The old lady at the doctor’s

Been awhile since the fingerpuppets from Peru made an appearance on the blog. I replenished the supply in my purse on impulse yesterday, just before I headed on over.

I’d called first. Could I borrow 30 seconds of his time, and when would I most not be getting in the way? We set a time. I came early. I wanted it to be at his convenience.

I’d dropped off that scarf for Dr. V a few weeks ago, but, as I explained to him yesterday, after blogging about Jim’s family driving six hours round trip to thank the medic/ski patrolman in person, I felt I ought to drive the six miles across town to thank him in person. When he’d spoken to our lupus group, he’d given me infinitely valuable information I’d needed to know, and it had made a difference. My eye doctor’s nurse had told me to put drops in my dry eyes, but I’d shrugged it off; mild discomfort didn’t bother me. Part of ordinary life. Nobody had ever drawn the connecting line for me between that and how my cornea had simply torn one day two months ago. Oh! Dr. V did. Drops it is. I owed him, bigtime.

He came out, we spoke just a moment; yes, I was the one that had dropped off the Carlsbad scarf. He smiled warmly, and said his daughter loved it. I chose not to ask him her age: I could picture a fourteen-year-old showing off to her friends a cool handdyed scarf knit by the actual designer, and I could picture a four-year-old playing dress-up. Either one would be happy with it. Either one would make me happy, being the mom of four myself, but I knew he wouldn’t know that and that he might feel put on the spot if she were indeed at the dress-up stage, so I simply said, “Cool!” And meant it. She liked it! Hey Mikey!

I opened my purse before taking my leave and gave him a small handful of those fingerpuppets. You’ve heard my spiel here before about the womens’ cooperative in Peru, the knitters putting food on their tables by making these, how I carry them around for crying babies met along the way and how easy it is to make them and their parents and everybody in a waiting room happy–everybody wins.

I told him, these were for cheering up small crying patients. He was charmed.

I didn’t take his time to tell him my own crying-baby-at-the-doctor story:

I was a young mom. My older son was pitching an all-out inconsolable, screaming, kicking fit, as only a two-year-old can do. He’d climbed onto the bottom shelf of a large coffee table at the doctor’s, a nice spot where he couldn’t damage anyone or anything, and went at it. I tried my best to comfort him, but he would have none of it, and I finally thought, well, he’s loud, but he’s not hurting anything.

An old woman watched, horrified, got up, came over to me, and declared, in a hissy fit to match my son’s, “That is the worst-behaved child I have ever seen in my life!” and left.

I sat there open-mouthed, speechless. But I got a rare chance that day: as we were leaving the clinic, she was sitting waiting for a prescription, and we were going to have to go past her anyway to reach the front door. I had by then had quite a bit of time to calm down myself, and I was sad for her at the fear I saw in her face as I walked up to her, my small children in tow.

I explained that my son (he was very tall for his age even then, and people were forever thinking he was older than he was) was two, and that I had been taking him back to the surgeon who had taken him away from his mommy and hurt him. And he knew it.

That was all. I turned away. I figured she just needed to know the context, and to see that I wasn’t mad, or she would stew all day, and why be burdened with that? I’ve got to admit, though, it felt good to tell her off, however nicely.

Going out the door seconds later, a middle-aged man I had never seen before nor noticed upstairs brushed past me, getting my attention, and he turned back to me and said, “I saw the whole thing. You were justified.” My eyes went wide–I had no idea!…Who?!… Someone out there who’d been a parent, who saw, who understood, and who took the time to make me feel better.

And in his honor and memory, whoever he is out there, I carry those fingerpuppets around for crying children. And remembering that surgeon, I gave some to Dr. V.

My original supplier has disappeared, but there are plenty to be found via Google or Ebay middlemen, still very inexpensive.

And everybody wins. Heck, I’ve given a few by now to little old ladies in waiting rooms.