Climate Change

Originally published: September 3, 2010

The Washington DC area recently hosted a rally featuring conservative talk show host, Glenn Beck and an estimated 87,000 attendees. The event was well covered in the news and blogosphere, so no need to add to that. But I find myself wondering if this event heated up the atmosphere, strengthening a mere squall into conditions favorable for a prolonged and brash anti-liberal downpour. If so, then my family and I definitely experienced a couple of weather-related incidents that week.

The first occurred late Thursday night. During a week of deadline-induced long days, my husband boarded Metro’s Orange Line for home. Standing inside were two young men, dressed in cargo shorts, sandals and casual button-down shirts. As the train idled at Farragut West station and people got on and off, the two began clapping and singing boisterously, “If you hate Obama clap your hands (clap clap)!” They were looking around, assessing the reaction from those around them, exuding a celebratory vibe. A commuter called out as he headed to the doors, “Go back to Utah!” One of the youths quipped that he didn’t live in Utah, to which the man answered as he exited, “Well, you should.” Then one of the young men said loudly to a different man who making his way out, “I guess you didn’t like the Obama thing! Hey, are you married?” As he stepped out of the train, the man answered that yes, he was married. With glee, the youth yelled happily after him, “Well, at least you’re getting screwed by your President!”   

A few days later, my husband was working from home, and as school had not yet started for our kids, we decided a lunch out would be just the thing. So we drove to the Arlington neighborhood of Clarendon, parked on a metered side street, and enjoyed sandwiches at a local joint called Earl’s. When we returned to the car, there was a large truck unloading bikes next to us. We still had 9 minutes on the meter, but there was a white square of paper under the wiper, which couldn’t be a ticket. I thought immediately that someone had hit our car and that the good citizen had responsibly left a note. I glanced at the truck, half expecting the driver to give me an apologetic wave. My husband extracted the stiff paper and read it. It wasn’t a ticket, or a confession with insurance info. It was this:

Typical

Liberal Douche

- taking up 

two spots

- Unreal you

Pinko Tool

Granted, we drive a Toyota Prius, and yes, it has a number of what might be considered liberally-minded bumper stickers: United Nations, Obama (x3), Human Rights Campaign. And yet in spite of these damning sentiments, I was perfectly situated within the dimensions of my allotted parking spot. There was a space in front of me and a car parked behind. And since when do we Liberal Douches typically slop over into two spaces? Are you kidding? We’re so full of guilt and self-loathing at our own carbon footprints that we can barely muster the strength to occupy one such space. He/she (Ok, let’s be honest: he) really got it wrong. 

And an older “he” certainly. Pinko? (Would you like a slice of Cold War 

Pie with that epithet, mister?) The handwriting was lovely– very old school. Lots of Big Capitol Letters. The mark was thick and black – none of your cheap-o chicken-scratch ballpoints. The ink was so juicy it even smeared in places. 

To write this missive, this man had taken the time to dig out paper and pen from his car – wherever he’d managed to park (actually, there were lots of empty spaces). Flipping it over I saw it was written on the back of a parking receipt from Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington. It records that he pulled into the Blue parking level at 6:06 PM on 10-1-09, almost a year ago. So either his car trash is not often cleaned out, or he keeps a stash of scratch paper in his glove compartment, just for writing notes like this. Or maybe this was one of many stubs from Virginia Hospital; maybe the floor of his car is littered with them. I checked the hospital website; Blue level is for surgery, radiology, blood lab and other services. Could he be sick? Despite his note, I couldn’t help but begin to build a backstory, imagining reasons for his rage. Maybe he or his wife underwent surgery back in October and the surgeon didn’t get it all. Maybe it was his wife, and he couldn’t afford to give her the sort of funeral he’d wanted to. Maybe his children don’t come to see him anymore. 

But then, maybe he’s just an angry man who got old but not wise.

So wherever you are, angry old man, my thoughts are with you, and I honestly wish you a speedy recovery from what ails you. And to you, cynical young men, I fervently wish you wisdom and temperance before you find that you, too, are angry old men. It’s true that these two incidents may have had nothing to do with Mr. Beck’s rally on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. But given the glowering storm clouds, at the moment it’s hard to imagine otherwise. 

Please Send Cash

Originally published: June 30, 2010

This was a new one on me in the madcap world of getting hit up for money.

I recently received a plaintive letter, printed on paper as blue as the mood of its content. It was a cry for an immediate infusion of cash from an unexpected source. This new supplicant was not a needy person, a charity or a non-profit. The plea was not even from my political party or its eager relations. 

