After Chanukah - The Art of Medicine

Journal of Family Practice, Dec, 2001 by Yong Lam

Twice she slid down her chair during the initial minutes of our conversation. I adjusted her back and placed a small blanket on her lap. Her eyes were fixed on some point on the floor and saliva dripped from the side of her mouth. I repeated her name several times. Each time she nodded at the familiar sound, but made no attempt to respond. A fly crawled about the edge of her right hand, then flew to the window and glided up and down against the glass. Mrs Greenberg, expressionless and unperturbed, had not moved since I had repositioned her.

But where had she gone? Just a few months before, Mrs Greenberg had been one of the most active residents in the home. On the verge of becoming a nuisance to others, she habitually rounded up the more complacent members of the community for the daily hour of bingo or sing-along.

I still remember our first conversation. Mrs Greenberg fidgeted in her chair and nervously contracted her deformed fingers. Her head shook rhythmically, lightly balanced on her neck. With cautious curiosity, she squinted her eyes and looked me over. She had undergone surgeries to spare her vision, but all the colors were gone by now. My features were never more than a shadow to her. Eventually, she learned to recognize me by my eyeglass frames, and whenever I came to visit, her thin and tremulous fingers would study the contours of my face. First, she would graze my stiff, straight hair. Like the stroke of a paintbrush, she would sweep down the sides of my race, joining her hands at my chin. With an almost fluttering motion, her fingers would rise, reach my nose, and finally arrive at my glasses.

"I will never forget these glasses. You are the only doctor whose glasses I can reach without raising my arms. The right size for a person, I would say."

As she leaned forward for a closer examination, I noticed a balding spot on the crown of her head. She had tried to cover it with a wig, but kept putting it on backwards and finally gave up. She seldom smiled during our conversations.

"Have a candy," she offered.

"No, thanks," I replied.

"What is the matter? Afraid to touch something offered by an old person?" she insisted.

"Nothing of the sort. I am not fond of sweets."

"How about a Coke? It is kosher, you know."

"Thank you. I am fine."

"Oh, don't be too particular. Have a candy. I want you to have something."

It was so early in the interview to be in such a stalemate. I chose one of the sour drops and the conversation moved on.

Childhood was not so far away. Flailing her hands in the air with enthusiasm, as if we were playing charade, every building in Brooklyn was drawn by her fingers in the space between us. She possessed a vivid and meticulous memory of her old neighborhood. On occasion, she would close her eyes, take a deep breath, and tell me she could still smell her mother's goulash, left to cool on the countertop near the potato dumplings. It was a close community, and people were mostly pleasant, with the exception of a few odd characters. And there was her classmate Myrtle Rosenbaum.

"Myrtle was a real pain in the you-know-where. Yes, her father had an in with our rabbi, so she got a hand-signed quote of the Torah, which her father put inside her mezuzah. She made sure everyone in class knew about that. Oh, for heaven's sake, Rabbi Levy ate at their house on Sundays quite often. But what were we to do? We could not afford as plentiful a table. So he ate there. A religious man has to feed his family somehow, and if it means signing a piece of paper for a little girl, so be it. Myrtle routinely announced her father's business success. His jewelry store was doing quite well. Rosenbaum and Sons, I think. Yes, that was the name."

"Why did you not get along with her?" I inquired.

"She was very condescending and flippant toward the new immigrants. My family had just arrived from Poland. Myrtle made fun of our accents and our clothes. She made sure that one felt awkward around her. That was so long ago now. I hope the Almighty, Messed be His name, will take care of her wherever she might be. We probably have rooms that are very similar to each other."

I heard more details of her personal story during subsequent visits. Harold, her only son, had moved to Houston because of the oil business. He had prospered in the early days. She moved from Brooklyn to live near him. The grandchildren would be near by. The climate was warmer and more comfortable for her arthritic bones. New York had become intolerably crowded and violent. Too many blacks in her old neighborhood.

"Those days were wonderful, but then ..." she stops in the middle of the sentence. Her voice turns sullen and melancholy, "The oil business went sour. Harold became anxious and withdrawn. He was unable to cope with the collapse of his company. The day before Chanukah, I forget the year, he went down to Galveston and shot himself. My God! My God! He took his own life. They were lighting candles in the synagogue. The family had planned to buy him some gifts. Instead, I had to rehearse and say the Kaddish."