TheBanyanTree: Life Stories 213

Fri May 4 08:58:44 PDT 2007

May 4, 200000007

Dear Melancholy Babies,

	I've been writing letters to my lawyer 
all morning.  Such gut grinding stuff.  I don't 
even like to think about all the complications, 
the details, the nastiness of the divorce 
settlement.  It just stirs up my feelings of 
outrage and grief.  These are two emotions that I 
could just as well do without while I'm trying to 
raise my kids and get by.  (Meyshe just came in 
with his bent wrists on his mouth and his hands 
extended in front of him.  Then he wiggled his 
fingers at me.)

	Meyshe will be going to college in the 
fall.  It will be a huge transition for him.  I 
told him that when he's in college, there won't 
be three teachers in a class of 13 students, that 
if he gets upset about something someone said, 
loses it, and walks off campus, no one will come 
running after him to bring him back, that there 
won't be a behaviour chart and a point system for 
acting appropriately; he'll just be expected to 
act appropriately.  The thing I worry about the 
most is whether the other students will accept 
him, even slightly.  He is awfully different. 
He's awfully bright, too and there may be kids 
who want to borrow off of his homework or get 
answers from him, but will otherwise not give him 
the time of day.  Will he perceive the slights? 
Will they hurt his feelings constantly?  Will he 
be an outcast?  Will there be someone who will be 
his friend?

	Feyna will be continuing at City College 
of San Francisco in the fall.  Her friend Alex 
will have moved on to some school in San Diego, 
so he says now.  A month or so ago, he was moving 
to Mexico, had a job all lined up at a bank that 
was going to pay him the equivalent of a hundred 
thousand dollars a year.  I told Feyna to wait, 
that Alex frequently changes his mind.  And of 
course, he did.  The job in Mexico had to be a 
fabrication.  Then the word was that he had been 
accepted at M.I.T. and Reed and was choosing 
between them.  I judged that to be a crock.  Now 
he's going to go to some college in San Diego. 
Whichever way this works out, Alex will not be 
here next school year.  This leaves Feyna by 
herself without her constant social network.  I 
worry about her.  Will she find new friends when 
this one departs?  She needs friends.  Will the 
next friends be more honest and not fight with 
her so much?  The relationship is sick.  She 
needs a healthy alternative.  I don't want her 
modeling her friendships on this one.

	And so many other things I could worry 
about and probably do.  Feyna will have to solve 
these growing up problems herself.  Meyshe still 
needs my guidance.  And who's taking care of me?

                                           ˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆ
                                        ŸŸŸŸŸŸŸŸŸŸŸŸŸŸŸŸŸŸŸŸŸŸŸŸŸŸŸŸŸŸŸŸŸŸŸŸŸŸ

Rattling the Resident

	Dweller and I were already married, and I 
was twenty two.  It was Autumn.  I came down with 
something, something unlike any illness I'd ever 
gotten before: headache, fever, swollen glands on 
one side of my face.  I tried to ignore it, 
thinking this will pass unless I fixate on it. 
So I went about my business being a new wife, 
trying to figure out something constructive to do 
besides house work.  But I couldn't throw myself 
into it because I was too under the weather.  My 
jaw started hurting.  I decided to go to drop-in 
at Kaiser Permanente.  This was always an ordeal. 
A long wait sitting in a stuffy area with two 
dozen other people who are sick and need a 
doctor.  This is a wonderful banquet for an up 
and coming virus.  I sat there on my soft rump, 
wearing my most casual and comfortable clothes: 
loose Mickey Mouse T-shirt and some old broken 
down pants.  I waited with every other 
unfortunate soul.

	A door would open and an official would 
stand in front of the miserable troupe, call out 
a name.  Some sorry crumpled individual would 
struggle up, follow the official down the hallway 
to a room, go in and never be seen or heard from 
again.  There were no visible doctors.  Where 
were they?  I'd brought a book but I didn't feel 
like reading.  I concentrated on being patient. 
I watched the other sufferers shifting in their 
chairs, groaning, whining, coughing, blowing 
their noses.  Every once in a while, a brave 
soul, usually a woman, would get up, go to the 
front of the hall and complain to a person in a 
uniform.  I could hear it from my seat.

	"How long is this going to take?  I've been here for two hours!"

	The answer would be muffled, without apology.  "We're very busy now."