It was from my doctor.

She and her colleague/suitemate were requesting $25 from each of their patients, to – and I am paraphrasing here - keep their awesomeness going. The letter stated that the decline in Medicare reimbursements, the high cost of malpractice insurance, and the relentless free services they provide (authorizations, pharmacy calls, pesky primary care consultations), are reducing their income by more and more every month. With each passing year they are reimbursed less, making their jobs, one gathers, barely worth the bother of slipping into their white lab coats.

They called this a “suggested annual maintenance fee”, which would, they said, cover some of the many costs for which they are not reimbursed. Our $25 would enable them to continue such things as teaching at the nearby world-class hospital, enhancing their ongoing education to keep their expertise current, and continuing their selfless volunteerism. They were inviting us to share in the cost of our specialty needs because otherwise, they would be forced to nickel and dime us for each “subtlety”. This word interested me because I had never before seen the noun subtlety used so subtly.

Now, I have no intention of disclosing the name of this doctor. I will say she is a specialist in a legitimate field of medicine – not some scatterbrained offshoot having to do with crystals or colonic cleansings. Her specialty is not cosmetic or imaginary in nature, but is a real field of medical study, a ratified and recognizable ology. And, no, it’s not one of the embarrassing ones. I don’t name it because I don’t want her (or him - I might be intentionally misleading you) to read this, recognize my name, and then extract revenge upon me in either a legal or a physical manner. Who knows what might accidentally get written on my chart. Doctors have ways of making you wish you’d kept your mouth shut.

And yet some of my closest relatives are doctors. My brother, for example, has been an internist at a major healthcare organization for 30 years. He currently has 2,200 patients but has had as many as 3,400 at one time. All his patients have his email address. His life - like that of my specialist, apparently - isn’t easy. He is on call every other weekend and often works the night clinic. His raises are modest merit-based bonuses and cost of living for the most part. I wondered if he’d ever asked his patients – most of whom seem to find him awesome enough to remain his patients into their old age - to chip in a maintenance fee. He said no. I thought, does he know what an opportunity he’s missing?

I understand that private practice is different from health systems where doctors are salaried and can concentrate exclusively on patient care. Doctors in these systems have the luxury of leaving the accounting to others. My private practice doctor is at a disadvantage because she must be attentive to the financial side of things if she wants to stay in business. Then again, how private is a practice when its physicians need to make public their money woes, passing the hat ‘round the room to fill the coffers? I find myself torn between sympathy and indignation. 

In the letter, my doctor pointed out that she and her colleague are considered national experts in their field. I worried that if I didn’t pay them the $25, they would somehow lose this status. Then they would lose still more income, making me ultimately responsible for the disintegration of their mission – and the resulting loss of their awesomeness. 

Enclosed with the letter was an envelope, for my convenience. There was no stamp on it. There was, however, a line for patient name, address and phone. Just so they’d know who you were and where you lived. And if you anteed up or not.

Damn right I sent the money. What am I – stupid?

An American Fable

May 4, 2010

There was once a large family who adopted a boy. He looked different from the members of his adoptive family, being as he was taller and thinner than most of them, and having ears that figured prominently on either side of his head. The boy’s skin was chocolaty brown, and he arrived into the family amid the rumor that his father had come from darkest Africa and worshipped a different God. It was even whispered by some that the boy himself practiced this faith, and that was both strange and frightening to the family. But they chose him because he was well spoken, and because he possessed a heartening quality that made them feel less embarrassed about their past and very hopeful about the future. They named him Miracle. 

The day they brought him to live in his new home, which was a large white house built in the middle of a swamp, his adoptive brother stepped forward and said, “We love you so much, Miracle. We know you’ll be better than the last boy we adopted. We regret very much now that we ever chose that stupid child. But we have sent him away to spend the rest of his days on a dry and distant ranch. You are the boy we always dreamed of.” 

Father put his hand on the boy’s head. “We picked you over all the others, Miracle. We chose you over the strident, mannish girl because she scared us with her fierce ways. We chose you over the much older boy because his disjointed mumblings struck us as unwholesome. We chose you over both of them because you are shiny and new and are sure to assuage our worries and solve all our problems.”

Then they walked Miracle up the steps to the front door of his new home.

“Here, let us help you,” they all said together.

