Cutting for Stone

by Abraham Verghese

Her skills were so rare, so needed for the poorest of the poor, and even at times in the royal palace, that she felt valued. Wasn’t that the definition of home? Not where you are from, but where you are wanted?

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.”

When you leave your country, you are like a plant taken out of soil. Some people turn hard, they can’t flower again.

This is my life, I thought, as my taxi slogged through heavy traffic and inched through the tunnel to Logan Airport. I have excised the cancer from my past, cut it out; I have crossed the high plains, descended into the desert, traversed oceans, and planted my feet in new soil; I have been the apprentice, paid my dues, and have just become master of my ship. But when I look down, why do I see the ancient, tarred, mud-stained slippers that I buried at the start of the journey still stuck to my feet?

There is a point when grief exceeds the human capacity to emote, and as a result one is strangely composed—she had reached that point.