Written by Vikram K. Sundaram                 Photography Credit: Ashley Rose Timmerman
Writing Seminars Major                                                           Photographer
Johns Hopkins University, Class of 2009                                     Orange County, CA

Taking A History

Love Is Patient, 2008(c) Ashley Rose Timmerman

“You wanna know why I’m in such good health?
My beautiful wife takes care of me.”
He smiles at her, and she shakes her head
And frowns and puts her hand on his arm.

“My husband was a physicist.
In the 1940s. A brilliant man.
Bombs, for the Navy, in World War II.
Such a wonderful scientist.
Later, he worked on the MRI
Technology. But all of that
Is well before your time, I’m afraid.”

“And huts,” he says. She shakes his arm.
“At UCLA, it used to be huts.
Only straw huts and a couple of labs.”

“He taught for years at UCLA.
I loved the weather. And now the snow,
Well, I guess I can deal with the snow.
We live with my son from a previous marriage.
Oh, that’s right! There’s something, doctor,
That I’ve been meaning to ask of you.
A few days ago, at the hospital,
When my husband was in for his kidney work,
The social worker, or a nurse, I’m not sure,
She asked me if we’d consider a room
In a nursing home. My husband is strong.
Every day we walk. We converse,
About science, and politics. We read,
Doctor. We think. And they want to have
Some person to dress him, and feed him, and bathe him,
And wipe him, like he was some child’s doll.
These blacks, they just don’t know how to speak…”

“I’m in such good health. Do you wanna know why?”
She squeezes his arm with her bony hand.
“My wife…” “I just couldn’t…” “My beautiful wife.”

“I am truly lucky, a husband like this.
He has always been a wonderful man.
And so respected in his field.”
“It used to be huts. Only huts.”
“But yesterday, doctor, he didn’t eat.
And after his nap, he couldn’t stand up.
My son, he had to come home from work.
I just couldn’t lift him myself. I tried.
He kept making this long, sad noise,
Doctor. Every time I heard it,
My ears would ring, and this low dull pain,
I couldn’t think. I felt so lost,
Like the hard, winter air was too cold to breathe.
But then he ate soup and we walked for an hour!
Sometimes, I just don’t know anymore.”

“Doctor, you are a handsome young man.
You stay away from my beautiful wife!
The reason I’m in such good health.
I’d fight the War, again, for her.”
She grabs his arm. “I’m a lucky woman.
I couldn’t, without him by my side.”

The doctor checks his heart and his lungs.
He’ll call in a week when the blood work gets back.

“And doctor, how have your daughters been?
She’s four months now, the youngest one?
How beautiful.” “You’re beautiful.
My dear, have I ever told you that?”
She shakes his arm with her hand and smiles.
“I will never get tired of hearing that.”

Love Is Patient, 2008(c) Ashley Rose Timmerman, Teen Photographer