Brother put his shoulder to the door and pushed as hard as he could. Uncle came to help him, and they were finally able to open it. Miracle could see that the house was piled floor to ceiling with garbage, old toys, picture books, mounds of dirty clothes, stacks of papers, broken bicycles and overturned furniture. Sludge and sewage were smeared across the walls and all the bulbs were burnt out. It smelled terrible.

The family pushed him firmly into the entry hall and crowded in the doorway. 

Mother said, “It is a little messy, but we know you will soon put it in order, and that we can all sleep here comfortably in our beds tonight.” Miracle saw that rats were scurrying in and around the mountains of trash that lined the hallways and spilled out from other rooms. 

The family stepped back. Sister kissed him and said, “Miracle, we have faith that you are the one, so we leave this in your hands. We’ll be back in an hour.” Hugging him each in turn, the family returned to their cars and went out for lunch.

When they returned they found the front door wide open. Trash bags were piled outside amid debris scattered far and wide. They heard the banging of a hammer and the scraping of a shovel coming from inside. At that moment, a cascade of broken toys tumbled out the door, almost hitting Grandmother and two Second Cousins. 

“But these are all perfectly good!” cried Uncle snatching up a Tonka truck with no wheels and examining a shattered hand mirror. Waving a headless doll in his fist, he said, “There ain’t nothing here a little glue couldn’t fix! What does Miracle think he’s doing?” 

Auntie picked up a bent aluminum tennis racket. “Does he suppose we will give him enough allowance to buy new things? In gratitude to our family for adopting him he should spend his money on gifts for us!”

A jackhammer drowned out all other conversation.

With growing unease, they waited until Miracle’s hour was up. Then they peeked into the entryway.  

All the doors were open, and a fresh breeze had begun to clear the stale air from the house. Miracle was bent over in the middle, sleeves rolled up, dirt and grime on his face and clothes. Smiling, he straightened up, arms thrown wide to his new family. He had cleared a pathway through the worst of the wreckage, and sunlight streamed in, showing the full extent of the chaos and filth still within. The family gasped and, as one, took a step back. 

“This is awful! What have you been doing?” Cousin demanded. “The house is uninhabitable! You have not made any difference at all!” 

“This is unacceptable!” said Sister. “We did not adopt you to have you stand there and do nothing! I can’t believe I kissed you! You promised us everything would be better!”

Said Mother, “We are so disappointed in you that we have decided to tie your hands behind your back as punishment.” 

Said Father, “Yes, perhaps that will teach you not to shirk your responsibilities. This is a terrible betrayal of our faith in you.” 

“Tie his hands! Tie his hands!” the others cried. 

Uncle strode in, using the path that Miracle had made through the mess. With a length of rope from his pocket he tied the boys’ hands together at the wrists. He made the knot very tight indeed, to be sure the boy couldn’t wriggle free. Auntie knocked Miracle off his feet, rolled him onto his back and then kicked him for good measure.  

Miracle stared up at his adoptive family, his eyes filled with confusion. 

“Because we love you,” Mother sighed, “we must provide consequences when you don’t do as we say. We are beginning to think we might have made a mistake in adopting you. If you want us to love you, you’ll find a way to get this chore done.”

Brother bent down low and hissed into Miracle’s ear, “You have made us very tired, Brother. When we return from getting coffee, we expect to see the house in perfect order. Don’t make fools of us.

The family turned and walked away from the boy, who was struggling with all his might to get up from the floor. They slammed the front door and marched down the steps. Second Cousin collected money from everyone and went around the corner to the coffee shop.

After a few minutes of staring at the house, Uncle asked, “What do you think is going on in there?” 

 “I hear thumping,” said Father. “Perhaps he is playing with his toys.”

 “That would be just like him!” cried Auntie. “He always was a selfish, lazy boy.”

Others said, “Perhaps we should have adopted that older boy after all. He was repellant and fickle, but at least he was no Miracle.” 

All nodded. They continued listening to the diminishing sounds from inside the house.

“Well,” sighed Uncle, checking his watch, “Let’s go see if he has finished. I certainly ain’t feeling too optimistic.”

Grumbling, they marched back up the steps.   

In Search of

January 22, 2010

I wonder if I have a stamp on my forehead that says, I.S.O. life advice. Apply within. 

In the last few months, strangers have been offering me lengthy discourses on the how-to and wherefore of a life well lived. They find me – in the grocery store, in line for a movie, on street corners – and their eyes travel to mine, inexorably drawn like a moth to a house on fire. Maybe I send off smoke signals. Maybe it’s just that I notice them.  

