The country between us: some notes on Casey Golomski’s god’s waiting room: racial reckoning at life’s end

Abstract

I’d like to begin by sketching the circumstances in which Casey Golomski’s bookfound me, in November 2024. My 78-year-old mother, T_., is a longtime dialysispatient, and earlier that year, in February, a rival private hospital group acquiredthe company that operated the renal dialysis clinic in Cape Town, South Africa,where she received treatment. The company closed the small clinic in Observatoryand most patients, including my mother, were relocated to a larger facility inClaremont—a ten-minute drive away. My mother doesn’t own a car, and one goodthing about the move is that the hospital group provides door-to-door pickups forthose in need of transportation assistance.