Half Moon

If you look at the tip of the pointer finger on my right hand, you will see a tiny, white scar shaped like a half-moon, or a thick eyebrow. You have to look closely—or, if you’re holding my hand, to run your finger gently and attentively over that narrow space between the whirlpool-swirl that, when marked with ink, creates a fingerprint, and my fingernail—to detect it.

Numb, it aches only if I overuse it, which I rarely do; I’m lucky to be left handed. After the injury, I had to re-learn how to type so that my middle finger now automatically touches the keys that used to be the stomping grounds of my pointer finger (thank goodness I’m no longer in a job or class that measures my productivity by words-per-minute). When I’m actually tuned in enough to remember it’s there, I feel a sharp ache of gratitude, and hear my own laughter echoing in my mind.

I wish I had a great story to tell, one of heroism or recovery from tragedy—but all I have is a story about resentment and distraction. I was in a church kitchen cutting meat when it happened. For many years I was in charge of a monthly community meal. At first, it served about 75 people, and was held in the local Senior Center. As time went on, we outgrew the Senior Center and moved to the largest church kitchen in our small town; we were serving 250 or more people each month, and the meal was taking up more and more of my time. Eventually, I was able to hire a half-time staff person to coordinate the meal, among other programs.

On this particular day, I was supposed to be volunteering, but when I showed up a couple hours into the afternoon I realized that the coordinator of the meal had not planned well. There were volunteers standing around not sure what to do. None of the ingredients were prepped for cooking yet. Some of the boxes of supplies were still in the trunk of his car.

I sighed. I’d have to stay. I called my daughter’s care staff and asked if she could make supper, saying I’d be home much later than planned, and she agreed. And then I began bossing people around. I quickly passed out cutting boards and knives and distributed the carrots. One of the volunteers thanked me for “finally” giving her something to do. I glared at my coworker, who was obliviously talking with another volunteer, then busied myself getting the meat ready to be cut.

Feeling grumpy, I moved to a back corner of the kitchen, far away from the other volunteers, and sunk a heavy, sharp knife into the meat. As I cut, I grew angrier and angrier at all of the terrible incidents of the past week—someone at church that morning had made a rude comment about my daughter. On Friday, I’d discovered that my coworker didn’t have nearly enough volunteers and had to add my name to the volunteer list—and call around to get more people. On Thursday, half my students had shown up to class without having read the assignment. On Wednesday, my daughter’s teacher had given her a book that did not align with our family’s values to read, then argued with me when I called her about it…

I went on like that, rapidly and angrily cutting, remembering all of the ways other people had failed me that week--until, quite suddenly, there was a hole in my glove, and then, blood everywhere. In a brief moment, I thought about washing the meat carefully and pretending it didn’t happen. Everything for community meal is donated by local farmers, and before even feeling the physical pain I was grieving the meat, lost, uneaten.

Just as quickly, I realized I had to toss it, and I also realized the bleeding was rapid and going to draw attention if I didn’t attend to it quickly. I moved my bleeding finger, the spoiled meat, and the cutting board to an adjoining room, where there was a deep sink meant for washing pots and pans that wouldn’t come clean in the industrial dishwasher beside it. I ran cold water over my finger, then wrapped a paper towel around the wound and worked on cleaning the cutting board, assuming the bleeding would stop quickly.

It didn’t. I became lightheaded. From the chatter in the next room—more than a dozen volunteers talking over the background music (music I did not particularly like)—it was clear that no one was missing me. I put the cutting board on the drying rack, threw the meat away, and hurried to find the nearest seat.

There was a strict rule that our volunteers were not to enter the sanctuary, but I went in anyway and sat down in the last pew. I called my significant other, who was in nursing school and living at the other end of the country at the time. She told me to hold my hand over my head and just wait it out. Hearing her voice calmed me. 

But, an hour later, the bleeding had not stopped. I tried to breathe, to look around the sanctuary for some familiar images to calm me, but I couldn’t concentrate.

