POOP MACHINES

This morning, my beloved husband passed his gastroenterology procedure with flying colors. He is good for another ten years, in theory. We live in a small community, and it took all of fourteen minutes to drive from our home and walk through the lobby doors of our hospital this morning. Our hospital is a modern wonder, bright and airy, and a complimentary staff, the perfect combination of perky, and professional. When a geriatric volunteer in a red vest passed us in a hurry, in less than a second I decided she was a much better person than I will ever be.  

When they called Robert’s name we hugged and kissed and the nurse promised she would contact me on my cellphone when he was in recovery.  No more individual hand-held buzzers like last time we were here, and both spry 55.  Am I dating myself? 

I had a long time, close to two hours, sitting in the waiting room. A long time spent observing others showing up with partners, spouses, Uber drivers and sometimes people all alone.  Since the paperwork said you must be escorted by someone, I don’t know if their partner was parking the car downstairs, or if they were downstairs looking for an open cafeteria, but it didn’t stop me from wondering, and my imagination led me to worry, and feeling sad. 

That darn empathy switch flips easier for me in a hospital. 

Time in a lobby made me think about what else, the meaning of life, and the meaning of life was whoever comes out of and goes into the two sets of doors marked SURGERY. That’s where the focus was for everyone. Those big silver doors. Hours and hours of bells sounding, electronic doors opening and closing back shut with that loud hopefully sanitary WHOOSH sucking-shut noise. So many whimsical-patterned surgery hats come through those doors and when the door opens, everyone in the waiting room looks up, and follows that doctor in scrubs. 

Where is the doctor going? an elderly woman said aloud what everybody else was thinking. 

Geese, babies, my husband–we affectionately call them, poop machines. 

But then it got quiet, right around my seventh visit to the restroom and back when I returned to my original seat and I heard it, that word: Israel. 

Culturally, it’s been a long time since I have heard anyone say, “I don’t think she meant it that way,” or “Are you sure she meant it that way?” and I am glad. The unfortunate part of MAGA is that very little of what people say won’t be believed these days. 

Then I hear another word: Nazareth, and then Israel again, and then Nazareth. I held out for as long as I could before glancing toward a couple near me who were staring straight back at me so obviously.  

But one thing was for certain, I was not going to allow myself to be drawn into an argument. Not today, not after all we’d been through in preparation for today, and every tender moment we had reminding each other that everything will turn out okay. The semi-starvation, the two days of liquid diet, the Sodium Sul-Potass drink that made my sweet darling run six, seven times to the toilet. No sir. Not after I had been working so hard, talking myself down from the sudden bouts of abject fear a loved one feels staring at a cell phone that refuses to ring, and a nurse who promised but still had not called me.  

But that’s antisemitism. That’s how it works.  There’s no reforming, no apologies. They caught me at my most vulnerable moment, and if pressed will deny it. Oh yeah? Who else heard it? 

I didn’t move from my seat. When it finally rang, I made sure to keep my cell on speaker phone, real loud, so they could hear that everything was okay. They weren’t going to scare us off this year, or next year.  

#endantisemitism #bringthembackhome