While yesterday's post was obviously humorous, it demonstrates the use of creative license. A "Hearing Curve," in actuality, is the product of an audiogram, a clinical measurement of hearing loss, though it easily became something else in the service of a story. Its use illustrates how we can apply a term in a number of ways, some more accurate than others.
Take "myth," for example. The way I used it and recently, its most common use, suggests a fairy tale at best and an outright falsehood at worst. As I've said before, however, "myth" refers to a fictional story that serves as a vehicle for truth. Notice the difference. Not a "false" story, but a fictional one that may have some connection with history. It's like a film credit attributing the screenplay to "real events" while certain details having been altered to render the story more interesting.
The myth of Jason and the Argonauts and the pursuit of the Golden Fleece depicts the extent to which one will go and the dangers one will face, to lay hands on a treasure. For all we know, Jason may have been an ancient Greek sailor known for acts of bravery and a desire for wealth, but even if he wasn't, we can identify with him. My journey through medical school was definitely one in pursuit of "treasure." I even seem to recall facing the many-headed Hydra in the form of first-term gross anatomy. I'm sure I wasn't alone in that experience.
Myth represents a type of creative license, taken for the purpose of communicating truths that might otherwise elude us. Truths that do not lend themselves well to factual or common sense explanation. The writer of Genesis was confronted by such a difficulty. How to explain why people do terrible things, why evil seems always present, even in the very best of circumstances.
Imagine a quiet, solitary oasis somewhere out on a Middle Eastern desert, a few thousand years ago. The night sky is littered with stars and a family sits round a campfire telling stories before the children are shooed off to bed. One of them asks her father, why do bad things happen? The father gathers his thoughts and says, "Mm, well, once upon a time, before there was anything at all, there was God and everything was peaceful. Then he made humans and gave them the capacity to love and make decisions in the same way he was able. Things were fine until their choices went awry, creating a pattern subsequent generations have followed far too closely. In short, my daughter, evil is present because some of us act evilly and have done so since the dawn of time. We are responsible for much of the evil we see."
Problems arise when we insist the elements of a myth have greater significance than its meaning. The first chapters of Genesis weren't meant to explain the origin of life. They were meant to explain how humans, even when they reside in paradise, will make bad choices. An ideal environment can be the setting for murder as easily as a ghetto. Genesis was intended to set forth the basis for ethical behavior and mutual responsibility.
Science and religion really are talking about two different things. Conflict results when persons of faith mistake the language of myth for fact and persons of science believe them. Darwin wasn't the enemy and our children don't need protection lest "evolution" turn them into amoral beasts. Faith poses no threat to science because faith, from the beginning, has been about relationships. Literalism is the enemy, attacking both science and faith with equal ferocity, utilizing "divide and conquer" as its chief strategy. The laboratory and the pulpit are where this battle should be fought, faith allied with science, determined to overcome ignorance and do so together.
(Creative Commons image by the mad LOLscientist via Flickr)
Well, as of yesterday, surgery is over. I passed my exam, packed my bags, and said adios to the little two story house on the banks of Long Pond in central Maine, that has been home away from home since mid-October. Thursday marked my last shift on the surgical unit and it felt wistful, saying goodbye to people who've become coworkers as much as teachers these past six weeks.
Technically speaking, my instructors have been surgeons: general surgeons, urologists, obstetrician/gynecologists, orthopedists, and neurosurgeons. Quite a range when you consider the size and scope of the hospital. But the nurses and surgical techs were teachers, too, and good ones. And I ought not forget the anesthesiologists and nurse anesthetists. Together, they taught me how to behave as a member of a surgical team.
It has to be difficult, being regular staff and having a newbie walk through your doors eight times a year. Friday, one leaves and Monday, another shows up. Friday's guy has finally figured out how to find the bathroom without having to be shown and Monday's doesn't know what a bathroom is yet. It's not quite that bad, but you get the idea. There's a constant flow of change. Students are a "complete unknown," as Dylan put it, rolling stones gathering as much moss as they can before rolling on.
When I began this rotation, it was with the understanding that a community hospital wasn't exactly the best place to learn about surgery if I wished to become a surgeon. Opportunities for observing and participating were, of necessity, directed toward the ordinary or the mundane. I suppose that's true, but I gained a great deal in spite of the presumed limitations. One of my pastoral mentors reminded me, as I was leaving for seminary, "You can learn something from every preacher, so pay close attention." That advice holds true for rotations and this one was no different.
For instance, I learned how to intubate, i.e. insert a plastic tube into the mouth of an anesthetized patient, past the epiglottis, locate the vocal folds, and slide the tube between them, ensuring an adequate airway during surgery or at other times when a patient needs ventilatory support to breathe. I learned how to place a laryngeal mask airway tube when intubation wasn't necessary. And I learned how to start an IV line. All good tools to stow in my doctor's bag alongside the reflex hammer and stethoscope.
