had an effect upon her academic associates and others who knew her. “It was hard for them to see me struggling to do things that I once found easy,” she said.
She observed in her colleagues’ faces, expressions of fear and horrid realization—as if to ask, “What if I was in her position? What would I have in my life without my career?” What a somber thought indeed. Imagine a medical crisis occurring at the pinnacle of one’s career and ending everything that had professionally been accomplished through self-sacrifice and hard work. Where is the justice in that?
Joan would not permit herself to dwell long about her loss in those terms. Rather, in characteristic fashion, she sought, first, to problem solve and to identify the mysterious disease that had arrested her body and mind. When did this all begin?
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