	The kvetcher turned around, shaking her 
head, plodded back to her seat which had, in the 
meantime, been taken by a new arrival.  She threw 
up her hands, found another chair further back. 
This was repeated many times, and it got to be a 
kind of game.  Who will be the next person to go 
up there and shake the administrator by the 
throat?  Who looked bored, desperate enough, 
about at the point to throw in the towel, go home 
to the loving family, carriers all?

	Then there were the interactions between 
the sick parent and the pre-schooler who had to 
come along.  "No sweetheart.  Mommy doesn't feel 
good.  We have to sit."  A wild swipe at her 
purse.  "No sweetheart.  You can't have that. 
Not a toy.  We have to wait."  Child runs down 
the hallway, bumping into knees, handling 
everything.  Mommy gets up, chases after 
sweetheart, drags him back to the chair.  This 
was repeated many times.  The afternoon wore on. 
I felt worse.  I got up, went to the pay phone 
and called Dweller at work.  "I'm at Kaiser. 
It's taking forever.  I don't know when I'll be 
home."  I went back to my seat which was now 
occupied by some one else.  I searched for 
another chair to drop my tuchas into.  The wait 
took a few hours.  Once or twice, I was the 
person who went up to the official whining about 
how long it was taking.  How long would it be?

	"We're very busy now.  There are other 
people who need to see the doctor, too.  You have 
to wait your turn."

	By five, the place had cleared out 
somewhat.  Most people were home snortling 
through their dinner preparations, or self 
medicating.

	Finally, they called me into the little 
room.  A nurse told me that I'd be seeing Dr. 
Rosensweig.  It would just be a few minutes.  It 
was forty minutes.  Rosensweig was a young 
doctor, maybe a resident.  He was very pleasant, 
smiled pinkly at me as I sat there on the 
examination table with the decrepit hospital gown 
draped around me.  Rosensweig felt my neck, 
gingerly, his eyes focussed on his feet.  He 
looked in my mouth, my ears, my eyes, my nose. 
He put his fingers on my throat and said, 
"Swallow."  He checked my reflexes.  He scratched 
his head.  He pondered.  "I'm going to get 
another doctor to consult with me.  I don't 
really know what this is."  He left.  A half hour 
later, a different doctor knocked on the door and 
entered the room.

	"I'm doctor Nussbaum," he introduced himself.

	I said, "I'm Tobie Shapiro, and I've been 
here forever.  Dr. Rosensweig didn't know what 
this is."

	He said, "Look at me.  Lift your head." 
Then he burst out laughing.  I was too ill to be 
offended.  "I'm going to give Rosensweig a lot of 
trouble over this.  He won't hear the end of it." 
He laughed again.  "I could have diagnosed you 
from down the street!  You've got mumps," he 
chuckled.

	"At twenty two?"

	"Sure, at twenty two.  You never had it before, right?"

	"Right."

	"Well, you've got it now."

	I asked if it were so easy to diagnose, 
why Rosensweig missed it.  He told me, "Look. 
You're in medical school.  You're being prepared 
to be a doctor.  Everyone warns you that one day 
you're going to be standing in an examination 
room and a beautiful young woman is going to be 
sitting there naked in front of you.  And you 
have to keep your cool.  They keep telling you 
this.  Then today, it happened to Rosensweig, and 
he lost his mind.  Everything he learned, he 
forgot."

	I had a little trouble thinking of myself 
as a beautiful young naked woman.  But I tried to 
believe Nussbaum.  He told me what to do for the 
mumps, told me to get dressed and go home, get 
some rest.  He shook my hand, went to the door, 
took hold of the doorknob and smiled, "I'm gonna 
torture Rosensweig.  Everyone will hear about 
this."  He left, laughing.

	I kind of felt sorry for Rosensweig.  I 
could see there was a strange comraderie among 
doctors.  I drove myself home, walked in the door 
and told Dweller I had the mumps.

	"That's what I thought."  He looked at me.

	So I was no longer a beautiful young 
woman to my husband.  I was a wife.

                                           ˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆ
                                        ŸŸŸŸŸŸŸŸŸŸŸŸŸŸŸŸŸŸŸŸŸŸŸŸŸŸŸŸŸŸŸŸŸŸŸŸŸŸ

-- 

Tobie Helene Shapiro
Berkeley, California   USA

tobie at shpilchas.net