I learned how to take a leap of faith, not once but twice, by incising a patient's belly with a knife sharp enough to cut just by looking too closely at the blade. I also learned the cost of hesitation. Surgical time is billed to the tune of twenty-five bucks a minute. With a mere 60 seconds constituting each minute, one second wasted in unnecessary indecision is accompanied by the sound of 42 cents clinking down the drain. Standing alongside my patient I had 84 cents max to decide whether I had the guts for this kind of work or not. You wouldn't think faith could be thus quantified, would you?
I think my father would have enjoyed talking about this rotation. He knew some experiences have to be lived to understand, but he'd encourage me to try, anyway. Just the effort, sometimes, takes us places we'd never visit otherwise. Incising a half inch long swath into a belly that had held children cut deeply into my own fears. Of what, I'm not sure, but I came out of the surgical suite feeling braver than when I went in. e.e. cumings wrote, "It takes courage to grow up and turn out to be who you really are." While I make no claims to courage, I do think I managed to do some growing up the last few weeks and I have a lot of people to thank for it.
(Photo of Long Pond at sunset copyright 2o11 by the author. Like a Rolling Stone, words and music by Bob Dylan, copyright 1965)
"If Barack Obama had yo' hair colah, the two uh you could be twins."
"Ted, I've got three inches and twenty pounds on him, not to mention the other, rather obvious differences between us. You think my hair color matters that much?" Bob asked, grinning.
"No, I mean you both have or soon will have beautiful wives and two daughters, and that's a fine comparison to make, wouldn't you agree?" asked Ted, dropping his ethnicity for emphasis.
"I would, indeed, though as much as I admire him, I wouldn't trade jobs for love nor money. Difficult as mine is now and then, I'd rather be in hell with a fractured spine than have his. Though I suspect he'd say the same."
"Maybe, maybe not. Sometimes I think he'd like to be a healer, but some of his 'patients' are recalcitrant-prone."
"Mine only have tantrums."
"So do his," Ted said, with a wink and a nod, "especially the ones in Congress."
"You know what a tantrum is, don't you?"
"After four kids, not including yours, and nine grandkids, I'd say I have a fair idea."
"It's what he must feel like having when he wishes he could lay a few of them across his knee and apply the hand of cooperation to the seat of partisanship. And that's why I wouldn't want his job. You can make kids stand in the corner, but senators and congressmen?"
"Besides that," said Jessie, handing each of them mugs of steaming peppermint hot chocolate from a tray Halley was holding, "the only 'White House' I want to live in is the one we're buying. Any political aspirations will have to wait until all our children are grown and I'm tired of having you underfoot." She leaned over and kissed him sweetly. "Don't count on that happening anytime in your lifetime -- or mine, understand?"
"Oh, yes, ma'am, I do," Bob said, solemnly. He turned toward Ted, "I'm practicing saying that, both 'yes, ma'am,' and 'I do.'" Ted roared with laughter.
They were relaxing in the Green Granite Inn's lounge at Cranmore Mountain Resort in North Conway after a day of skiing punctuated by Bob's first snowboarding lesson. He and Jessie had taken turns with Halley and Ted, babysitting and occasionally pulling the girls round the lift area in a miniature sleigh Jessie and Halley purchased on a recent shopping outing. It was the same day Jessie also found a navy blue wool sweater woven with a reindeer across the back for one of Bob's presents. "He loves reindeer," she confided to Halley.
The Holiday was a week away and the Inn had been transformed with wreaths on every door, pine bows, poinsettias, a traditional solitary New England candle in each window and a huge Balsam Fir, wrapped entirely in star-blue lights brushing the ceiling, near an equally huge stone fireplace. After all that had gone on in the past few weeks, the couples decided a day and a night away was certainly what any doctor with a healthy dose of common sense would order. Jen and Chuck, fast becoming an item after meeting two weeks earlier at Bull Feeney's, offered to take care of Sam.
"So, did you decide on the giraffe, Bob?" asked Halley.
"Shh, make sure the twins are still asleep, first."
"They aren't going to understand you, not yet at least," she responded, drawing the blankets back from each of the unconscious pair in their carriers, "Yes, they are, now did you?"
"Come Christmas morning, Sam is definitely going to have a surprise waiting next to the tree, and the girls? Well, I know it will be a few years before they can really appreciate it, but one look and I couldn't resist." He was referring to a five foot tall stuffed giraffe he and Jessie had seen at Tree Top Toys in the Old Port. Far too big for anything but occupying space at the moment, it grabbed his attention when they walked in and he couldn't leave without it.
"They say having children is a chance to re-experience our own childhood, do you believe that, Bob?" asked Ted.
"I don't think it's our own so much as it is seeing the world as an adult through the eyes of our children, but in either case, it's something I've missed, I know that much. And, I'll tell you this, I'm deeply grateful life doesn't hold grudges when we don't get everything right the first time."
