Jeff's Odyssey
Apr 18, 2021 18:58:09 GMT -5
Post by Radrook Admin on Apr 18, 2021 18:58:09 GMT -5
Jeff's Odyssey
Jeff’s eyes exude the visage of a thousand imagined nightmares as he lies on the operating table waiting to be anesthetized at Chicago’s Advocate Lutheran General Hospital. Today, the dreaded, but necessary operation to save his life will be performed as scheduled. A short distance away, his father mother and wife sit waiting with grieved, gaunt, faces as if anticipating doom at any moment. There is weeping, and whisperings in undertones as if sharing some unspeakable secret meant only for their inner circle. But there is barely any conversation and as the hours pass, silence predominates.
Through the waiting room’s wide rectangular plate-glass-window, they can see the Chicago city-lights twenty flights below extending into the horizon towards the nearby O'Hare International Airport, and see Jumbo jets are taking off with strobe lights disappearing gradually into the misty winter night. They imagine passengers totally indifferent to the profound suffering that many below, such as they, might be undergoing Each one an isolated universe unto himself.
They are keenly aware of this. Not for the first time, of course, they have known this poignant existential truth all their lives, but the horror of the moment has brought it to their attention with full savage force. They do not mention it to one another. The situation would only be made far more intolerable if they did Yet, their silent unwavering stares into a far distance, and their blank expressionless gazes into one another's faces speak louder than any words ever could.
Hours have gone by since Jeff was taken to the operation room. Soon, the surgeon in charge will enter either with bad news or the good news. But even the best news in this case is a nightmarish reality that they would all have preferred to avoid. They are all staring apprehensively at the doorway to the waiting room. Strangely, it is a solid metal, ominous-looking, green, door through which one doesn’t expect anything good to enter, and they wonder why it was chosen that way and by whom. But it doesn't really matter since nothing can change the stark reality to which they are all reluctantly tethered. They feel ashamed that they envy those who refused to be present. Those who claimed inability to tolerate the extreme tension, and who vehemently blamed Jeff for what he himself had stubbornly brought upon himself despite the repeated warnings to stop.
No! They, could never abandon Jeff in this hour of need for some expression of human compassion despite their intense, suppressed anger they were barely holding back for his stubborn stupidity. No, Jeff wasn’t stupid in the sense of academics. In fact, he was quite bright and had proven it by graduating from college with high honors in engineering. He had proven it by successfully achieving all he set out to achieve in the business world. He also had the intelligence to marry a beautiful wife who loved him dearly and had proven faithful. No, in these areas Jeff had excelled and they were exceedingly proud of his accomplishments.
It was his deficiency in that crucial area that landed him in the hospital with the need for drastic facial surgery. Now, because of it, he would be horribly deformed for life, and nothing that the plastic surgeons could do would ever restore what they had needed to amputate in order to save his life.
The surgeon has finally arrived and is standing solemnly before the family members. He explains that the surgery has been a success and that Jeff is being kept in the Intensive Care Unit until all his vital signs are assured to be stabilized. They thank him effusively for his effort.
“You can come visit him tomorrow evening if you wish! He is in room 665,” he utters in a practiced emotionless tone.
They notice how he averts his eyes as if in guilt when he says the words “....if you wish”, as if he has done something that he horribly regrets, or else, as if he would understand if any or all of them would prefer not to see Jeff ever again and spare themselves the psychological trauma. This only serves to intensify the apprehension that they already feel at the prospects of seeing him. After all, they know just how extensive the surgery has needed to be in order to save Jeff’s life!
“We told him to stop repeatedly didn't we!?" his father almost shouts once the doctor has left the waiting room. “But he was just too bullheaded, and kept doing it anyway!”
“Recriminations are not going to solve anything!” Jeff’s mother, said, placing a gentle hand on her husband’s trembling forearm.
“Was, it really too much to ask for him to listen to advice? At least if not from us, at least from the medical profession. Was that so much to ask from a young man of his intelligence, Clara?”
”Stop! Stop!” Jeff’s wife interrupted in tears. “Things are bad enough without going over this same thing again. What’s done is done, and nothing can change it. Neither our tears nor anger. NOTHING, you here! Nothing! “
Her mother-in-law embraced her with a comforting hug and then they all left the hospital.
None slept that night due to the tension which their scheduled visit the next day promised. It was a Sunday, and they first attended church in order to get some support from the pastor and the congregation. But all they received were recriminatory stares and the sermon was one that seemed specifically geared towards the condemnation of sin and the deserved consequences that all those who refuse to listen to Biblical counsel receive. They left before the sermon was over more somber than they had arrived.
At the Hospital reception-desk, the receptionists seemed to freeze as if struck by a bolt of galvanizing electricity when they mentioned Jeff.
“Oh Jeff? Jeff's in room 655,” she muttered ominously.
They heard the nurses whispering as they made their way down the long corridor. Words such as Amputee, Horrible, Disfigured! Jesus! Stupid!, were being uttered in barely concealed tones. The three hesitated before the room door which was kept closed while many of the other doors were fully opened. Finally, they summoned the courage to go in. They found that their Jeff was asleep. As they had expected, he was no longer the young handsome Jeff they had known. His entire jaw had been removed and there were only bloodied bandages where it should have been. They also noticed that next to his bed on the table, were two packs of Marlboro Cigarettes his favorite brand, the very things which had caused him the cancer that had led to the surgery. They called the nurse and asked why.
“He said that he was going to smoke them through the bandages as soon as he was healed enough to do it. We told him it was stupid, but he wrote on a piece of paper that he had a right to smoke and wanted to have them ready as soon as he could go home.”
After shaking her head with eyes lowered to the floor, the nurse left them so they could talk with their son Jeff, the disfigured jaw amputee, but they all followed her out and never returned.