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The Story We Cannot See
For those that have not read Theo of Golden, do so. Quite an incredible read.
There is a moment in Theo of Golden when Allen Levi introduces us more deeply to Ellen, a woman whose circumstances make it easy for the world to place her into a category. Homeless. Poor. Troubled. Someone living at the margins.
But then we learn her story.
And suddenly that category becomes inadequate. Worse, inappropriate.
That is one of the quiet gifts of a beautifully told story. It forces us to remain with another human being long enough for our first judgment to become uncomfortable. For it to turn against us. For us to recoil against our prejudices.
I have experienced versions of this countless times in the newborn nursery.
A baby is born, and somewhere in the medical record is the story we have constructed about the mother. No permanent address. Limited prenatal care. Substance use. Domestic instability. Unemployed. Teenager. Medicaid. Social work involved.
These things matter. As physicians, we need to know them. They may tell us something important about the risks facing a newborn.
But they tell us remarkably little about love. Or lack there of.
I have walked into rooms where a mother’s life outside the hospital was extraordinarily difficult, yet there she sat holding her newborn with the same wonder I have seen in mothers surrounded by every imaginable advantage.
She studies the baby’s face.
Counts the fingers.
Asks whether the baby is eating enough.
Worries about a rash.
Pulls the blanket a little higher.
And sometimes, sitting beside that bassinet, the distinction between the woman with everything and the woman with almost nothing disappears….. and a literature review.
Dr. M
