Cutting for Stone

by Abraham Verghese

Make something beautiful of your life.

“God will judge us, Mr. Harris, by”—her voice broke as she thought of Sister Mary Joseph Praise—“by what we did to relieve the suffering of our fellow human beings. I don’t think God cares what doctrine we embrace.”

From her lips had come the kind of fundamental truth which, because of its simplicity, was unspoken in a church like Harris’s where internecine squabbling seemed to be the purpose for the committee’s existence, as well as a manifestation of faith.

It was a small blessing that an ocean separated the doers like Matron from their patrons, because if they rubbed shoulders they’d make each other very uncomfortable.

Harris stared at the stack of Bibles by the wall. He hadn’t seen them when he first walked in. “We have more English Bibles than there are English-speaking people in the entire country.” Matron had turned from the window and followed his gaze. “Polish Bibles, Czech Bibles, Italian Bibles, French Bibles, Swedish Bibles. I think some are from your Sunday-school children. We need medicine and food. But we get Bibles.” Matron smiled. “I always wondered if the good people who send us Bibles ...

How, I wondered, could these adults who cared so much whether my brother spoke or not, who cared for the poor, the sick, the motherless, who were as bothered as we were by the cruelty to the old woman outside the palace, be so indifferent to the cruelty we had witnessed?

What incredible discoveries one could make with one’s eyes closed:

The key to your happiness is to own your slippers, own who you are, own how you look, own your family, own the talents you have, and own the ones you don’t. If you keep saying your slippers aren’t yours, then you’ll die searching, you’ll die bitter, always feeling you were promised more. Not only our actions, but also our omissions, become our destiny.”

I felt a twinge in my chest at those words, a desire to make him take them back. He’d spoken as if it were all in his hands to decide. As if he had forgotten about fate and slippers.

I spent as much time as I could with Ghosh. I wanted every bit of wisdom he could impart to me. All sons should write down every word of what their fathers have to say to them. I tried. Why did it take an illness for me to recognize the value of time with him? It seems we humans never learn. And so we relearn the lesson every generation and then want to write epistles. We proselytize to our friends and shake them by the shoulders and tell them, “Seize the day! What matters is this moment!” Most of us can’t go back and make restitution. We can’t do a thing about our should haves and our could haves. But a few lucky men like Ghosh never have such worries; there was no restitution he needed to make, no moment he failed to seize.

“I’m so sorry,” Stone said. I don’t know whether he was speaking to me, or Ghosh, or the universe. It wasn’t enough, but it was about time.

At that moment, my anger wasn’t so much with her as it was with the passage of time. Time had robbed me of such wonderful illusions, taken them away far too soon. But right then I wanted the illusion that she was mine.