Jessie reached up and stroked his hair. "I got an email from my dad this week and he said something I think you'll appreciate. He said relationships like ours do far more than simply give us second chances. They give us the ones we've never had. You could say -- and I'm definitely saying it -- this is our first, at long last, and I'm going to make sure neither of us misses a single minute of it."
"Like Arrowsmith? You don't want to miss a thing?"
"Just like Arrowsmith."
(Photos copyright 2011 by the author)
"Have you forgotten, this is like, you know, the 21st century, for Chrysler's sake?" asked Jessie's roommate, a "broad-beamed and buxom babe," as she called herself, from North Carolina. A true "Southern Belle," she was careful of her language; using "Chrysler" in vain was as close as she ever came to profanity.
"I know the date as well as where we are and who I am," Jessie responded, "and I don't need to reenact the sexual revolution in order to feel like a woman. Bob will ask when he's ready."
"And if he doesn't?"
"If he doesn't, then my name is Josephine, his is Napoleon, and you can forget about this being the 21st century. He'll ask. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but he's going to and when he does, I'll say 'yes.'"
"And in the meantime...?"
"In the meantime, I've got an Foundations of Doctoring practical tomorrow and a date to see The Incredibles Saturday afternoon, so shut up and let me listen to your heart."
That was six years ago. We were only talking about going out. I can imagine what she'd say to me now, Jessie mused on the drive home from Concord, ask him about the conversation with your father. Did he approve or didn't he? It was early evening and Bob was dozing in the passenger seat while she took a turn at the wheel. She liked the Escape's audio system and found an alternative rock station on Sirius playing the instrumental version of Linkin Park's The New Divide. The difference between Jessie and her roommate was, Jessie insisted relational freedom was reciprocal. When he's ready, he'll tell me.
"If I had it to do over, I'd be their drummer."
"I thought you were asleep." She glanced at him briefly.
"I was, and dreaming about playing with Linkin Park. We were in concert at Madison Square Garden and instead of a bass drum, I had a giant stethescope that snaked around the stage with the diaphragm for a drum head."
"Sounds like the 'rhythm of medicine,'" she said, smiling at the image. "What do you think it means?"
"I should ask Chuck next week. I suppose it has something to do with being creative about life or putting things together in new ways." He lowered the seat back and stretched his long frame, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, and changed the subject. "Your father is quite a guy."
"That's what he said about you, just as we were leaving. He really likes you -- so does everyone else."
"I enjoyed them all tremendously," he said, "they're warm and friendly. It was like spending an afternoon with my cousins out West. I especially liked how your father is unafraid to voice his doubts about what he believes -- it came up in our conversation on the porch. I didn't ask, it didn't seem polite, but how did he ever manage to become a deacon? I'd have assumed one would have to toe the party line for that sort of thing and he strikes me as someone who makes up his own rules."
"He does and he doesn't," she said. "He believes in the core principles -- you'll have to ask him what he means by that -- but everything else is up for grabs, as he puts it. He says faith is a living thing and has to be worked out continuously in the sweat and stress of daily life. If we'd pay closer attention, he says, we'd hear the voice of God in each other, but mostly we're too busy looking for burning bushes to notice."
"I like that," Bob said, thoughtfully. "And you're right, he still loves your mother."
"He told you?"
"In so many words. He said whatever she found lovable about him, it's something he tries to live up to, even now. It was the way he said it, almost reverently. I think 'true love' for him has religious significance. He used the term 'sacramental,' and while I didn't entirely follow him, I have an idea he means it's transcendent, rather like we were talking the other night. He said it changed him and I know it's changing me."
She looked over at him in the darkness of the November new moon and thought, If I live to be 100, Bob Z., I'll never cease to be surprised by you. When she turned back toward the road, he slipped his arm around her shoulders and gently kneaded the muscles at the base of her neck. She sighed and said, "Me, too."
(Creative Commons image by tortipede via Flickr)
The Livingstone House, as the parishioners of Grace Episcopal Church fondly referred to it, wasn't exactly in Concord, though its mailing address claimed otherwise. About a mile outside the town limits, Bob swung his Escape onto a country lane lined on both sides with white flat-board fences declaring the acreage within to be horse pasture. At alternating intervals, first right then left, between the fence posts, were rows of not quite leafless maple, chestnut, and birch trees, creating a scene that would have made Norman Rockwell envious.
It was the first weekend in November and the previous month's Halloween was one he and Jessie would retell until their children knew it by heart. The two of them, along with Halley and Ted, dressed up like Harry Potter characters -- Bob as Ron, Jessie as Hermione, Halley was Delores Umbridge, and Ted made a very passable Rubeus Hagrid. They took the twins, each wearing a miniature peaked black witch's hat, trick or treating, and passed out candy to the children they met. Halley enshrouded the baby carriage built for two with black satin, like a hearse, and they took turns at the helm. If it takes a village to raise a child, as Hillary Clinton said, the twins were well on their way.