Back in my days as a city dweller, I was adept at sidestepping strangers who looked like they had something to say to me. Second nature for hardened urbanites everywhere, I’d stare into the mid-distance and blow past like Amtrak at a signal crossing. I honed my skills in Berkeley, California, where people on the street are full to bursting with cosmic insight they’re itching to share (and I use the word itching in its most literal form here). I’m not over-stating when I say I developed gymnastic avoidance skills.  

These days I live in the ‘burbs where one is less apt to encounter clusters of muttering prophets. That does not mean, however, that unsolicited advice is absent. I am older now, and considerably happier than I was in my urban days, and maybe this acts as a sort of psychic welcome mat, because surprisingly often – over the turnips, in line at a bathroom, while waiting for the walk signal – a stranger will home in on me. I smile, and sometimes speak. I swear that’s all I do. And then they are recounting stories about their diabetes, the wife who is bedridden, the son at war, the old dog on dialysis. I am suddenly, overwhelmingly, privy to the intimate details of their lives. Usually the encounter ends with a litany of warnings and advice, sometimes with just a smile and a shrug. When the person turns to go, it is with an attitude of  - what –satisfaction? Relief? 

I feel that in listening, I have somehow helped. But occasionally I succeed only in enabling habitual monologuers who might best be shut up. Recently, while volunteering at my children’s school during our county’s H1N1 mass-inoculation, a teacher’s aid joined me to watch the kids for allergic reactions. He seemed friendly, and I thought, how nice to have someone to talk to while watching the sleepy high schoolers seated in front of us. Our conversation, however, soon became a one-man dissertation as he began to instruct me on the pitfalls of child-rearing, and how he himself had triumphed. Privately I disagreed with him on just about everything he said, but he was on a one-way roll with his instructive narrative. It would have been like arguing with a self-help audiobook, as with pride he told how he’d turned his son into a perfect specimen of young manhood. When his hour was up he shook my hand without another word and returned to his classroom duties. On my break I checked my forehead in the bathroom mirror, in case it now read, I.S.O. self-affirmation lecture. Line forms here.

That same day, I stopped by a local Safeway with my 14 year-old son Julian for salad makings. This wasn’t my usual Safeway, and I didn’t know the stocky, grey-haired man loading onions into the bin. (Kevin, my regular produce guy, and I are on a first-name basis, our conversations having evolved way beyond the usual, “You want Romain? Hold on – I’ll get you some fresh from the back.”). 

Julian and I marveled aloud at the huge sack of onions the man was hefting. That was all it took. He put down his load and his box-cutter, wiped his hands on his apron, and then proceeded to tell us that he was about to retire after 35 years and how his body had been wrecked by the grueling work, and then confessed that his liver, kidney and bladder woes were due to youthful hard living, rather than to the honest, back-breaking work of labor. Suddenly his whole focus shifted to Julian. “You got to start taking care of yourself now – don’t wait! Cut out the sugar and red meat! I had my share of drinking and all the rest and let me tell you, you can’t get it back. And money! Save your money, kid! There’s nothing so important as that!” He followed with a lengthy outline for a savings plan my son should follow now -  how he himself had been born again– which had saved not only his soul but his life, and about a buddy who’d squirreled away a dollar a day and now owned a million dollar condo in Florida. 

Finally the man reached out and shook Julian’s hand. “So remember what I said. Some day, you’ll think about the Produce Guy and what he told you, and maybe you’ll come back and see me when you do.” Julian dutifully thanked him and we continued on our way. 

I assumed he’d be sniggering by the next aisle, but he wasn’t. As we perused the two-for-one sale on pasta, he said, “That was pretty cool for that man to give me all that advice. Maybe I will start saving my money. I think I just might remember the Produce Guy,” Smiling, he reached for the fettuccini. 

And I thought, it’s people like you, my boy, who keep ‘em coming. Is that a stamp I see on your forehead? But I was proud of him. While rationally I know that he’ll still eat hamburgers and all those sugary cereals he loves so, and that money will continue to flow through his fingers as it has always done ever since he realized what it could buy him, at least he listened, providing a service by lending an ear.

I’d guess that’s all people hope for when they buttonhole a stranger and pour out cautionary tales. They just need to be heard by anyone who will give them the time of day.

