I knew a man named Jim Lipsky. He had grayish hair and glasses. He was kind and quiet. He was a pharmacologist. He had a wife, Naomi, and his daughter was near the age of my daughters. I think Jim Lipsky was a little older than me, but not much. The family was Jewish. She was an artist whose quilling work featured gold leaf highlighting of beautiful Hebrew script. Plenty of Gentiles in our town owned and cherished her pieces. Their daughter was Hannah. Hannah and Naomi are beautiful names of beautiful characters from the Bible.
Jim Lipsky and I were faculty members together at the Mayo Clinic. I would see him from time to time at work—not often. A common occasion for seeing Jim Lipsky was at the spring graduation ceremony when we would don rented regalia (at least mine was rented), and enjoy the pomp and circumstance that went with giving diplomas to future doctors and scientists. I sat next to Jim Lipsky one year at graduation. I admired his robe and stole carrying the colors of Johns Hopkins University. We walked out of the hall together afterwards. We exchanged a few pleasantries. I never saw Jim Lipsky the same way again. Two days later a colleague told me that Jim Lipsky had suffered a seizure on his way home from graduation. Within a week it was learned that Jim Lipsky had malignant glioblastoma, the kind of brain tumor from which one does not recover. I was haunted by my recollection of Jim Lipsky walking out of the graduation ceremony with me. We had both been carefree, undoubtedly distracted by thoughts of work and late afternoon family responsibilities. The difference was that I went home to my late afternoon family responsibilities. Jim Lipsky had a seizure.
Jim Lipsky’s life fell apart. Jim Lipsky’s wife and daughter were dealt the hand that no bluff can overcome. Jim Lipsky and his doctors went through the prescribed motions. He had surgery and radiation. I saw him sometimes in the hall at work, his hair missing in telltale asymmetry. Jim Lipsky’s ability to speak was damaged. His ability to walk was damaged. It was just a few months before the news came that he would neither return to work nor recover. I didn’t see Jim Lipsky anymore. The Lipsky family was suffering. I was trying to imagine it and trying not to imagine it at the same time. My own cancer diagnosis had a different outcome. My cancer is slow. Jim Lipsky’s was fast. My wife and daughters imagined tragic scenarios that didn’t come true. Naomi and Hannah Lipsky were blind-sided and then fractured and then scattered. Their tragic scenario was both true and brutal. Laura and I had experienced a few sleepless and hopeless nights. Jim Lipsky and his family were stripped of all hope almost immediately. They never had a chance to catch their breath. Every night was sleepless and hopeless.
My last memory of Jim Lipsky is a difficult one. The unwanted memory lingers—perhaps because there is a quiet voice in my mind forever reminding me that my life could, at any moment, become Jim Lipsky’s life. I pulled up late one afternoon at the elementary school a block from my house. I was on my way home after work. I think it was Election Day. The school served as the polling place for our neighborhood. As I got out of my car and started toward the school I saw a parked van with its front doors open. A woman stood struggling helplessly at the curb, trying simultaneously to steady the slumping form of a man and a wheeled walker made of tubular metal. A young girl sat motionless in the back seat of the van, as if willing the scene out of her mind. It was Jim Lipsky and his wife and his daughter. This scene was the result of heroic effort by a family trying to prove that life could keep going on—even when life could not keep going on. Voting at the public school had become an epic errand, perhaps Jim Lipsky’s last epic errand. His condition had deteriorated. He could not climb back into his van. His daughter was too small or too numb to help. Naomi staggered between the van door and Jim Lipsky, her small frame unequal to the task. I admit it—there was a second when I found myself just wanting not to be there—not to be seeing this picture of the disintegration of a family in front of an elementary school in Minnesota. I wanted to hurry the other way. The quiet voice in my head wouldn’t let me turn. I walked to the van, stepped up to Jim Lipsky, and took his arm. I greeted him quietly and steadied his body. His face was full of pain. I don’t know if he recognized me. I was suddenly distraught to think that his path toward death was so physically harrowing. I had wanted to believe that he was fading from this life gently. He was not. I offered to help Naomi guide Jim Lipsky to his seat. She didn’t know me. It didn’t matter. As I looked into her eyes her tears began to flow uncontrollably. She couldn’t speak. Her face perfectly blended hopelessness, frustration, and despair. It took all my strength to lift Jim Lipsky into the passenger seat of his van. His daughter never looked up. His wife never found words as van doors closed and she started the engine. They pulled away and were gone. I was going to vote and then drive home to my girls. What was going to happen to Jim Lipsky when he got home?
I never saw Jim Lipsky again. I wish my last mental picture could be a soft shot of him sleeping peacefully in a hospice. It is not. The image will always be of a disabled man, not so much older than me, struggling by the side of a van, his wife and daughter helpless. Their vain attempt at a normal family errand had ended in pure bitterness. I still see the tears welling up from Naomi’s eyes. I hear the silence as her words failed her.
Bitterness.
Naomi means “pleasant” in Hebrew. The ancient Naomi was the mother-in-law of Ruth, the ancestor of King David, the ancestor of Jesus Christ. The Bible records Naomi’s words:
“Do not call me Naomi—call me ‘Mara’ (which means bitter) for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me.”
The biblical Naomi was eventually rescued from bitterness by grace. My prayer is that Naomi Lipsky might someday find the same.
I knew a man named Jim Lipsky. Now it’s hard for me to forget him. Maybe that is OK.
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