By Donnaldson Brown
With a sheaf of prescriptions fanned out in my hand and circles as dark as plums beneath my eyes, I waited in line at our neighborhood pharmacy.
That morning, I brought my husband home from the hospital after surgery to remove a metastatic brain tumor that—seemingly out of the blue—caused him to collapse at work eight days earlier. The doctor who discharged him held up one of the prescriptions before laying it in my hand. “This,” he said, “is the most important one. This,” he set it down atop of the others, tapping it for emphasis, “will prevent further seizures.”
I got my husband settled in our bedroom with a glass of water, snacks (not that he was going to eat anything), the newspaper (not that he was going to read it), and his cell phone within easy reach, and headed for the pharmacy.
The usual young man was behind the counter. We didn’t know one another’s names, but we recognized each other. I handed him the prescriptions. He disappeared around back to the pharmacist, while another customer or two fell in line behind me. I stared—my mind wiped clean by fatigue—at the cinnamon gum and chocolates below the counter, the ear plugs and miniature eyeglass tools on top.
After a few minutes, the young man returned. “The others we have. This one,” he slid one of the scripts across the counter, “we got to order.”
And, of course, the one they didn’t have was the one to prevent seizures.
“When can you get it?” I asked.
“I don’t know. We’ll put in an order. A day or two, probably.” He looked over my shoulder at the customer behind me.
“Excuse me,” I said, rubbing my forehead. I’d had maybe eight hours of sleep in the previous three nights. “If you order it now, how soon will it get here?”
“I don’t know,” he repeated, agitated. “Maybe tomorrow, maybe Thursday.” He shifted his weight to better see the man behind me.
I persisted. “I need to know—” My focus was waning. “The doctor said it’s very important he have that one,” I pointed vaguely, my hand shaking, “this evening.”
“What do you want me to do?” The young man sighed. “I don’t know how to get it here any faster.”
And whatever it was that was holding me together enough to make it look like I was a normal person having a relatively normal day and not a woman whose husband of nearly thirty years—a husband with whom she’d been bicycling and planning vacations the weekend before—had just been given a terminal diagnosis, crumbled.
Standing at the counter at my small neighborhood pharmacy in Brooklyn, I screamed, “You don’t understand. I need this now!” Jagged and syncopated, as it hasn’t been since I was a four-year-old having a tantrum, I didn’t even recognize my own voice. “My husband just had brain surgery!” I shrieked. It would take a long time before I could say out loud that he was dying.
It was August in the city. Hot out and humid. I glimpsed a woman standing to my right. Tall, statuesque, in a sleeveless dress that fell almost to the floor. A flowery print with greens, blues and yellows. As I began again to stammer, this woman—a stranger—stepped forward and wrapped her arms around me. She was a good six inches taller than me. I tried, again, to speak. She held on, my cheek pressed to her shoulder. I stopped searching for words and let her hold me, as I sobbed.
The young man emerged from behind the counter clutching a bottle of water and a folding chair, which he set down in the back corner—a private spot. He then ducked back behind the counter, grabbed the script and holding it aloft so I could see it, shouted, “Be right back,” as he dashed out the door.
The woman ushered me to the chair, opened the bottle of water. Minutes later, no idea how many, the young man returned, breathless, a prescription bottle in hand. He’d run to a pharmacy up the street, returning with enough pills to last my husband until they could fill the whole order.
Many months later, at home, with family at his side, my husband passed away. That neighborhood pharmacy has closed now. I often remember, though, the woman who held me in her arms. Her willingness to reach out to a stranger in shock and pain emboldens me, and reminds me to keep my eyes open for when I can return such a favor.
Kindness, I think, is like the soil in a garden—that from which what is most nourishing grows. Or perhaps it is more like water – its hydrogen atoms, like two hands, reaching for others of its kind.