The Broken and the Whole: Discovering Joy after Heartbreak by Sherman Charles S

Author:Sherman, Charles S. [Sherman, Charles S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scribner
Published: 2014-03-11T00:00:00+00:00

Connection

One night in 1986, not two weeks after Eyal’s first, unsuccessful surgery to debulk the lesion, I was curled up on a couch in the parents’ room adjoining the PICU, enjoying a bit of solitude, when I noticed an awful smell, rancid and sour. I tried to ignore the odor, but it persisted. Looking up, I discovered I was not alone. Tucked away in a corner, on another couch, was a couple in their early thirties. He wore overalls, a red and blue plaid shirt, mud-crusted duck boots, and a John Deere baseball cap. His disheveled hair was thick and black, his face darkened with three or four days of stubble. I assumed the woman next to him was his wife. She was tall and pretty, with light brown hair pulled back in a ponytail and no makeup. Judging from her body shape, she had recently given birth. She appeared drawn and exhausted, eyes closed tight, as she rested her head on her husband’s shoulder.

The man and I locked eyes. Someone needed to speak, so I said hello and told him about Eyal. He told me he had driven in from Boonville, a small town about two hours away in the Adirondack Mountains. “Our baby got real sick the last couple of days. We don’t have a hospital, so our doctor sent us here.” He knocked on the wooden arm of his chair. “They say everything is going to be okay, knock on wood.”

We continued chatting, and no longer just about our kids. “What do you do for work?” I asked.

“Pig farmer.”

“Really? I’ve never met a pig farmer before.”

He smiled. “Oh, yeah. You know, pigs get a bad rap. People think they’re just good to go off to market and they’re dirty. You know what? They are the most intelligent, clean animals around. I bring my pigs every year to the state fair here. Win awards, every single year. Sometimes I get so attached, I don’t even want to sell them.” I now understood the source of the odor. The man smelled as if he had come straight from the pigsty.

“So what do you do for a living?” he asked.

I hesitated, afraid of alienating or intimidating the pig farmer. In my tradition, a pig is bad news. Those who observe the Jewish dietary laws, even imperfectly, see pork as a religious and social taboo. A pig, or hazier, as we call it, is the embodiment of treif, forbidden food. But a hospital is no place for pretense and games. “Well,” I said, “I’m a rabbi.”

He shot me a look of surprise and bewilderment. Just as he was the first pig farmer I had ever met, I seemed to have been the first rabbi to ever cross his path.

At that moment, the farmer’s wife lifted her head, opening her mouth in a small yawn. She whispered something to her husband and excused herself. “She’s nursing,” he explained to me after she left.

A few moments later, a nurse wearing a stethoscope stuck her head in the doorway.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.