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Stories
The Nightstand
Editor’s Note: This piece was a finalist in the Pulse writing contest, “On Being Different.”
Poverty has many ways of marking a child.
Growing up in the 1950s and early 1960s in a Southern cotton-mill town, I was the fourth of six children of a single mother who did the best that she could; but her job as a hemmer of washcloths in Plant #1 paid little, and six children had many necessities that shut the door on nonessentials.
Growing up in the textile town, I was reminded of my poverty by what I could not have.
My Doctor Joe
Winter 1961
I recall Dr. Ulrich making a house call that night to our residential shoebox on Longview Avenue in Akron, Ohio. My parents were renting the pint-size place. My mother loathed visiting cemeteries and talking about death, so I suspect she felt edgy living across the street from the roomy Sherbondy Hill Cemetery.
That freezing night in 1961, I lay in my parents’ bed, a big bed that swallowed up my little-boy body. I wanted to fall asleep, but I was too restless.
A Duplexity of Maladies
Editor’s Note: This piece was a finalist in the Pulse writing contest, “On Being Different.”
I have a body besieged by two chronic illnesses, namely multiple sclerosis (MS) and bipolar disorder. My health profile has been described as “abnormal,” but I’ve always resisted that term in favor of “atypical,” for my poor health renders me unusual but not inhuman.
Still, the truth is that I am essentially and profoundly sick. My imbalanced body frequently aches, hurts and falls, my labile mind races or crawls. While medications can ameliorate my symptoms, they cannot cure my illnesses.
My body betrayed me when I was on the cusp of adulthood.
No One Left to Save
“Do you want to call time of death?”
I stared up at my resident Hassan, shocked by his question. My stethoscope was still pressed to the elderly patient’s emaciated chest. Her agonal breaths, those last shallow breaths the body takes before death, had ceased. Only silence filled my ears.
Hassan smiled at me. I knew that he was offering this to me as a reward for all my hard work, but still, I was stunned.
Chameleon
Editor’s Note: This piece was awarded an honorable mention in the Pulse writing contest, “On Being Different.”
On my first day of kindergarten, in Little Rock, Arkansas, I discovered that I was different. All of my classmates had experienced their first day of school together in August, but I didn’t turn five until after Labor Day, so my first day of school, in September, came coupled with being the new girl in class.
Also, for the first time in my life, someone asked me a question that would follow me, in various forms, for the rest of my life:
“Are you Black or white?”
The VIP
It was late at night, and as the neurosurgery resident on call, I was alone in the hospital, wishing that I could lie down, or even just slow down, in the midst of a busy shift.
I sat for a moment, awaiting the inevitable next phone call or text. Predictably, my phone rang within minutes. It was the trauma-team resident.
Don’t Ever Let Them Break You
Editor’s Note: This piece was awarded an honorable mention in the Pulse writing contest, “On Being Different.”
I was a woman in medical school before there were more women students than men—back when women were expected to be more masculine than the men if they wanted to succeed as doctors, back when the idea that we could report our medical-school professors for sexual harassment was just a twinkle in the eye of someone braver and less conflict-avoidant than I was.
Cherish the Gift
It was a perfect autumn day in St. Petersburg, Florida. The year was 1999, but I still remember that day’s sparkly blue sky. I was driving down a busy street, peering at the signs to locate my destination. Finally I spotted the nursing home, a two-story concrete structure, grey and uninviting. I took a deep breath, parked and walked to the entrance.
Entering the small lobby, I was overwhelmed by the nauseating smell of stale urine. To reach the front desk, I had to weave through a jumble of wheelchairs, some holding slouched bodies, others supporting patients who called out and reached to touch me as I walked by.
His Mother’s Son
Editor’s Note: This piece was awarded an honorable mention in the Pulse writing contest, “On Being Different.”
On a crisp Saturday morning in October, I drove through the early morning fog to the salon for my regular hair-coloring appointment.
I looked forward to these appointments. The hour spent there was my “me” time, during which I enjoyed lighthearted conversations with my colorist, Tina, about movies or fashion while she did my hair. These chats, which took me to a different world—the world of normal people—were followed by a cup of rejuvenating herbal tea. After a hard week as an oncologist in a busy clinic, it was a welcome relief.
This time was different, however.
