LOVE ONE ANOTHER

Saturday, December 06, 2008

(The following story is told by Dr. Richard Selzer from an incident in his practice of medicine. I read it in James Emery White’s excellent book, Life-Defining Moments)

I stand by the bed where a young woman lies, her face post-operative, her mouth twisted in palsy, clownish. A tiny twig of the facial nerve, the one to the muscles of her mouth, has been severed. She will be thus from now on…to remove the tumor in her cheek, I had to cut the little nerve.

Her young husband is in the room. He stands on the opposite side of the bed…The young woman speaks.

“Will my mouth always be like this?” she asks.

“Yes” I say, “it will. It is because the nerve was cut.”

She nods, and is silent. But the young man smiles.

“I like it,” he says. “It is kind of cute.”

…Unmindful, he bends to kiss her crooked mouth, and I so close I can see how he twists his lips to accommodate to hers, to show her that their kiss still works… I hold my breath and let the wonder in.