A Visit to the Hospital

I went to visit Yosef last night.
Yosef is a year or so younger then me.
Yosef was a roommate of mine for a period during high school.
Yosef has Leukemia.
For whatever reason, since his affliction began last summer, I wasn't able to see him until now . . .
When I first saw him it shook me . . . I knew it would. Here was someone I knew, bald -save a few wispy hairs on his head and chin, and surrounded from every which side with machinery.
He look at me.
"You . . ."
He said, his lips turning up in a slight curl . . .
"They wanted me to take these two pills today, they were Horse Pills . . . I'm telling you! They were this big . . ."
He made a space about the size of a half dollar with his thumb and forefinger.
"No jokes . . . I told them them there's no way I'm taking them. Instead I have to take these eight smaller pills . . ."
His sense of humor, at least, had remained.

His father later told us his situation now was incomparably better then how it had been the previous weeks after his bone marrow transplant.
"They changed his DNA, you know."
Yosef's father said. "His Blood type and DNA are new . . . We're still waiting to see if he'll get a new personality though . . ."
We all laughed.
Yosef stopped laughing,
"It's not true though. If I have children . . . When I have children, they'll have my DNA."

We spoke . . . he became tired, we needed to go. As we prepared to leave, he asked us to spend a few more minutes with him . . . at least until the nurse came in. We waited for a few minutes . . . Yosef turned to us,
"If you need to go, then don't worry."
"Yosef," I said. "We love you . . ."
He smiled, his lips once more curling on the sides.

To think. Here is a boy who must sit in a hospital, wracked with pain and nausea, hooked to machines, taking dozens of pills, so alone at times with his thoughts.
And yet he smiles.
Yosef Simcha Halevi ben Eshter . . . We're rooting for you.

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