As a young emergency room physician in a small hospital a few miles north of Boston, I had just failed to resuscitate a wiry gentleman in his late 80s.
As a young emergency room physician in a small hospital a few miles north of Boston, I had just failed to resuscitate a wiry gentleman in his late 80s, an Irish immigrant and a beloved hospital employee. Call him Tim. Tim was freshly dead, and I felt an odd impulse to kiss him. That evening when he clutched his chest and collapsed in the parking lot, we ran out with a stretcher and retrieved him. Twice over the previous year, we had brought Tim back from death, but this time his old Irish heart and lungs had truly and finally given up.
The priest came in and anointed Tim’s forehead. His daughters in Chicago and Detroit had been notified. His body, cooling down to room temperature, lay waiting for the funeral director to come and cart him away.
I leaned over him and scouted out a spot on his wrinkled forehead to kiss, not far from where the priest’s thumb had drawn the oil cross. But I hesitated; a nurse and the janitor were still in the room. They no doubt wondered why I stood there in a trance, mutely lingering over Tim’s body, while other patients waited for me.
For historical context, it was 1981, the first year of Reagan’s presidency. A few months before in Northern Ireland, the famous protester Bobby Sands of the Provisional Irish Republican Army had dominated international headlines. Sands and nine other fellow hunger strikers had died in Maze prison, near Belfast. The world had watched the vigil in dread, and the defiant Maze prison hunger strikers were now famous martyrs for the cause of independence.
The Irish troubles were on many people’s minds then, especially in Boston where sympathy waxed strong for the rebels. We heard rumors of locals running American guns to Ireland, and the bomb that blasted Lord Mountbatten’s fishing boat two summers before was still in the public’s mind. Boston’s Irish loyalists seemed reluctant to condemn the assassination of that distinguished and despised Windsor.
What put me in a trance that evening, as the nurse and janitor eyed me curiously, was the irony of Tim’s death.
To most hospital employees, Tim had been a lovable, often cranky curmudgeon. Short, lean, pink-faced and with a slow, arthritic gait, he whistled and muttered to himself in his thick Irish brogue, as he puttered about the hospital as the resident handyman. He kept his cube-shaped head at an angle, and he winced often in pain when he moved his neck. His flattened nose, the apparent victim of early facial trauma, angled westward.
For over four decades, Tim had fixed leaky pipes, mended floor waxing machines, puzzled over electrical short circuits, maintained the boiler and the air conditioning units, mowed the lawn, and served as the ingenious troubleshooter for all the little hospital’s technical problems.
In the summer and fall, Tim also supplied an abundant variety of vegetables to the hospital cafeteria from his own garden, whose bell peppers and tomatoes, he boasted, were the finest anywhere outside of Ireland.
Since his American wife had passed away 10 years before, Tim had taken most of his meals in the hospital cafeteria, where I enjoyed chatting with him. I never forgot to compliment him on his vegetables, a gesture he appreciated. Though he spoke reluctantly of his life before he came to America, he once confided a poignant personal story.
What the nurse and janitor looking curiously at me that evening did not know was that Tim, too, had once made headlines as an Irish hunger striker. During the bloody Rebellion of the 1920s, he had battled the Black and Tan in the streets and landed in prison. The sign posted over his jail cell announced in large letters: “Freedom or the Grave,” a dire phrase he repeated to me more than once in his gravely voice.
The ordeal in Dublin lasted many weeks. Tim was down to skin and bones. Starved and feeble, he was only days from perishing as a patriotic martyr. But here I was, 60 years later, looking down at the remains of a feisty and remarkable fellow, who had survived quite vigorously and cantankerously to a very ripe age.
How did it happen that Tim was spared martyrdom in Dublin?
“You see, while I was lying in the cell, a lovely young woman from Boston came in and interviewed me for her newspaper. She said she had seen my headlines and wanted to tell my story.”
“That’s how you met your wife?”
“She said if I stopped my strike, she’d take me back to Boston and marry me.”
“Right on the spot?”
“Well, it took a few interviews. But she was persistent. The third time she came back, I realized I was falling in love.”
“And she helped get you out of Ireland?”
“The authorities figured if they kicked me out of the country, I’d stop being a pain in the rear end for them.”
“So they let you out?”
“You’re talkin’ to me, Doctor, aren’t you? Or am I just an illusion?”