Little Big Medicine

Originally published: December 7, 2009

Fingering the lint in the pocket of my jean jacket, elbow tucked in, I bob toward the hospital, headphones creating a parenthetical phrase of my face. The rotisserie joint that bastes this corner with the ghosts of rubbed and roasted chickens isn’t yet open for lunch, though the smoke is billowing. Across Lee Highway I stride, past the new bank with its anachronistic columns (an architectural tic in these parts) casting old-world shadows over new grass and juvenile shrubs dwarfed in dark mulch. 

A couple of blocks along, I pass the house on the hill that has the words JESUS IS LOVE arranged in white stones where the scrubby lawn slopes to almost vertical at the sidewalk. Faux mums and carnations bloom everlastingly among the letters, unevenly faded by months in the hot sun, their cloth petals ragged from genuine rain and wind. I imagine they will look otherworldly when it snows in a couple of months. The house above stares down George Mason Drive, a satellite dish cocked expectantly on its roof, tinkling wind chimes swinging crazily off a downspout. Someone had enough faith to balance on this slope arranging the truckload of stones and sticking those plastic stems deep into the earth. I guess there are less benign things they could claim: JESUS IS WATCHING YOU, maybe. I can live with JESUS IS LOVE. 

I say hello to anyone I pass, their answering nods pantomimed to the music in my ears that drowns out everything but an ambulance wailing toward the ER. The hospital looms ahead, the cars now parked grill to bumper along the curb, filling in the no-pay spaces before the metered parking nearer the building. Being on foot has its advantages. 

Through the automatic door, past people in wheelchairs, up the stairs and into the waiting room my doctor shares with several other orthopedic surgeons. There is the ubiquitous fish tank. Every medical office must be required to keep one. Waiting for my name to be called, I wonder if the fish mix it up to stave off boredom – ok, now you be the one that darts manically in and out of the resin castle. Your motivation? Um, you’re angry at being stuck in this stupid fish tank your whole life. Is that motivation enough for you? Up and down, in and out, over and under - that was great! Now I’ll do the castle thing and you hover around that tube and act shocked every time bubbles come out. 

When it’s my turn, Dr. A is all smiles as usual. He’s one of those rare doctors who makes you feel witty and lovely and valuable. When he touches you it’s light but intimate – not in a creepy way, but in a way that says, you are a person and are hardly loathsome. You are probably not riddled with disease. 

When some doctors touch you, you know they’re doing it because an old professor in medical school required that they do so, even if that patient is repellant, the professor would instruct. These doctors undoubtedly attended a seminar on the issue of doctor/patient touching and probably sat in the back reading their biochem notes. When that kind of doctor touches you, it’s an after thought, as if that old professor is hissing, Touch! Touch now! Oh, for the love of Pete, just put your Goddamn hands on her! And then they do touch you – a pat on your shoulder, perhaps – and then act as if you might bite and most certainly wipe their hands on their white coats afterwards.

But Dr A has an Italian name, so maybe he’s just a good toucher by genetic predetermination. And he’s handsome, but not embarrassingly so, not so that you feel uncomfortable. It’s an unassuming, brotherly kind of cute. He’s the kind of doctor who makes you think, if only all my doctors were like him.

So we chat and he examines the elbow in question for my allotted 3 minutes, but he makes me feel so witty and lovely and valuable that it seems more like 10 minutes. He tells me in the same voice a coach might use to chasten his team before the big game - to take it easy, not to lift anything. He does not, he says, want to redo the surgery. Tendon surgery takes a long time to heal, he reminds me. He touches me again on the arm (and it is, as I say, not at all creepy but nice), and says he’ll see me in a month. 

Then Technician J comes in and smiles as he sets down his tray with suture-removing tools, gauze pads and Steristrips. As he gently tweezes the blue thread out of the puffy flesh of my elbow, I remind him that he took the X-rays of my son’s broken leg a while back. I am sure he’ll have no memory of it. He looks at me and I notice that one eye is looking at me and the other is looking toward the far wall and that it gives him a kind of tragic nobility, like Quasimodo only not remotely monstrous. He looks at the name on the chart, and says, “Oh. Yes. The soccer player, right? That was a very bad break. You don’t see that very often,” His voice is softly accented, and his face serene, despite the unusual directions of his gaze. And I think, if only all my medical technicians were like him.

Downstairs in the physical therapy suite, for the first of many sessions, I am assigned Therapist C. If I spelled out his full name, you would see it’s a name that didn’t allow him many other career choices – it was destined to be something muscular. But he wins my heart because when I walk in, right away he’s there with a heating pad folded in a towel. This he wraps gently around my now bare and vulnerable elbow and tells me to relax and to holler if it becomes too hot, which I tell him it won’t because I love heat. The pad would have to be on fire to be too hot for me. 