Eventually, I drove myself to the emergency room. On the way, I called to order the pizza for the volunteers, assuming that, like so much that had not gone well, my coworker would have forgotten. I then called him to let him know I was on my way to the emergency room and the pizza would be there in a half hour.

“I already ordered the pizza,” he said.

“Well,” I snapped, “I guess there will be plenty of pizza.”

At the hospital, the nurse who greeted me was alarmed by the amount of blood running down my finger into my palm—that comforted me, as I was beginning to wonder if I was overreacting. She called in the doctor for a consultation. But then, just as she had begun to apply some basic first aid, an elderly gentleman was escorted in by his daughter. “He’s having chest pains,” she said, and he grunted, “I’m fine, she made me come in.”

The nurse’s attention turned to him, and I fell asleep on the ER cot, exhausted, hot, and still bleeding. There, lying on the cot, I dreamed I was swimming in a river of blood. I was alone. The current was strong.

Someone on the shore shouted out to me, asking if I needed a boat, and I said, “No, I need to get to my daughter as quickly as possible. Swimming is the fastest way.”

The man on the shore shook his head and threw his arms dramatically into the air, then shouted, “Fine, don’t take my help! Don’t blame me if you drown!”

Suddenly, as I watched him stomp away from the shore, I realized I’d made a terrible mistake. What if I actually drowned? I worried I would die before seeing my daughter again. I noticed that my skin was stained bright red from the blood-river, and cried out to the man, but he was long gone.

And then, suddenly, the river ended in a small, shallow, clear pond. My daughter was there, swimming gleefully.

“You’re thinking about all the wrong things,” she said in the dream. “Isn’t it beautiful here?”

And then the dream shifted suddenly to the sanctuary, where I had been earlier. In the dream it was decorated for Advent--even though it was March, and the middle of Lent, in real life. Four long candles were nestled in a thick, green wreath. Everything smelled like pine.

“I’m waiting,” I shouted into the emptiness, and slowly, two of the candles flickered, their flames rising miraculously without the help of a human hand. It must be the start of the second week, I thought to myself—and then I heard someone calling my name.

My hand was burning badly. I must be touching the flames, I thought. Why am I doing that? Why can’t I pull my hand away?

I opened my eyes and found myself staring up into the doctor’s face. He was holding my hand, examining the cut. I began to laugh uncontrollably.

The nurse beside him smiled at me. “You really nodded off. Did you have a funny dream or something?” she asked.

“I had the best dream ever,” I responded.

When I left the hospital to get into my car, the sky was darkening. I wondered how things were going at the church. I wondered if there would be enough meat for the meal the next day. I wondered if my daughter was disappointed that I hadn’t made it home to eat supper with her. I wondered if I would ever get to actually live with my significant other, or if we were doomed to live several states apart for the rest of our lives. I felt a flicker of annoyance rise in my throat again.

You’re thinking about all the wrong things. Isn’t it beautiful here?

Suddenly, I noticed the moon above me. One half was swelling with light. The other half was shadowy—I could see the outline of its full circle, faint against the clouds that were moving rapidly behind it.  I looked up at it and breathed. My cut is the same shape as that moon, and the half-lit Advent wreath, I thought, and then I laughed out loud again. 

Later, I would find out my daughter had a marvelous time making supper with her care staff; I would arrive to a clean kitchen and supper waiting for me. After getting my daughter to bed, I would talk to my significant other about figuring out a way to live together--and laugh with her about my ridiculous dream. The next day, I would find out that my co-worker and the volunteers finished making the meal and cleaning up (and eating all the pizza) without my help. The meal would be successful, the food plentiful, despite the spoiled meat. 

But all of that is beside the point. 

What matters for the sake of this story is that, for some inexplicable reason, as I got into my car to drive home that evening, my whole body felt light, and a flood of feeling I can only call joy swelled up in me.