The lane curved deeply into a stream-fed, thickly wooded glen, and they drove through a small but classic New England covered bridge. Another bend to the right, a quick one to the left, and if they weren't careful, they'd have overshot the driveway marked by orange reflectors and a large, white wooden mailbox decorated with painted yellow daisies and the name "Livingstone" on the side in dark blue script. The reflectors were the small, round variety perched on twisted metal stems extending from ground level, informing nighttime drivers of the existence of an entry onto the lane. There were no street lamps this far into the country.
Bob parked next to a dual-axle Chevy truck with the words, "Southern New Hampshire Large Animal Clinic" lettered on the door with a phone number. "My brother's," said Jessie, as she held her door open for Sam. He bounded out and ran to join a game of frisbee between father, daughter, daughter-in-law, son, and two grandchildren. "Johnny -- we call him that to distinguish him and my dad -- Johnny married Julie, his high school sweetheart," she explained, "and the kids came along while they were in college. They're eight and ten. Julie's the clinic office manager, bookkeeper, and sometime vet tech." Recalling his difficulty remembering names, she winked and said. "Don't worry, we're easy to remember -- think 'J' and you'll feel like you're back in medical school."
Moments later, they were surrounded by her family and a flurry of hugs and handshakes ensued, welcoming Bob as though he was a long, lost cousin. "Thank God Jessie had the good sense to find someone who's name begins with something besides a J," her father said. "We need some variety in this family!"
"Well, I could go by my middle," Bob said, smiling, "James." They laughed at the synchronicity while John herded the group into the house and stood, holding the front door. Bob was about to enter last when John laid a hand on his shoulder and said, "I hope we'll have time for a chat later on, just you and me."
"Yes, sir, I'd like that very much."
"Sir. Did you hear that Jessie?" he shouted, "Bob called me 'sir.' Looks like I'm finally going to get the respect around here I so richly deserve!" He adopted a regal stance, hands on his hips, and gazing about as if surveying his kingdom. The household erupted into laughter as he turned to Bob and said, "I appreciate the compliment, but the truth is, too many 'sirs' and I start looking around to see if my father's risen from the grave." He rolled his eyes for emphasis.
Lunch at the Livingstone House was loud and lively, drowning out the Opus 3 Handel Concerti Grossi playing in the background. Jessie leaned over and whispered, "Don't be afraid to reach for something or to interrupt. Even when my mother was alive, formality at dinner meant you used a napkin instead of your sleeve. Which we all did, but you know what I mean."
"Do you come from a large family, Bob?" asked Johnny. "More gravy?"
"No, I'm afraid, I don't -- yes, thanks -- I'm an only child, but my parents and I were close and I had lots of friends growing up, so I wasn't lonely."
"Me too," said Julie, "Would someone pass the salad, please? When Johnny and I married, I suddenly found I had 'sisters' and it's been wonderful."
It continued like that for a couple of hours, Bob's impression being, these people genuinely like each other. After the birthday cake had been cut and eaten and presents opened, the two kids insisted on more frisbee and were joined by everyone except Bob and John, both of whom settled into wicker chairs on the front porch.
"If I had cigars, I'd offer you one, but since I don't and never smoked them anyway, I guess it's a moot point," John said, with a twinkle. "So, you want to marry my oldest daughter."
"You don't waste any time, do you?" asked Bob, at which the eldest of the two chuckled. "Well, I won't either, but pardon me if I use the word 'sir.' This is one time I feel like I ought to, and yes, sir, I do."
"Don't worry about it. It's never easy talking to the 'father of the bride.' I practically wet my trousers when I asked for her mother's hand. You're doing a little better than that, I presume?"
"My hands are sweating, how's that?"
"It's good -- don't laugh, I'm serious," he said, "Well, not entirely, but if a fellow wasn't nervous, I'd think there was something wrong, and I am serious about that. No matter how well we knew each other, if he wasn't scared to death I might withhold my approval, I'd wonder if he really loved my daughter."
"You don't have to be concerned about that, not today at least," Bob said, wiping his hands on his pants. "It isn't that I'm afraid Jessie would refuse to marry me without your blessing, it's because she's so important to me that I want us to have the support of her family and, especially, you."
"I can appreciate that," said John.
"I realize I'm incredibly fortunate. Jessie is the most...I don't know how to say it without sounding like I'm putting her on a pedestal, which I'm not. She's amazing. I've never known anyone who was so natural, unselfconscious, kind and generous with herself, and yet, incredibly daring at the same time. I've often thought, if I could only be more like her --"
"-- I felt the same about her mother. She was reasonable when I was hard-headed, thoughtful when I couldn't care less -- and she was daring, too, probably where Jessie gets it. I thought marrying me was risky, but not her. She saw something in me worth loving and it made me want to live up to whatever that was." He paused and said, quietly, "I still try to do that."
