A Run In with Caveman 

My hairdresser’s scraggly unshaved face bends over mine. His hair draggles over the collar. This normally fastidious man cut my hair for years. Girls in his shop complain to Alan, “You’re bad for business.” His daughters caution, “Shiva’s over, Mommy’s gone.” His rabbi instructs,”It’s time to join the living.” Alan's reply is always the same, “My heart isn’t ready.” 

It’s been two months since Joyce died. Alan stopped cutting his hair and shaving. His hair turned paper white overnight, snowdrop strands snake across his shiny red pate. I keep asking Alan, “How are you feeling?” hoping for a different answer but he replays the same loop: only the best doctors at Sloan Kettering- everyone loved my Joyce - our daughters are mirror images - dying at home was her wish. He points to the photos on his station. Joyce and their daughters are striking women. My hairdresser explains, “The disease seared her lungs. The sicker she got, the younger she looked.” Even as his wife declined, Alan refused to see Joyce as less than beautiful.

Alan bathed, clothed and fed his wife at home in her hospital bed. At lunch, he went home and fed her. One morning, he found Joyce cold and unresponsive. Alan says, “Joyce wouldn’t wake up. I dialed 9-1-1. I begged the men to revive her. The medics declared her dead and asked me questions. They asked, ’What’s an old man like you doing with a beautiful young lady?’ How could those men say that to me? We’re the same age. They treated me like a dirty old man. What could I do? I cried.”

Alan continues, “I called the City later and complained about EMS. I talked to the men’s supervisor but he refused to apologize. He said, ‘It’s their job to check for foul play at any scene of death. They were just doing their job.’ Those medics came into our home and acted like cavemen. I was in shock. They accused me of killing my wife. How would that make you feel?”  

https://issuu.com/golddust/docs/issue_37_v9_covers_small

Date Published: June 1, 2020