“Did you ever have any second thoughts?”
“Doc, if you had ever met my wife, you’d understand why I’m the luckiest man alive. I loved that woman more than I hated the Black and Tans. Call me selfish, but it’s true.”
Tim’s front teeth were crooked, and so was his smile. But when he said those words, his blue eyes bored straight into me.
Love had conquered hate, a simple and beautiful story.
There was a knock on the door. The funeral director and his assistant had arrived to remove Tim. I watched as they read the death certificate and then transferred him over to their stretcher. As they pulled the sheet over Tim’s face, I realized I had missed my chance. It was time for me to go and see the other patients.
Now, 40 years later, I regret I did not give Tim a goodbye kiss on the forehead. But at other times in my practice since then, when all I had to offer a dying patient was a kiss, I have not hesitated. Thanks, Tim.
Dr. Gerald Yukevich is a partially retired physician living in Vineyard Haven.
Comments
Gerry, your words give me
Nelson Sigelman Vineyard HavenGerry, your words give me faith in the medical profession.
Thank you for sharing your
David Henderson Washington, DCThank you for sharing your poignant memory of Tim. Those simple things are sometimes the most important. I'm sure that Tim knows. Be safe, Doc.
Thanks. I see Love conquers
Abbie Steele ChilmarkThanks. I see Love conquers hate in pamphlets from change groups. The story you provided got further inside me. I feel I understand it at a deeper place. Thank you.
Great story, and haven't we
Mo Craig Exit / In dining tableGreat story, and haven't we known for some time, at that deeper place Love is all there is. Thank you, Abbie !!
You are an MV gem. Such a
John Furst ChilmarkYou are an MV gem. Such a beautiful story written by a compassionate Doctor and friend. Thank you for sharing.
Thanks Dr. Yukevich for
Linda Collette East Chop and Wales, MaThanks Dr. Yukevich for sharing that amazing story with us. It shows how compassionate you are and what a wonderful Dr.. Best to you and yours. Stay safe.
Thats whats up DOC ,keep doin
Rob the Roofer new jerseyThats whats up DOC ,keep doin what your doin and thank God for it and you.
Beautifully told... thank you
Jack Burnett Peterborough, NHBeautifully told... thank you for sharing... which I will do!
A story so well told with
Doreen Morse EdgartownA story so well told with grace. It would have been nice to have known this remarkable gentleman. Hope to see more stories from you, Dr. Yurkevich.
Gerry, your kindness and
June miller West TisburyGerry, your kindness and caring were visible to all in your ER practice here, making you a delight to work with. Thanks for the reminder to value each persons story and appreciate their service.
What a beautiful and
Nadine Gudimard FranceWhat a beautiful and sensitive story AND writing. It gave me the hen's flesh. Wish there were more doctors like you. Best regards
Gerry...Such a thoughtful,
Alisan Lohan-Conway Vineyard Haven (Ireland)Gerry...Such a thoughtful, emotionally evocative and engaging read. It’s simply lovely that you saw Tim as more than a patient, more than his cranky, curmudgeonly facade. The desire to give this man something as simple as a kiss, a warm personal touch, a goodbye, in the absence of his family members…..to even think, to feel compelled, to make this gesture of a tactile and fundamental act of human contact and kindness, is wonderful. You paint such a vivid picture all these years later. It resonated with me even moreso having grown up in Ireland during the hunger strikes when Bobby Sands and his fellow inmates gave their lives fighting for what was so important to so many of us. Thug sé deora do mo shúile. Your continued personal and most meaningful act of kindness, will be appreciated by many and puts ‘Care’ back in Healthcare.
I'm so grateful for having
Tara Urban OB and CAI'm so grateful for having read your heartfelt commentary this morning. Thank you for your kindness in sharing it so thoughtfully.
Just beautiful, Gerry. So
Arnie Reisman Vineyard HavenJust beautiful, Gerry. So emotionally touched that you remembered Tim and shared him here.
Great story my Pittsburgh
George Gamble Oak BluffsGreat story my Pittsburgh friend!
A lovely memory. Its
Bob Ganz ChilmarkA lovely memory. Its relevance spreads over just about a century. Well narrated. Thanks Gerry.
Beautifully told Gerry.
