Everybody’s eyes were trained on the TV in the upper corner of the hospital waiting room.
Dr. Oz was on.
Somebody talking about nuts
Which ones were good for you, which ones were bad.
We were a rapt audience in the waiting room, each one of us happy for the bland distraction, but also sincerely curious. Something had happened in our lives that had changed us. We’d all crossed a line, moving from our natural selves to the types of people who now hoped if only they ate the right kind of nuts then everything would be okay. A woman leaving the clinic stopped and looked at me. Having noticed the oxygen concentrator on my back she abruptly said, “I HOPE YOU DON’T SMOKE!” I assured her that I didn’t, that I had quit, and as I was saying this the person who had accompanied her said– in a voice meant to convey to us that we should think of this woman as a child–“It would be great if you could quit, too, Beverly! Maybe this man can tell you how to do it?” And we all stopped watching Dr. Oz. We all stepped from our anxieties. No longer thinking of ourselves as people who needed to be helped, we thought of ourselves as people who needed to help. And in this, we were released. The grief that had hung in the room dispersed, and as if by saintly intent, we were left there, still and light for a moment, the tv flickering irrelevantly in the corner.