TICKET TO ETERNITY

(For You and Carin Fein)

A fifteen-minute therapy session leads to a once-in-a-lifetime teaching and learning experience about immortality.

Wearing no rings or makeup, Carin Fein was headed to the Out-Patient wing of a reknowned Boston hospital for a consult with the Staff Physician, but she caught a reflection of herself in a window and almost changed her mind. Not five feet tall with a pleated plaid dress under her hospital smock, she avoided eye-contact with the duty nurse, Mrs. Pilcher, who handed her a clipboard and told her in an asking sort of way, “You can take a seat over there and fill these out, Dr. Shockaire is running late this morning.”

Carin glanced at magazine covers proclaiming, “Spain, Germany and Denmark Get Twenty-five Percent of Their Energy From Wind!” and “Turtles Can Breathe Through Their Butts (You know people like that, don’t YOU?) She joined several other patients waiting in a corner cubby area, still avoiding eye contact with anyone as she filled out her forms. Then, she overheard a woman say, “What’s with that pleated plaid dress?” Carin had a pleated plaid dress but when she looked up nobody was speaking. At the nurses’ station, a female orderly was standing across from Nurse Pilcher, writing.

            When she was done Carin handed the clipboard back to Nurse Pilcher whose face was long and seemed round when looking directly at her, but was flat if one looked at her from the side. “So, you are a Medical Student here, Carin Feen, right?” greeted the nurse.