We begin so gently that I hardly know he’s doing anything as he holds my hand and massages my arm from elbow to wrist. This is done with a business-like intimacy; he has ownership of my elbow for this space of time. It’s strange to relinquish control of a body part, but also relieving –ok, friend, you drive for a spell while I get some shut-eye. He tells me about his long-distance girlfriend and how complicated that can be but also how they seem to make it work, though of course it’s hard to say because it’s been long distance from the beginning, and you know how that can be. We agree that you can get to know someone pretty well through phone calls. I find myself offering encouragement and advice because he makes me feel worldly and effusive all at once. Sometimes he gets so involved in what he’s telling me about his relationship with his girlfriend that he stops working on my arm. I glance away from his blue eyes down to my elbow, subliminally reminding him, dude, you’ve still got work to do despite this disturbing moodiness she’s exhibiting, and he’ll take the hint and get back to the manipulation of my bruised arm, changing over to stories about his roommate who leaves bread crumbs and tomato seeds all over the kitchen counter when he makes himself a sandwich. 

C then gives me some simple exercises, apologizing for their ease, but reminding me that that’s how we do things post-surgery. I feel pretty stupid doing them – hand up, hand down, hold for five, repeat thirty times. Pronation, supination, hold for five, thirty times. Things like that. On the next table, a woman is on her back, a huge rubber ball between her knees, squeezing it and almost weeping. Across the room is an ancient man in a Las Vegas sweatshirt doing towel slides. C is now up on a table, astride an athletic man, pushing against his hip, the man grunting in pain. And I – up -twothreefourfive, down-twothreefourfive - feel like a malingerer.

I am under the watchful eyes of Assistant T, who makes sure I am taking this seriously. I am. What I cannot do is keep count, and I’ve no idea if I’ve done 20 or 30 reps. T doesn’t judge, however, and when I say I’m done, he brings me another pad in a towel, this time icy cold, which I am not such a fan of, but which feels appropriately therapeutic on my sore elbow. Ten minutes in the freezerwrap, and I am done. I say see-you-next-time and stride out of the hospital, fishing the headphones out of my pocket, past people – mostly old yet some disturbingly young- parked in wheelchairs near the sliding door to the outside, all waiting for someone to transport them somewhere, or at least for someone to push them into the fall sunshine.

    I pick up my playlist where I left off.

                                                                    *************

It’s almost February and I’ve been watching snow through the windows of the therapy room. I’ve also confirmed that indeed the faded flowers of JESUS IS LOVE look obstinately – perhaps insanely - colorful against dirty snow crusted with sand and salt.

Now that I am these many weeks post-surgery, I’m allowed to lift weights, and have moved up to the gnarlyest colored Theraband – black. I rotate hammers, squeeze contraptions and manipulate putty. I throw a heavy ball at a trampoline and do push-ups against the wall. And I have learned a lot more about C’s girlfriend situation. The other therapists are pressuring him to get engaged, a topic that makes his brow furl and his massage technique on my elbow get uncomfortably deep-tissue. 

After my last session I remove my final icepack. As I zip up my sweatshirt, shivering a little, I smile at an elderly woman who grimaces back good-naturedly as she spins her swollen legs on the contraption in front of her. Grinning, she says, “I surely am glad to see the hind end of that year! I seen pain and infection and thought I was at death’s door. Now this smile’s back on my face, and I ain’t never gonna let it go again.” She looks at me from under her bright purple hat. “You got to smile as much as you can. They can’t take that away from you. That happiness is yours alone, and if they do manage to steal it, it just won’t work for them ‘cause it’s yours and you alone get to keep a hold on it.” She raises her big, welcoming arms for a hug, which I give her, suddenly having to resist the urge to cry on her shoulder. Into my ear she says quietly, “You carve out time for yourself every day. If some days you just can’t, you put it in the bank. You’re young, and it accumulates. And girl, keep up that smile!” 

C shakes my hand, gives me a sheet of exercises and a pep talk about not slacking off. As I walk home, heavy coat buttoned up and headphones back over my ears, I realize I’ll never know whether C gets engaged to his moody, long-distance girlfriend. And now that therapy has ended, Jesus will have to go on shining his love onto George Mason Drive with out my observations, because now the love - and the exercises and the smiles– are entirely up to me.