Bob noticed the change and hesitated a respectful few seconds before continuing. "I fell in love with your daughter before I even knew it. I'm sure she's told you why I waited before saying anything." John nodded. "She's always mattered more to me than I did to myself and I don't think I've ever felt quite that way before. I thought I did, I said I did, and I meant it. But with her," he sighed and shook his head, "everything is...different. I'm probably not explaining this well and I'm not sure I can. It's as though the person I used to be has been washed away and she's getting me completely new and untarnished."
John looked down at his lap and was quiet. "You're talking about baptism, whether you realize it or not. Baptism is a sacrament, an outward symbol of an inward grace. Am I losing you? Sorry, let me try again. Your relationship with Jessie is taking you into uncharted territory and you're being changed for the better because of it. What you're describing isn't a metaphor; it's real."
He waited before going on. "If you were coming to me for premarital counseling, I'd say you've found the one you were meant to find." He leaned forward in his chair and said, "Listen, there are women a man can marry and have things work out fine. But when he finds 'the one,' it's much more than that. She makes him feel like his whole life, up to meeting her, has been, for want of a better word, preparation. It's as though he's been getting ready for her, and now the stage is set for his real life, the one for which he was born, to begin. And it's the same with her. How that's going to unfold, depends on them. There are no road maps. We discover it as we go."
It was Bob's turn to be silent and he was for a long minute. "You keep using the term, 'meant.' Do you think it was fate that brought us together?"
"Well, fate, the will of God, the benevolence of the universe, I don't know. Jessie probably told you I have more than my share of doubts about the things I believe. All I know with certainty is what I've experienced, and on that basis, I think it's safe to say some relationships -- like the one I had with her mother -- are so unique, so distinct, it takes more faith than I have to presume they resulted merely from the luck of the draw. Remember your Shakespeare? 'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreampt of in your philosophy.' It helps to keep an open mind."
"I've said that very thing many times in other contexts," Bob said, referencing John's last statement. "And I have doubts as well, but if there is anything to what you believe, and I mean that respectfully, then loving and being loved by Jessie is the proof of it." Shifting his gaze to Jessie, who was about to leap for an awesome catch, he said simply, "She's the love of my life."
"I know," said John, following his gaze, "and you're hers. That's why you don't have to worry about my approval."
"I don't? Does that mean you...?"
"It does."
(Creative Commons image by Aelle via Flickr)
For years, A Charlie Brown Christmas has, for me, been one of the heralds of the Holiday Season. I've never outgrown it and God forbid I ever do. My favorite scene, I think, is of Snoopy dancing on Schroeder's piano. His unselfconscious abandonment to the moment is something I dearly love.
At the same time, however, I'm also ashamed of Snoopy for joining in when the other children are laughing at Charlie Brown. I want to say, bad dog, no treats for you. But Snoopy's failure shows that no one is perfect and even those we rely on the most can yield to peer pressure. We all hope our courage will hold and we won't deny our friends "three times before the cock crows." It's at times like these when to err is human hits home the hardest.
Watching A Charlie Brown Christmas last night, in this, it's 45th year, something about the story crept up behind and whacked me over the head, something I've quite honestly never seen before, or at least in quite this way. Charlie Brown is depressed, as you know, and goes to Lucy for psychiatric assistance. She listens, so far as Lucy ever listens to anyone, and rather than offering him a diagnosis, she proceeds directly to treatment. "You need involvement," she says. In other words, what's wrong with you isn't important, just get busy and you'll be fine.
But Charlie isn't fine and taking her prescription results in treatment failure. His efforts to direct their Christmas play fall apart because he and the cast are coming from different psychological places, a situation Lucy might have anticipated, had she been able. That she didn't, stems from her presumption that, as an "expert," she knows best and depression, loneliness, or isolation are purely behavioral phenomena. The idea that he might, following Sioux wisdom, have a "bad heart," never occurs to her. Now, I realize I'm asking a lot of Lucy, but it doesn't take much to listen well. Children do it more often than they're given credit for; we just need to pay close enough attention to notice.
Charlie's cry for help, "Does anyone know what Christmas is all about?" tells us, superficially, that he very badly wants to know if there is a reason for all the activity, for sending cards, for giving and receiving gifts, or is it just something controlled by a big eastern syndicate, as Lucy suggests. What he really wants to know is the answer to the existential question asked at some point by everyone, i.e. is there any meaning at all for what I do?
I have to hand it to Charles Schulz for expressing some very profound truths very simply. Linus' response to Charlie's question, telling the Christmas story from Matthew's Gospel, does not, in itself, solve Charlie's problem. The function of religious faith is not to provide easy answers to hard questions. Instead, in the best tradition of pastoral care and theology, what Linus does is infuse Charlie with the impetus to go forth into the night to discover the meaning of Christmas for himself.
