I was playing with my friend’s children on a playground in Madrid. The kids laughed when I jumped up and made the dry, golden dirt follow me in an upward draft. It was fun until I jumped up and hit my head on the metal pole of the climbing gym. I crumpled down, and down I stayed. When I got up I decided that something was not right. I called my father.

“Tata, I hit my head really hard this afternoon…..yep, I think I was knocked out for a bit….my vision is okay, and my pupils look fine, it’s my head, it’s foggy feeling. I think I should see a neurologist.”

“Yes, I think you should. I’ll call you back after I get you the name of a Mayo Clinic trained doctor in Madrid.”

My father called back five minutes later, “Here’s the name of a neurologist…a year or two behind me….call when you get your results.”

I went to the neurologist.

“How did you get my name?”

“My father gave it to me – he found it in his Mayo Clinic Directory.”

He looked at my file and squinted, “Brzustowicz? Brzustowicz! I knew of your father of course, we all heard of him.” And the Spanish doctor chuckled.

“I worked with his mentor, too, you know.” He chuckled again.

“You see, the mentor’s wife ran away to Spain and took up with a bull-fighter – very cliché – they both died in a car accident.” He tapped my knee with a little rubber hammer. My knee kicked out obligingly but now I squinted at the doctor, my hands were frozen outward, palms up, shoulders raised, waiting for an explanation. He saw that I was hooked, and he smiled and continued.

“Your father. Yes, besides being a great surgeon, a man of such deep integrity, he was, apparently, very handsome to women. I had women come to me asking about your father, angry that he had turned down their advances. ‘Of course have you seen his wife?’ I would ask them. Your mother, now, she was a beauty with her jet black hair, what a face! It was your mother who was so spectacular, but these women, these women were just wild about your father – and the fact that he was so in love with your mother, well; it made them love him more. Now, let’s take a look at that bump on your head….”

That neurologist was good, at that moment my head was absolutely sharp, not a bit of fog remained as I caught a clear glimpse of my parents’ devotion, decades and an ocean away.
​

​When I was in college I went to the Head of the Charles Regatta.

“I love your platinum blonde hair! It’s so easy to see you in a crowd!” my friend commented.

That Sunday we went to church and on the way out we spoke with a priest who was going to be going to study in Rome.

“I’m doing January term in Rome,” I said, just to say something, as I picked at the loose threads on my ratty denim jacket.

“Maybe we’ll see each other, I’ll recognize that jacket!” He laughed.

Months passed and I went to Italy.  I stayed longer than the rest of the group and one day went to Saint Peter’s. I was walking, neck at a 60 degree angle, trying to absorb everything when I heard a voice, “Hey blondie!”

I kept walking, tucking my arms in the sleeves of my old denim jacket in defensive but dismissive posture.

“Blondie! Hey, blondie, over here!”

Five feet tall, alone, woman – I kept walking.

“Boston blonde – over here in the confessional!”

Now THAT sounded wrong, maybe that’s why I looked, and when I looked I recognized the priest from Boston.

“Hey! You’re here!”

“And so are you!”

I knelt at the confessional and we chatted until I noticed an older man loitering nearby so the Boston priest and I said our good-byes.

My knees creaked as I got up and the waiting dapper man, knife-creases in his trousers walked toward me with his hand out-stretched. I squinted a bit at his hand, there was a tremor, his frailty covered by his elegance.

“Here.” He said, handing me a few thousand lire bills*. He waved them insistently as he looked at my ripped, patched, and sewn and re-sewn jacket. “You will be needing this.”
​
“No, no….” I shook my hands as much to ward of the bill as to ward off my embarrassment.
 
*Sounds impressive, but it was about $1.75.

In Spain they talk about the “fat cow” times and the “thin cow” times, basically, good and tough times in life.

During a time of very thin cows, I went to confession.

Every person in my family was struggling, I was exhausted, my faith, my strength, and all my kindness near their limits.

If I had cried about swearing during past confessions, I was on the verge of a real storm.

My head down, my eyes brimmed and then I heard a sniffle. I looked up, the older priest’s head shook slowly, tears rolled down his cheeks, his face mirroring my pain. It was like when someone says, “Bless you” before you sneeze.

My tears stayed put and I looked down and grabbed the box of Kleenex and handed it to him.
That’s part of it, looking outside yourself to see other’s suffering, especially when you caused it.