All the Little Miracles

Some days at NIH were more difficult than others. The day Joe died was one of the hard ones. Probably Joe was not his real name because he was from somewhere in the Middle East, but everyone on the floor called him Joe, so we did too. Joe had come to the U.S. to get an education at American University. He got leukemia instead. After a few years of remission, his cancer had returned with a vengeance, and he had come back to the pediatric oncology floor for treatment.

At nineteen, Joe was old for the unit, but he had begun his treatment there, so there he stayed. He always had a joke or a kind word for the kids, and he often played cards or watched TV with Scotty. It was another of the unlikely alliances forged by people with nothing in common but the cancer cells exploding in their bodies. It had been a really bad week for Joe, and rumor was that NIH was trying to arrange for his mother to come.

The day Joe died, we were watching The Gong Show on the little TV hanging over the bed in Scotty’s room. When someone closed the door to the hallway, we looked at one another in silence, afraid to say what we were thinking. Door closing was a bad sign on the oncology floor. They closed doors when they wheeled a body to the oversized service elevator at the end of the hall.

My hands moved in quiet rhythm over the rug I was hooking. In-out, in-out, in-out went the latchet hook in mindless repetition. I was making a two-by-four-foot fire engine rug for Danny’s room at home. Materials from the occupational therapy department at NIH were made available to family members as well as patients. This perk had proved a godsend. In the early months, I worked on paint-by-number scenes on black velvet. But that kind of detail work now required more patience and concentration than I possessed. The simple task of securing small pieces of yarn to a heavy canvas was about all my weary brain could manage. The rhythm of the stitching was soothing.

Later the nurse told us Joe had died. Scotty turned off the TV and slumped against his pillow. He turned his head toward the wall, hiding the tears I knew were falling. The design on the canvas in my lap blurred—the red yarn of the fire engine suddenly too bright.

Later, we walked to the visitors’ lounge at the end of the hall and sat side by side on the couch next to the coffee machine. The smell of coffee, too long on the burner, filled the room. I rose to turn it off. Scotty sat poking at a tear in the plastic couch cover, trying to coax the coarse stuffing back inside. Putting some soap in the scorched carafe, I left it in the sink to soak and sat back down. Scotty turned to me, clear-eyed, and said, “Everyone dies here.”

That moment has haunted me many times over the years. At first, with a breaking heart for the profound sadness and pain Scotty felt for his friend Joe and the others who had died since he came to NIH. But later—too many years later—my heart understands it was not just the pain and sadness of losing friends that prompted his remark. What he was trying to say was, “I’m tired, and I know I am dying.”

But I couldn’t hear that then. I didn’t know how. With all the wisdom of a thirty-eight-year-old mother, it seemed my job to prop him up when he was down, to be his cheerleader. We never talked about dying, Scotty and I. To talk about dying was to surrender, to give up. Mothers were supposed to prepare their children for life, not death.

And so, holding his long, slim fingers in mine, stroking the veins on the back of his hand, bruised by months of IV needles, I said,

“Oh no, darling, please don’t think that. NIH has the very best doctors—the very best research facilities. Everyone here is working hard to make you better.”

It was I, not Scotty, who couldn’t talk about his death. That is clear to me now. He knew he was dying, and I robbed him of the chance to speak with me about it. No need to blame me anymore. As the kids say, “It is what it is.” But in my bed late at night, when I feel his spirit near, I whisper, “I’m sorry.”