Serious Foolishness

I was walking down the hospital corridor with a piece of toilet paper intentionally stuck to my clown shoe.
“Dr. Ginger Snaps!”

Ellen’s voice was filled with urgency as she pulled me from the hallway into an alcove. She held me firm and looked at me through tear-glazed eyes.

“Tim is going down to have his leg amputated in about thirty minutes. He can’t see me like this! Please can you be with him while I pull myself together?!”

My stomach churned. My chest tightened. I took my clown nose off to breathe a bit better.

“Please.” She clutched my arm like she was falling off a cliff.

I nodded, but I felt paralyzed, scared, and trapped by her desperation. And, I definitely didn’t feel funny.

I peered in through the doorway. Tim was sitting on his bed like Buddha. As he looked at me, I saw an old soul crammed into his seven-year-old body.

“Come in,” he said. “I want to ask you something.”

I cautiously tiptoed toward his bed, feeling consumed with dread. I stood next to him, unsmiling, waiting breathlessly for his next move. He slipped his little hand around my fingers.

“Do I have to go through with this?” he whispered.

We looked at each other, both of us hoping and groping for an answer that would change everything. The silence continued. Usually, when it’s clown time, a moment like that, stretched to its breaking point, is released with laughter. But not then, not with that beautiful boy.

I ached for something funny but it just wasn’t there. Finally, I gave up.

“They think it’s for the best, Tim.”

He nodded with the kind of mature resignation a middle-aged man has when he receives the American flag in exchange for his twenty-year-old son who’s been killed at war.

I couldn’t bear it. I couldn’t bear his courage.

Without even knowing what I was saying, I blurted out, “But we can do whatever you want for the next five minutes!”

Tim lifted his face and the aging man had become a boy again. His eyes twinkled with surprise and wonder. Our world was now alive with possibilities and we both chuckled like two little devils dancing at the gates of hell.

“Okay,” he said with a puckish grin, “I want to jump on the bed!”

I looked at him for a second, confused, not getting it at first.

Of course, I thought, he’s going to lose his leg! Of course he wants to jump on the bed!

“You got it buddy! Jump away!”

Tim started jumping on his bed, and after cheering him on for a bit, I got up on the other bed and started jumping, too.

We were breaking the rules and loving it! At one point, we were screaming and laughing so hard that his mom came in to see what was going on. She couldn’t help herself. Our laughter was contagious.

We were all totally cognizant of what was about to happen. There was no denial. We just chose to surrender to joy instead of fear.

When they came with the gurney, Tim didn’t resist. He calmly stopped jumping and laid himself down. I was so moved by his almost polite compliance, that I gave him my squirt gun to use at will on our way down to surgery.

Tim took full advantage. Sitting up on his gurney, he shot an unsuspecting intern in the hall as the elevator doors were closing. We all had a good laugh as the young doctor helplessly wiped the water off his shocked face.

Down in surgery holding, we made the anesthesiologist, his mom, his surgeon, and several nurses line up like ducks in a rotating shooting gallery. That was fun. That helped all of us get through an extraordinary moment in another ordinary day.

As Tim was being wheeled into surgery, he propped himself up on one elbow and yelled, “Hey, Dr. Ginger Snaps.”

“Yes, Tim.”

“You have toilet paper stuck to your shoe,” he said, with a twinkle in his eye, knowing full well that I had put it there.

“How silly of me,” I replied. “What would I do without you?”

Eventually, I would have to answer that question, because I’ve learned that moments like these never leave you. They are too powerful and too full to ever completely digest. Life is finite for all of us, and it is our task to find the joy in the journey.

This is my life. I am Karen McCarty, aka Dr. Ginger Snaps, professional goofball and hospital clown specialist -- at your service.

~Karen McCarty