Cutting for Stone

by Abraham Verghese

WE COME UNBIDDEN into this life, and if we are lucky we find a purpose beyond starvation, misery, and early death which, lest we forget, is the common lot. I grew up and I found my purpose and it was to become a physician. My intent wasn’t to save the world as much as to heal myself. Few doctors will admit this, certainly not young ones, but subconsciously, in entering the profession, we must believe that ministering to others will heal our woundedness. And it can. But it can also deepen the wound.

“No, not Bach’s ‘Gloria.’ Yours! Your ‘Gloria’ lives within you. The greatest sin is not finding it, ignoring what God made possible in you.”

Life, too, is like that. You live it forward, but understand it backward. It is only when you stop and look to the rear that you see the corpse caught under your wheel.

We are all fixing what is broken. It is the task of a lifetime. We’ll leave much unfinished for the next generation.

As she bent over the child she realized that the tragedy of death had to do entirely with what was left unfulfilled.

having a child was about cheating death.

Wasn’t that the definition of home? Not where you are from, but where you are wanted?

What a bad idea it had been to give the Bible to anyone but priests, Ghosh thought. It made a preacher out of everybody.

How we treat the least of our brethren, how we treat the peasant suffering with volvulus, that’s the measure of this country.

“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.”

“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 really think that hookworm and hunger are healed by scripture? Our patients are illiterate.”

What we are fighting isn’t godlessness—this is the most godly country on earth. We aren’t even fighting disease. It’s poverty. Money for food, medicines … that helps. When we cannot cure or save a life, our patients can at least feel cared for. It should be a basic human right.”

guilt leads to righteous action, but rarely is it the right action.

This was what growing up was about: hide the corpse, don’t bare your heart, do make assumptions about the motives of others. They’re certainly doing all these things to you.

everything you see and do and touch, every seed you sow, or don’t sow, becomes part of your destiny

In order to start to get rid of your slippers, you have to admit they are yours, and if you do, then they will get rid of themselves.”

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.”

‘Ma che minchia?’

All sons should write down every word of what their fathers have to say to them.

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. Now and then Ghosh would grin and wink at me across the room. He was teaching me how to die, just as he’d taught me how to live.

one only became a man the day one’s father died.

“Words of comfort,

‘Perfection of the life or of the work’—I could only do the one. I hope you don’t make that mistake.”

‘Call no man happy until he dies,’

The world turns on our every action, and our every omission, whether we know it or not.