Today We Are Two

On the Ark with my father

I’m sitting in a lounge area on the second floor of the Yawkey Building, part of the sprawling Mass General Hospital campus. Next to me, my dad reads the New York Review of Books, his pen poised against his lips prepared to underline something particularly insightful or noteworthy. Every now and then, he bursts out laughing and reads me a passage.

We left home early this morning to come here for his scheduled follow-up with the surgeon who repaired his hernia a few weeks ago. Turns out they need to check some things and the earliest they could get him in is 6:15pm. Adjusting to our new reality that we would be spending the whole day waiting, and seeing as the rain had cleared up, we went for a short stroll.

Charles Street is even froufrier than I remember it being in the late ‘90s when I was a grad student in Boston. We stopped in Beacon Hill Books & Café, which might hands-down be the bougiest bookstore I’ve ever set foot in. I remember seeing photos of it on Instagram before I left Instagram, and thinking it looked very pretty. (It is.) We browsed a little, got coffees and a muffin at J.P. Licks, and sat on a bench watching a steady parade of people, dogs, and clouds.

Now, it’s just after 5:00pm, and we’re here in a circle of two-person couch-like seats. Amidst the passing snatches of conversations in so many languages, I’m pretending that we are at a major airport hub and we arrived ridiculously early for an overnight to someplace fabulous.

Where do you think we’re going, I ask my dad. He chuckles. We’re going inside the body, to fly around and see what it looks like.

My mind flashes to the Magic School Bus series, and I picture my dad and me in a little Cessna, hugging the curves of his internal organs. (I have to add that writing this sentence resulted in a quick Google search to see what counts as an “external” organ, since the only one I could think of was skin. Imagine my shock to learn that external organs also include the head, eyes, ears, and nose, hair and nails, hands, arms, legs, and feet, and external genitalia. I asked my dad if he knew this. He did, but only partially, he said, before adding, “They’re just not as juicy.” Haha.)

One moment I loved today was this morning, when the very nice lady in the pink sweater was doing her very best to get a CT scan scheduled for him sooner than later (we settled for later, which still seemed better than driving back to Western Mass, only to possibly have to return to the baffling snarl of streets that constitutes downtown Boston).

My dad was reading a column by The Ethicist, My Spouse’s Politics Are Bewildering. Do I Have to Warn Our Houseguest? That’s when I told him I had a “Dear Abby” question – and much to his surprise, he got to play Abby. He listened intently as I outlined the background, then the details, of a friendship-related situation that has been niggling me for a while now. Finally, I finished by asking: Is this friendship over?

After a pause just long enough to indicate thoughtfulness, he turned to me and began, “Dear Jena.” I couldn’t help but laugh. But then he went on to write his response to me in the air between us, a response that ultimately reflected his emotional wisdom. The essence of his answer? Let it be.

I remembered part of a dream I had a few nights ago. There was a double rainbow, and each one was fully three-dimensional. It came back to me while I was pouring my coffee early the next morning. I didn’t realize until later in the day that this week’s parasha (Torah portion/reading) is Noach (Genesis 6:9-11:32). You probably know the story already.

I turn to my dad again. This time, I ask him: If I asked you what the connection is between the day we’re having and the Noah story, what is the first thing that comes to mind?

He thinks for a moment.

We’re just drifting along… waiting for land to show up.

This leads me to a short, sweet commentary by Yael Hammerman. She writes:

Like Snoopy, Noah had many dark and stormy nights. While it rained and poured for forty days and nights, Noah’s ark protected his family. Though the water raged and flooded the entire world, Noah’s wife and children remained secure. As a family, they made it through the flood safely and were able to start their lives again in peace.

Two by two. My dad and I, today, are two. We are here on this ark – maybe it’s a hospital waiting area, maybe it’s an international airport lounge – and we don’t know exactly what will happen next. But we are together, and that’s the best part.

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