Walking the Wall

There are times when I find the world both incredibly large and amazingly small–odd meetings in a small hospital room when you connect with someone who has lived such a different life that you feel like you’re talking to someone from a novel.

My son has been in the hospital since last Tuesday and on that first night we met one of his respiratory therapists coming in to give him a treatment and pound on his back and chest. We were tired and worried and we noted nothing more than she was very soft spoken with a strong Russian accent, and very kind. There has been a long string of respiratory therapists in my son’s hospital experiences. Every four hours around the clock another one slips in during the day or during the night, listens to his chest, gives him a treatment, pounds his chest and slips back out–often with nothing more than a smile and quiet instructional statements.

The next time we saw this particular therapist, I mentioned that her friend (another therapist) during the day spoke very highly of her and my friend who was visiting commented that she had a very lovely name.

She mentioned that for many years all girls in Russia born around January 25th were named Tatiana after Saint Tatiana–she was not, born on January 25th, that is. One version has Saint Tatiana thrown to lions when she wouldn’t renounce her Christianity. Our Tatiana said in Russia there were two versions, one where the crowds literally ripped her apart and another where her and her husband were put into a large copper bowl and boiled–none of the versions seem an appealing way to go.

Her father was an officer on a submarine in Stalin’s army, so her mother brought her to stay with relatives in Moscow when she was a little over one. They wouldn’t let her come in the house unless she was baptized, but her mother was afraid to have her baptized because her husband could be killed for it. They secretly brought in a priest who terrified the little girl with his long black robes from neck to toe, long, square gray beard, and huge cross on his chest. She did the only smart thing and hid under a table where they couldn’t reach her. Determined that she would be baptized, he leaned over and threw holy water under the table at her. And so, she said, I was baptized and no one was killed.

It was a nice little step outside of the hospital room, listening to her quiet, accented voice as she calmly moved through the motions of therapy with my son.

Last night she came in and I was working on schoolwork, I was tired, I wasn’t really in the mood for conversation, but after a few minutes, I asked her if she was in the medical field in Russia before she came here 6 years ago. One question and a brief capsule of history came out–the rise of a chemical engineer, but then also the rise of inflation and the crumbling of an economy that left her working for nothing for six months while inflation ate 30,000 rubles down to what could be spent more like 2,000. Changing vocations to the rising financial district as things started to develop again, and then changing again when she came here with English only taught to her by Russians–which she found useless in speaking but invaluable in writing–and she started her life all over again. “Sometimes I think it is all too much for just one life,” she noted and we met eyes over my sons head.

Sometimes it is too much for just one life.

On the other hand, it’s also an amazing, beautiful life where you meet extraordinary people in a small hospital room very far from Russia.