Day five of eight. Three to go. It’s time for something different. You might call it a diversion but for me it’s one of my love stories. Because we aways need to remember the love.
One hot, humid night in India many years ago, a night nurse lifted the mosquito netting around my bed and stepped inside, letting the net fall back into place behind her. She whispered, “Are you awake?”
I said yes. Her dark brown face was inches from mine. At first, all I could see were the whites of her eyes and her sparkling teeth. I felt her breath falling softly against my skin, which was feverish and wet. She felt like a fresh breeze in the heavy tropical night.
As my eyes adjusted to the faint light in the room, I gradually became aware that she was patiently and systematically capturing the few mosquitos flying around inside my netting one by one. This was a laborious process; often she would miss the insect on her first try but would persist until she succeeded. Whenever she caught one, she would carefully lift the net and allow it to fly off free into the night.
I thought I might be dreaming or hallucinating — both of which were common during those nights in that place — but this was real. She kept at it until every last insect had been freed from threatening me, a pale six-foot-tall young man whose weight had plummeted down to 97 pounds as I was battling a combination of typhoid fever and salmonella.
***
I don’t know why the memory of that time in India in 1971 suddenly came back to me yesterday as I was struggling to avoid sinking into despair over the prospect of a disastrous outcome in next Tuesday’s election.
Maybe my subconscious was surfacing other times in my past when the outlook looked grim, but then the threat passed and life went on.
As it turned out, remembering the gentle kindness of that nurse long ago, plus talking with a couple of the kind, gentle friends in my current life, combined to distract me just long enough for Kamala Harris to inch up in the polls from where she had been earlier in the day.
Especially significant are the influential Marist polls in the “blue wall” states, indicating Harris is now up in Michigan (+3), Wisconsin (+2) and Pennsylvania (+2). The biggest shift is in Pennsylvania, where the Vice-President’s lead appears to be fueled by her new-found advantage among independent voters — she is up by 15 points among independents, compared to a 4-point Trump lead a month earlier.
If Harris wins in those three states, she’s a virtual lock to win the election. But we are still three days away.
One thing to watch for in the polls now is any sudden, last-second movement like Marist uncovered, as the pool of undecided voters finally makes up their minds which way to vote.
As we hope for a good outcome, it’s worth remembering that the world is not all ugliness all of the time, as Trump would have us believe. Sometimes love prevails.
***
During the weeks of our nightly meetings under the mosquito netting, I grew to yearn for those moments of silent intimacy. I also was slowly recovering my strength until they said I could be released from the hospital. As I got to know the group of lovely young nurses who had brought me back from the near-dead, I discovered the heart-breaking reason why the night nurse never came like the rest did during the day.
It turned out that she had suffered from a disfiguring case of smallpox as a child, resulting in such bad scarring of her face that she felt it might frighten the patients to see her in the light of day.
On my last night in that hospital, when she came to check on me, I felt her closeness one final time. Since I was no longer sweating my fluids away, her breath felt warm now. Other than the sound of her breathing it was silent all around, but I imagined I could hear our hearts beating as well.
From reading my chart she knew that I would be checking out in the morning, a few hours after her shift ended. “You will be going,” she whispered. “Good-bye.”
“Good-bye, and thank you,” I whispered back.
Then I blurted out. “I’ll miss you. I think you are the most beautiful nurse of all.”
Earlier diary entries:
Tuesday Diary -- “One Week Before 'What Happened' Happens” — the romantic intrigue of this moment of witnessing history together.
Wednesday Diary -- “How Math Determines the Fate of Democracy” — the numerical basis behind mass fascism.
Thursday Diary: “Who is that Man in the Garbage Truck?” — how not to go insane when a train crash is happening before our very eyes.
Friday Diary: “Healthy Societies Embrace Choices” — focusing on uplifting activities rather than fretting that this may be our last good week for a long, long time.
HEADLINES:
LYRICS: “Hole in the World” (excerpt)
Song by the Eagles
There's a hole in the world tonight
There's a cloud of fear and sorrow
There's a hole in the world tonight
Don't let there be a hole in the world tomorrow
They say that anger is just love disappointed
They say that love is just a state of mind
But all this fighting over who is anointed
Oh, how can people be so blind?
There's a hole in the world tonight
There's a cloud of fear and sorrow
There's a hole in the world toniight
Don't let there be a hole in the world tomorrow
Oh, they tell me there's a place over yonder
Cool water running through the burning sand
Until we learn to love one another
We will never reach the Promised Land
There's a hole in the world tonight
There's a cloud of fear and sorrow
There's a hole in the world tonight
Don't let there be a hole in the world tomorrow
There's a hole in the world tonight
They say that anger is just love disappointed
There's a cloud of fear and sorrow
They say that love is just a state of mind
There's a hole in the world tonight
But all this fighting over who will be anointed
Don't let there be a hole in the world tomorrow
Oh, how can people be so blind?
There's a hole in the world tonight
Hole in the world
There's a cloud of fear and sorrow
Fear and sorrow
There's a hole in the world tonight
Don't let there be a hole in the world tomorrow
(Songwriters: Glenn Lewis Frey / Donald Hugh Henley)
