Johanna Shapiro, PhD
We patients are very protective
of our dignity
We may lose our battle against
cholesterol
or even lose a leg
But we want to emerge from our
medical encounters with
dignity intact.
Johanna Shapiro, PhD
We patients are very protective
of our dignity
We may lose our battle against
cholesterol
or even lose a leg
But we want to emerge from our
medical encounters with
dignity intact.
Johanna Shapiro, PhD
Here is my body
I know its wounded places
Here a scarred remnant
Here an imperfect healing
Fissures and canyons of pain
Flowers of suffering
In steps now uncertain
The body still stumbles
Forward. It is ready
I am ready
Hineini
Here I am.
Johanna Shapiro, PhD
I have read
it is only by learning to fall
that we discover how to live
One cold morning,
when driving through the quiet dust
of inland freeways
we stopped for gas
Rushing toward the warmth
of the convenience store
on my new prosthetic hip
I tripped and went down hard
so hard my bones shook and shivered
Johanna Shapiro, PhD
Maybe it was because a Bach cantata
was playing in the background
I am on the pre-op surgical floor
stashed away in a curtained cubicle
awaiting my turn in the morning’s surgical line-up
The cubicle next to mine
is full
The same people are in it
a husband caregiver
and a wife
awaiting her turn in the morning’s surgical line-up
Johanna Shapiro, PhD
My roommate
on the orthopedic ward
Is about 80
Yesterday she fell and broke her hip
while she was doing the laundry
She reached too far for the detergent
And down she went
The next day
after she returns from surgery
she has what the nurse informs me
is post-anesthesia dementia
Basically, she knows who she is
but she can’t understand what happened
to her
Johanna Shapiro, PhD
What breaks?
Something breaks for sure.
What is it?
The news?
The words shatter
sharp shards spilling out
all around us
Johanna Shapiro, PhD
In memoriam, Marcia Weinstein
What I wonder about
What I worry about
Is that we really didn’t talk about it
Enough
Or really at all
Only obliquely
The way light bounces off a mirror
At an angle
The way eyes inadvertently
Slant from an ugly face
All our conversations on the subject
Dribbled away
“Let’s wait and see”
“I just don’t know”
We told each other
Johanna Shapiro, PhD
I wait for the sound of his words, expecting them to drop like shards of light on my own confusion. Still he sits there, without speaking. Perhaps he is collecting his thoughts. Chin in hand, he seems puzzled, even ten years later. Then, as if pressing a button, he begins to speak. He remembers he had the day off. It was a typically beautiful southern California day, sun glinting off the Pacific Ocean, waves begging companionship. So he decided to use this free day, this day outside time and space, to go surfing. He remembers also that when he came home, it was already late in the afternoon, the sun almost used up. He can’t remember why he switched on the TV, he didn’t often watch because the sound was broken, but that day he did. He watched without sound in the fading rays of the sun as the city burned and died. Maybe he remembers more, but now, again, he is silent. There is no sound between us.