In the final scene, as I'm sure you remember, the other children gather round Charlie's little tree, remove the decorations from Snoopy's house, and "create" a fuller expression of a Christmas Tree. Linus says, "Maybe it just needs a little love," and then he wraps its trunk in his most prized possession, his blanket. It's the Gift of the Magi, and his action takes him beyond merely restating the Christmas story to enacting it. If we take the scrawny tree to represent Charlie Brown, the one kid who stands apart from all the rest, who, despite his best efforts, never seems to attain social acceptability, Linus' "diagnosis" takes us to the heart of the story.
Charlie doesn't need involvement. Like his little tree, he needs love, but he doesn't know it yet. Determined to not allow commercialism to ruin his Christmas, he places a decoration on the tree, it falls over with the weight, and he accuses himself of being incapable of doing anything of value. Charlie is still held captive by his feelings of being unacceptable. He needs what we all do, to experience appreciation for his unique perspective and contributions. He needs the affirmation of his community. He needs to hear, "Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown," in order to raise his voice in the chorus of others without shame.
Charlie Brown is us. Not just the disadvantaged or disabled, the elderly or children, but all of us. He is the voice within that says, "see me, feel me, touch me, heal me." John Lennon and, by the way, Dr. Bob Z from Pink Hats, are right. All you need is love.
(Creative Commons image by manymeez via Flickr)
"Valentine is done...here but now they're gone...Romeo and Juliet...are together in eternity..." Halley punched the off button like Ali going after Sonny Liston in the 6th.
"As if you know anything about it," she said, addressing the radio. "Bob, are you even listening to yourself? she asked, visibly exasperated, "You-are-sixty-two-years-old." She enunciated each syllable distinctly as though he was experiencing hearing loss.
"Yes, I -- "
" -- You've never had children," she said, interrupting, "oh, you know the theory all right, but this is far from theoretical. When the girls enter college, you'll be 80, assuming you live that long. Do you need me to spell it out for you?"
"No, I --",,
She interrupted him again. "You're in great shape, I'll admit, but no one lives forever."
They decided to take one car to Biddo -- official student slang for Biddeford -- in order to compare notes for a class they were team-teaching at the medical school on pediatric emergencies. He was beginning to regret using the opportunity to bring up the subject of adopting the twins.
"Is it my turn yet?" He waited a few seconds. Her expression suggested asking twice bordered on the suicidal. "I'll take that as a 'yes.' I can spell fine, thanks, and to tell you the truth, it scares the hell out of me."
He paused, then said, "Here's the thing, Hal, does anyone know how long they've got? Do you? Statistically speaking, yes, it's conceivable they'd have a younger father around longer. But do you remember that 32 year old I pronounced a couple of weeks ago? Passed out at his son's soccer game -- thought it must be the heat. In October? His wife insisted they call 911, he arrested en route to the hospital, and was dead on arrival. Prior to, he's in excellent health, no history, not even an ibuprofen for a headache. Beautiful wife, three kids -- the youngest in diapers -- six figures, the guy's at the top of his game. Cause of death? Undiagnosed cardiomyopathy. What do statistics mean to him now? Not a damn thing, not anymore."
"Maybe that's true, but it still doesn't change anything," she persisted.
"I'm not so sure, and neither should you be, if you don’t mind me saying. What if – wait, give me a chance with this – what if I make better use of my time than I might otherwise? What if, conscious of my age, I put more energy and devotion into loving my kids and ensuring they get the best of everything I am? What if I teach them how to live and care for themselves and one another whether I'm around or not? What if I'm a better husband and father because I'm unwilling to risk not having a second chance? You’ve said it yourself, we all live by faith to some extent."
"My God, you're getting religious. I'd almost given up on you."
"I don't know whether religion has anything to do with it or not. I do know none of us be can be absolutely certain we're going to make it home at the end of the day. The fact that we don't go crazy worrying about it means we anticipate or "believe," we will. That uncertainty doesn't keep Jessie from saying she loves me and I don't think it should interfere with my being a father. The truth is, I'm a good deal more concerned about caring for two infants while maintaining a practice than I am about how many years I'll have past 100.
"However, just for the sake of argument. My father was 97 and never spent a second in a retirement community or assisted living. Not only was he still practicing with a full patient load, the week before he died, he and my mother were planning a fourth or fifth "second honeymoon" in St. Martin. His father was 96 and his uncle, 108."
"Your mother had to be, I don't know, sixty something?" she asked. "I can't imagine losing Ted so young. Does she have any regrets?"
"Mom was exactly my age, I was 35. At his memorial and years later, she said the only regret she might have had would have come from never marrying him in the first place."
She shook her head. "All right, what about you? I'm sorry about this, but didn't you ever feel embarrassed about having a father so much older than all the others?"
