Eleanor

I met a man and his wife today. The man, a former guidance counselor at the local state university was rolling himself back and forth in his wife's wheel chair as he spoke. She begrudgingly woke up so I could see how she was eating. After nine days in the hospital he had clearly been deprived of stimulating conversation. In thirty minutes we ran the gamut from basic medical information, the election and the where are you from get to know you information. He went to grad school at Columbia, while he was there he had a job as a chauffeur for the university. His most well known guest was non-other than Eleanor Roosevelt. As they chatted she told him to visit her at Hyde Park. His wife was in the city visiting him and he was able to introduce her to Mrs. Roosevelt too. He went to Hyde Park the next weekend and "do you know" he told me with fresh excitement in his voice, "she remembered me". She gave him a tour of the museum and everything. A kid in his early twenties and a lady in her fifties or sixties, she cared so deeply about the next generation. It was so much more than autobiographical musings. I'm sure he's told this story hundreds of times but I felt it was a gift just for me. The coincidence of reading Eleanor Roosevelt's final book and then meeting a man who could have been in it, felt more like destiny. He had brought his wife deviled eggs, I watched her eat just one, gumming the white for what felt like five minutes then muttering "so now what" with her mouth still full of yolk. When she finally swallowed she accepted a few cleansing sips of honey thick sierra mist, a soda Mrs. Roosevelt missed out on. I asked her if she could tell me who she met while visiting Columbia (she was living upstate raising three young boys while her husband finished his education). Being hard of hearing she hadn't been paying much attention to the conversation besides she was focused on the egg. "How'd you know about Mrs. Roosevelt" she answered. I tried to explain but she was not listening, she was falling into a memory. "It was so quick", she murmured, "I didn't get to say everything I wanted but she asked me two questions right off the bat". How I wish the thread of memory hadn't snapped, I wish she could have followed it to the end so she could have told me about the questions. We just couldn't get her back around them. A night school teacher, mother of three growing up in the fifties. I hope her sons or grandchildren have heard this story, I hope they have written it down, I hope they know the two questions even if Grandma's answers weren't as profound as she would have like them to be. I can only imagine the nights awake replaying the moments, the things she wishes she would have said or the questions she would have asked if given more time to prepare, perhaps a second chance. Her husband got the same distant look in his eyes when I mentioned the familial nature of Mr. Roosevelt's fireside chats I have heard my grandparents describe. I think the nostalgia is part of the kindling fueling the older generations burning distaste for our current administration. We both agreed a man so brilliant would never run for president to day, he would be far to smart to subject every detail of his life to such intense scrutiny. How things have changed! Hyde Park had no metal detectors, the FBI didn't do a back ground check on the chauffeur, the secret service didn't ride along and Mrs. Roosevelt remembered all she heard. The husband described how in the moment he was with her it seemed nothing else was on her mind, she was completely focused on the moment, in the present giving and receiving, perfect reciprocity. No cell phones or buzzers, no radio or TV ; just two people from two different worlds exchanging opinions and sharing ideas; an interaction so powerful it has lasted almost seventy years. An old man, his wife in bed; and then there's me, barely older than they were back then, full of adventure and hope. He failed to relate anything specific she said gave no sound bites, no quotes, the gift she gave him was her conversation, her time and she listened. I needed to leave I had other patients to see, I asked if there were any questions and he was beaming as he said "I'm glad to have met you. You are just exuberant! Thank you!"I left them smiling, knowing in a small way Mrs. Roosevelt's gift is one we are all occasionally capable of giving.