Dr. Jedidiah’s Diary
Dr. Jedidiah
is a psychiatrist who loves traveling, meeting new people, and exploring
different cultures. As a single father who lost his wife to drug overdose 10
years ago, he has not been his old perky self for the last decade. During those
hard years, he has met hundreds of, thousands of people from various walks of
life around all over the world. Meeting new people and listening to their
stories outside his office have given him different feelings from the ones
through the formal encounter groups or being truly honest with himself. Here is
Dr. Jedidiah’s monologue that has left him with some food for thoughts in
life….. or a fodder to justify his own mistakes in the past.
Episode # 100. Goodbye, Dr. J
Nurse Martha became choked up as she was putting her
patient’s letter back in the envelope. She said this old man used to rant
about his good old days as a road racer, rattling off all his PR, and
quite oftentimes promised Martha that he would give all the swags he’d
been collecting from major marathon races. One day, he handed a big box to
Martha with this letter and said “Hey, Martha, here’s my collection of goodies.
It’s my golden history of rosy days….and this is how I’d like you to keep this
old man in your memory. Not as a grumpy or boastful old guy, but rather a dude
who once ran all the turfs in the world.” She went on say that running had
never been to her liking, but this old patient who left for Heaven had drawn
an imaginary ‘start line’ in her mind to become jittery and hopeful at
the same time, and finally catalyzed her hidden desire to sign up for a
local 5K, 10K, and even a full marathon.
Yes, the old man who changed Martha, the nurse at my
hospice facility, is my dearest buddy, Jedidiah. Dr. Jedidiah moved into this
place a year ago when he was diagnosed with the final stage of colon cancer. One
of the most cherished items in the box of his belongings was this diary. Before
the day came when he was gradually becoming delirious and submerging in the
long silence of deep sleep, he had asked his son to give me his own diary that had
only one episode shy of hundred stories of his life he had written. As a
physician and a close friend of Dr. Jedidiah’s in his final days, I would like
to insert his letter to Martha right here (with her permission) on the vacant
page that should have been filled with his 100th episode.
“Dear Martha,
Our first encounter here wasn’t quite pleasant. How could
anyone expect his or her first day at hospice home to feel soft and marshmallowy?
I still remember you looking me in the eye saying “Hello!” in a very exhausted
tone of voice with a blank smile. Then I said to myself ‘Geez… I need a huge
family like a flock of mobbing birds defending themselves as a group against
hostile outsiders!’ Welp, but I knew you were not a bad nurse from the
beginning. Because I felt that we’d be eventually getting along with each other
over time, although I had no idea how long I would be staying here. You,
doctors, and all the terminally ill patients including myself here would make a
beautiful family just like alluvial soils created by random floods. We didn’t
know each other and suddenly became a family under the same roof and in the same
life boat.
Martha, I myself have been a doctor who helps with the weak minds
and souls. They might have thought that I wasn’t a normie like them, but I was.
Actually, I wasn’t as good as a healthy normie to give them the right answer or
a solution to their big or small problems in life. However, I tried my best to
feel their adversity to the bone as if it were my own. If I inadvertently hurt
some of my patients through all those years of therapy sessions, I am paying the
price here and now. Martha, when you feel overloaded on a daily basis as a nurse,
you have a right not to smile. You can be moody. You can be blunt. You can stay
silent when bombarded with endless questions from patients’ families. You can answer
only with yes or no.
But I’d like you to know that this very moment you share with
your patients could be the last one. Maybe the happy-go-lucky Joseph will no
longer be humming in the hall way tomorrow. The grumpy old Pete’s room will be
painfully quiet tonight. The funny Ray’s damn good jokes will never crack you
up as of this afternoon. The dancer Daniel might be amusing you just once and for
all today. And ….who knows you might be missing all the fish stories of
mine about my marathon trainings and PRs in any time soon?
Martha, I am not staying in this hospice home to
repristinate my physical health. I am getting ready and prepping myself for
the next phase of my life in peace. I bet you and my friend Dr. Mitch here are
helping me ease into the world beyond. I am not afraid. I am excited to reunite
with my Demi who’s waiting for me elsewhere as I am moving to the Mount
Saint Elsewhere. When the time comes, would you hold my hand and say that
you forgive all my addleheaded, road race bragging?
Come what may, just smile and laugh like there’s no tomorrow.
Love,
Jedidiah”
Expressions
1. to rant
about something: to talk in a noisy, excited, or declamatory
manner
2. to rattle
something off: to say, perform, or produce something quickly
and effortlessly
3. swags:
the
free items given to participants at a conference or event, often in a “goodie
bag.”
4. be to
one’s liking: appealing or enjoyable to someone
5. jittery:
nervous
or unable to relax
6. to catalyze…:
to
cause (an action or process) to begin
7. delirious:
in
an acutely disturbed state of mind resulting from illness or intoxication and
characterized by restlessness, illusions, and incoherence of thought and speech
8. shy
of…: slightly less than, slightly earlier than, or a short
distance from something
9. mobbing
birds: a noisy, obvious form of behaviour that birds engage in
to defend themselves or their offspring from predators
10. alluvial soils: a
fine-grained fertile soil deposited by water flowing over flood plains or in
river beds
11. a fish story: an incredible/
far-fetched story
12. to repristinate…: to
restore something to an older or original state
13. the Mount Saint Elsewhere: a
ward for dying patients, which was derived from medical school jargon for a
hospital that serves as a dumping ground for patients not wanted by more
prestigious medical facilities.
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