"Do you mean, do I wish he was still living? Of course --"
"And that proves my point --"
" -- hold on, let me finish. How could I not wish that? My father was the model for 'engaged.' He taught me to ski, we did Scouts together, he was there at every critical point in my life as well as the ordinary ones. He was my best friend and my father. Was I ever embarrassed about his age? If you'd known him, you wouldn't have to ask. My friends all wished their dads were more like mine and said so. I can only recall one occasion when anyone tried to play the age card. The school smart ass made a crack about my 'grandfather' and my friends were on him before I could speak. I'd love to have more time with him, to introduce him to Jessie, to share him with grandchildren. But I don't need more time and that's what makes the difference. I had him and that was always more than enough for me."
Halley said nothing, which he took as an excuse to continue. "I don't want his legacy to die with me. Is it selfish to want children at my age? Depends on who you ask, I suppose. Is it selfish to want to give as I've been given? Seems to me that runs counter to the definition of the word. I think it would be selfish to keep my father, my mother, all they've done, all the love I received, to myself. I may be wrong, but that's how I see it, it's how I have to see it, if life is going to make any sense at all." He pulled into a parking space a short distance from Alfond, turned off the car, and started to get out.
Halley turned toward him in her seat. "Wait," she said. "Bob, you are without doubt, the most stubborn S.O.B. I've ever known and you know I don't swear. Right or wrong is not for me to judge. I wouldn't contemplate what you are, in a million years, but I'm a grandmother and thankfully, I don't have to. But I'm going to say this: you -- and Jessie, if she wants in on this -- don't have to worry about childcare."
His face became a question mark. "Ted's been after me to retire forever." she said, "I'll need something to keep me busy, won't I?"
(Creative Commons image via Wikipedia. Don't Fear the Reaper words and music by Donald Roeser -- Blue Oyster Cult -- copyright 1976)
I have to admit, the story of Pink Hats and a Mack Truck has taken me by surprise. At first, I had a basic idea where it was going and assumed it would get there with the occasional entry. Then I realized I genuinely cared about the characters and their tale took on new interest. What I thought was going to be a short story has become much more; it's almost an online novel, with each post serving as a separate chapter.
One of the themes I hoped would develop asks the question, how far will a person go to get what they want? Drs. Bob and Jessie have given us an indication. We know they've been acquainted for a little over five years, but circumstances did not permit the expression of anything beyond friendship. Nevertheless, we can see they began caring deeply for one another almost from the moment they met, and these feelings have endured. Her biological clock is ticking, yet she has been willing to wait for "the right one"; he resisted taking things to the next level because the freedom to establish herself as a physician in her own right was more important to him than his own desires. Clearly, they are willing to go to considerable lengths for each other and for a chance to be together. I'm genuinely impressed with their depth of character, courage and determination.
Another intriguing theme that has surfaced concerns limitations. Bob is 62, divorced, and has no children. He's always wanted them but the cards he's been dealt didn't play out as he'd hoped. Now he's presented with a pair of orphaned newborn twin girls and it appears he cares for them a great deal, so much so that he's intimated he'd like to become their father. While age is not a limitation for adoption in the State of Maine, there are questions about his age that he's got to confront and I'm sure you can think of a few of them.
The issue of his mortality absolutely must surface; neither he nor we can avoid it. Halley will be his sounding board as well as devil's advocate in this discussion. Jessie has already let him know, in no uncertain terms, that she's not afraid of what may be coming. But the answers he needs are ones he'll have to provide for himself and I can assure you, he's been doing a lot of thinking lately.
You see, there are limitations and then there are limitations. Some limitations are real in the sense they result from being human or they're created by the world we inhabit. Others, we create for ourselves, i.e. they are psychological, though this should not be taken to mean they are imaginary. Instead, the ways we think of ourselves as persons and our unique perceptions of reality influence our capabilities. Bob and Jessie, just like us, will have to confront both kinds of limitations in order to find out what they're made of and what they're capable of accomplishing. How well they do this will largely determine their future.
One more question awaits Bob and Jessie's deliberation and it relates to the rightness, if you will, or the justice in pursuing something that one believes to be essential to their well-being. Is it right, is it fair, or is it selfish and unfeeling for Bob to undertake loving a woman who is substantially younger than him and to contemplate adopting children in the same breath?
And what about Jessie? Has she been foolish, loving this man as long as she has and turning down what we assume have been other offers? The answers to these questions are not merely matters of opinion, at least not for Bob and Jessie. Okay, I admit this is partly because I'm writing their story and I want them to think through the issues. You got me there. But the real reason stems from who they are. Neither one is the kind of person who takes life for granted. They are intentional, they know what they want and who they want, and in order to have them both, they must look destiny in the face and say, in essence, hit me with your best shot.
There's no question Pink Hats and a Mack Truck is a "feel good" story. But it's also an opportunity to see how two people grapple with issues that you and I aren't strangers to. Hopefully, reading about them, we'll all gain some wisdom or perspective or whatever it is that we need to make life better for ourselves and those we love. From what we know so far, I think Jessie and Bob would like that, very much.
