Chapter 26: LIFE IS PRECIOUS
God's Little Drop of Water
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One day, a letter arrived from the national Ministry of Health. Ima opened it and read it aloud so that everyone could hear. The Ministry was offering free plastic surgery to correct the scars on Taliya’s forehead, which had been the result of the feeding tubes used to feed her during the seven months she’d in been in the hospital as a baby.
Taliya remembered none of it, of course. She in fact knew very little about it. Ima and Abba seldom spoke of it. Taliya had always suspected that it had been a very frightening time for Ima and Abba. Alas, she did not want to make them sad by asking a lot of questions. In any event, Taliya said that she did not want to have a surgery. She liked her scars. When she looked at them, they reminded her of what she’d been through as a baby. They reminded her that life is precious.
Ima and Abba were very understanding. They said there was no pressure to do anything. But Abba said he would make an appointment, just to speak with a doctor in order to get his opinion.
Two weeks later, Taliya, Ima and Abba travelled to Jerusalem for the meeting with the doctor who would perform the surgery should Taliya elect to have it.
Yair and Yaroni had been sent to play with their cousins for the day. Taliya wished they had been allowed to come to Jerusalem. She greatly preferred that the whole family remain together.
Abba parked at the Gates of Justice hospital in Jerusalem, which was the very same hospital in which Taliya had been born.
As they walked down a long corridor, Abba joked with Taliya, asking her if it looked the same as it had the last time she was here.
Taliya said no, that it was different. Very different.
Ima said not to be ridiculous, because Taliya was a baby and couldn’t possibly recall anything about the hospital whatsoever.
But Taliya did remember. She said there had been a fire late one night, and there were orange flames everywhere filling the room, and the nurses scrambled desperately, grabbing all of the babies from their basinets and piling them onto a gurney and wheeling them out of the room and away from the fire and smoke and immense heat and great danger. Taliya said that she had floated to the ceiling and had seen herself from above, lying beside all the other babies, as the nurses rescued them from the flames. Now that everything had been rebuilt, it naturally appeared quite different.
Ima and Abba were puzzled.
As they were walking, Taliya saw a brilliant white light coming toward them. A blinding light.
The light resolved into the shape of a man.
“Taliya?” the man said.
“Dr. Raphael?” Taliya said.
The man knelt down and swept Taliya into a hug, which she readily returned.
Ima and Abba were flabbergasted. They certainly recognized Dr. Raphael because he was the man who had saved their daughter’s life. But Taliya had been only seven months old the last time she’d seen him. How could she possibly recognize him? It had been nearly seven years and Dr. Raphael was a bit older and perhaps a bit wiser, as they were themselves, but they certainly recognized him.
But there was no way Taliya possibly could.
And yet, clearly, she had.
Dr. Raphael knew that they were there to see Dr. Shemesh, who was a very good surgeon and could certainly take care of Taliya’s scars if she wanted him to.
Dr. Raphael accompanied them to Dr. Shemesh’s office, where Dr. Shemesh quickly examined the two scars on Taliya’s forehead and declared that the large one would have to wait until she was older, 18 in fact, so that she would be able to elect to have the surgery herself once she was legally an adult. Plus, he said Taliya needed to grow and the skin needed to stretch a bit before he would recommend cosmetic surgery.
The second scar, however, he wanted to operate on. Soon. He was concerned that the skin was very thin and he felt it would be best to give it a minor touch-up.
Taliya did not want a minor touch-up. But Dr. Shemesh was very nice, and very handsome, and his reasoning for wanting to do the surgery made sense.
“It will be easy,” Taliya said, “compared to the fire.”
“Tali…” Ima began.
“How do you know about that?” Dr. Shemesh asked.
Taliya explained what she had said previously to Ima and Abba, that there had been a fire one night, and she’d seen herself from above as the nurses desperately loaded all the tiny babies onto a gurney and rushed them away from the smoke and flames.
Dr. Shemesh went to a bookshelf upon which he had many large and impressive volumes of medical textbooks and journals. He withdrew a photo album and opened it upon the desk, revealing photographs of a blackened room, along with newspaper clippings from the Jerusalem Post, detailing the fire. The newspaper clippings were old and yellow.
“Those are some photographs,” said Abba.
“I know,” said Dr. Shemesh, “I took them myself.”
Taliya studied the photographs, alongside Ima and Abba.
No one was able to explain how Taliya had been able to remember the fire.
Yet she clearly did.
Taliya said it was because God wanted her to remember.
Dr. Raphael agreed.
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