A Smiling Doctor and The Kind Ward Lady — Letter 84

Brooding Brook
3 min readMay 7, 2024

Dear Rose,

Right after waking up from a nap, I typed in my journal,
“at home, had a nap and now being irritated by Nakshatra”, who is my niece.

From the distance she was at, I didn’t even think she could see.But I was wrong.

“How dare you”, she exploded.

And not so long after that, I was in an emergency ward, with my mother who was in pain because of inflammation of a fracture from years ago.

Right behind us was the window, on one side of which were the swaying lean branches and on the other are the memories of being at the exact place, attending to someone who is no longer with us.

“Isn’t this where your father was there too?”, she asked, as she let go of the tears she was holding back.

It wasn’t just the unhealed wound that had resurfaced. Some memories of the not-so-distant past had come back too.

A few minutes passed when the wheelchair assistant who was as old as my mother, walked to our bed, again.

“Do not eat brinjal, aunty”, she said.

“Why does she keep calling me an aunty?”, was what my mother would have said.

But we stared at each other as we suppressed our giggles.

“You can meet the doctor upstairs after making the appointment”, the emergency physician told me. Looking at what was prepared for her, my mother protested, “I don’t need any wheelchair”.

Even before I responded, the other lady pitched in saying, “You will not be allowed by me to walk until there, aunty”. And I started to like her.

“Which doctor do you want to make the appointment for?”, asked the receptionist on the second floor. Almost punching myself as I ran down the steps to the ER again, I wondered, “Why don’t I remember the names?”,

Why?

Moments later, waiting outside the doctor’s chamber, ,y mother asked me for the fourth time, “Can I get off the wheelchair”? And it took some serious stare to stop her from trying again.

After a quick examination of the ankle, the doctor, a tall man probably in his late 40s, dictated the diagnosis to his assistant doctor.

And he had done so in some style, with his feet flapping like the wings of a bird and his tone almost happy.

Meanwhile, in came another patient. An elderly man who sat beside me and informed the doctor about his wife.

“So you are not the patient?”, asked the doctor and the man nodded.

“Then why are you sitting? Give the chair to your wife”, the doctor almost punched him, verbally.

The lady then handed over a report to the doctor. “Just the annual check up”, she said, cheerfully. The doctor then scrolled through each page, inquiring about the usual ailments and sickness until the moving pen came to a stop and his eyes stared up,

“Do you have blood sugar?”, he asked.

“No, no”, answered the lady confidently.

“Now you have”, he announced.

And after a pause,

“It’s very high”, he added with a genuine smile.

Now that had to be one of the most mistimed smiles I had ever witnessed. And I felt sorry for the lady whose face quickly turned from being cheerful to anxious.

“What if the medications don’t work?”, I asked before leaving his chamber.

“Admission and a surgical procedure”, he answered. Just when I thought there was no mistimed smile, it came shining on his face, like a twinkling star.

I would see him several times in the following days. How were the other interactions, you ask? I will write about them in another letter, Rose.

Later in the day, as we waited for a scan, I saw the same wheelchair assistant as she talked to a few other patients, asking about their condition and wishing them good. And I started to like her more.

And also more letters en route, dear Rose, and I await yours.

Your Friend,
Brooding Brook

To
Rose,
New Jersey,
1954,
From the book 4 3 2 1 by Paul Auster

--

--