(Creative Commons image of sunrise over Portland, ME from Maine Medical Center by jennratonmort via Flickr)
"There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle." Ok, maybe a person could live their lives as though some things are miracles and some are not, I'll grant that. But I didn't make up the original quote; it's one of those Einstein-isms that find their way into conversation from time to time.
Einstein was different, that's for sure. I plowed, quite literally, through his Special Relativity once, substituting numbers for his symbols in an effort to try to make sense of something that otherwise may as well have been hieroglyphics. Actually, hieroglyphics might have been easier. I don't recall much, if anything, of what he wrote but I do recall feeling that I was reading something more related to poetry than science.
Someone asked me once, "How can you be a person of faith in the face of all that science can explain?" I responded by saying, it's a misunderstanding to think faith is about explanations. The more science explains the greater my sense of wonder becomes. I love the sensation I get when looking through a microscope: I feel as though I'm standing on the brink of a great gulf and if I just let go, I'll parachute down into an entirely new world.
Faith isn't about explanations; it's a relationship. And if the explanations of science displace faith, it's because faith was misplaced. In a relationship, the more we know, the closer we may become -- or not, depending on the relationship. But in the case of science, I find it more like the companion of faith than the divorce lawyer.
You've no doubt heard or even asked the question, "Why is there something rather than nothing?" It's a good question and when asked, my scientist friends frequently proceed to outline the cause and effect of chemistry, physics, and biology. For me, it's a matter that there is something rather than nothing that is fascinating. That we even exist, that the universe, expanding exponentially in the spring night sky above my farm, is even there at all, is a cause for wonder.
I love the final scene in the play and film, Inherit the Wind, in which the agnostic attorney for the defense, Henry Drummond, holds a Bible and a copy of Darwin's The Origin of Species in each hand as though weighing them, one against the other. Finally, he jams them together as if to join them even more forcibly by his effort, puts them into his briefcase, walks out of the courtroom -- the place of contention and debate -- and back into life.
Integrity in science and faith does not seem to me to lie in the effort to render them mutually exclusive, but in the willingness to hold them in tension. I'm thinking just now of a professor of biology under whom I studied while doing my premedical coursework. He confided once that his fellow faculty members regarded him as something of an oddity because he was a serious scientist who was open about his faith. When I asked how he integrated the two he said, "Science can only take me so far, but my faith is like an envelope: the more science puts in, the greater the envelope expands and there is no end in sight." I can't say it any better than that.
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When I was a graduate student at Southern Methodist University I had the opportunity to study under Schubert M. Ogden. Although not exactly a household name, Ogden nevertheless was a brilliant and creative thinker who has since taken a very active retirement. In any case, I bring him up this morning because there's fog in the hayfield. When I woke up, it was only a tiny sliver along the treeline but in the past hour it's grown to the point that I almost feel like I'm living in a cloud bank.
Now what has fog got to do with Ogden? Well, it's like this. He once said that every human being lives on the premise of a basic faith that life is worth living. This is not religious faith as such, but simply the confidence that getting up in the morning is a worthwhile endeavor. He went on to suggest that this is, indeed, a faith decision because there really is no scientific or empirical evidence that living is preferable to the alternative.
This is very interesting. The newest buzzword in medicine is "evidence-based" and it refers to the idea that decisions should be based on the results of careful testing and the analysis of data. How could anyone determine that life was worth living based on empirical testing? Could we design a placebo-controlled double-blind clinical trial, such as is used in drug testing, to validate the premise? Forgive me if I sound ridiculous, but what would constitute a placebo? In drug testing, benign substances like a sugar pill are used as a comparison against the real medication. In a double-blind study neither the patient nor the tester knows who's gotten the medication and who's gotten the placebo. How can you fool someone into thinking life is worth living?
When it comes down to it, whether one likes the word "faith" or not, we go about our lives on the unspoken and, perhaps, unconscious notion that living is more meaningful than not. And that's one of the things that keeps us going. I can't see the hayfield for the fog bank, but that doesn't mean the hayfield is no longer there. It just means I can't trust my senses for valid evidence of its existence. If I want to walk out into the hayfield, I have to walk through the fog trusting my feet will find the ground.
Some would say I've simply made an assumption based on previous experience and faith has nothing to do with it. In point of fact, faith has everything to do with it. Faith has gotten a bad rap over the years and some would suggest it is both irrational and the activity of the uninformed. It is neither. Faith gathers and evaluates information and then acts on the basis of what is most persuasive. That is a rational process. We may not think about whether getting up in the morning is a good idea or not, but the fact that we do it means that at some point we decided it was better than the alternative. And that is a rational process, too.
Stepping out into the foggy hayfields of life may not always seem logical but that doesn't mean it's irrational. It just means a person has evaluated the information using criteria that is personally significant and decided on that basis. We may not always understand what drives a person and what motivates one might not motivate another. But however we live, sometime, somewhere, and in some way, we've decided that living is a pretty good idea. And that alone, is an act of faith.
(Creative Commons image by David Yu via Flickr)