Robert Skydell Granada, NicaraguaBeautifully told Gerry. Excuse me for saying that I'm glad I didn't get one of those Yukevich kisses when you stopped over to see me that fateful evening years ago when I was lying in the emergency room all tethered up to electrodes and IV lines. It was thanks to you I didn't need one!
I miss you Doc.
Beautiful. Thank you for
Jay ChicagoBeautiful. Thank you for sharing this and for giving us some insight into
Tim's life. And thanks to whomever selected the accompanying photograph. It fits perfectly to me. I'm just not able to communicate why. It just does.
Gerry, We have known you as a
Tom Knight West TisburyGerry, We have known you as a caregiver for lo these many years and now we see the true dimension of your ability to articulate a life and death moment. No one knows how many Tims you have cared for over the years, but they were all among the most fortunate of people. Thank you, Tom
it is a good story when it
annie washed ashore in Americait is a good story when it brings me to tears and will stick in my mind. thank you for sharing this with us. love conquered hate.
I was pleasantly surprised
Dr. M. Smith CaliforniaI was pleasantly surprised reading your narrative of your encounters with your long term patient “Tim”. Those heartfelt encounters you described with him, I believe, were important to him while he was living.
I am reminded of several of my seemingly casual and caring interactions with patients very sick or dying that turned out to be most important to them at that time. Family members also often reported to me certain efforts that gave comfort to their loved one’s at a later time.
I found that prayer with my patients at their time of need seemed quite helpful to them. Not preaching, but sharing with them. Not being an M.D. iety just a physician who embraced God’s power with them in prayer.
I even used to say to my patients that I needed all the spiritual guidance I could get. In fact, I would say “ you and I can call God directly at any time and one’s call never goes to voice mail”. Saying that, most times was good for an introduction of prayer and often times a smile.
Now that I am retired I have time to reflect. Upon my reflection I remember, not sure if you recall our meeting during one of our annual visits to MV where we spent time talking during intermission at a Driving Miss Daisy performance sharing what was up with us.
Thanks for the memories shared of one of your life’s events and for triggering my memorable meaningful events during my time in practicing medicine especially during these challenging times.
Doctors motivating Doctors. Thanks for that.
Be safe and well!
--
Wow! What a story and what a
harry seymour Oak BluffsWow! What a story and what a doctor!
Why do we kiss the dead? They
Stephen Kelly TARRYTOWN, NYWhy do we kiss the dead? They cannot absorb the intention of the gesture, but I don’t think that means it’s a purely selfish display. We kiss them because we somehow know that they can feel the transmission of our love, and our deep sympathy for what has befallen them. It’s irrational, of course, this belief that they can subvert the rules of their own end. But death is unreasonable. Confronted with its imminence, the membrane that separates the rational from the irrational ruptures, and we enter the same space we occupy when we surrender to fable and myth. As a loved one flirts with the edge, we pray to powers we might not even believe in, relinquishing skepticism, hoping to open ourselves up to the possibility of miracles. To our urgent demands for certainty, the doctors remind us that they cannot know for sure, that each case is different, and this unknowable percentage, no matter how infinitesimal, opens the door for magic. The territory of dying is one of enchantment. This is why we have tales about the kiss of a prince awakening a princess doomed to a lifelong sleep, why hideous crones turn into beautiful queens. To fend off the hard, irrevocable irrationality of death, we choose to believe in our endless capacity to transcend, or, as my father might have put it, to turn a no into a yes. A violence had been visited on him in the form of his soft, brilliant head coming into contact with an unyielding and uncaring tree. If he could not argue his way out of this fate, I could at least do what we all do when listening to a story of magical transformations or heroic defiance of the odds. I could believe in it.
Beautifully composed.I found the above paragraph in the New Yorker. I complements your experience. I was very impressed by all of the comments from your friends in the Vineyard.I recall that you always considered the humanity of your patients in Cincinnati.
Brilliant
Paul Foley MarionBrilliant
What a heartfelt story. It
Jeanne FloridaWhat a heartfelt story. It made my eyes go all misty. It’s lovely to read a moving story like this anytime of the year, but especially near Christmas. Thank you for sharing so that we can all appreciate you.
Lovely man, caring doctor,
Ellie Tuck Vineyard HavenLovely man, caring doctor, Philip and I love you madly.
The importance of the human
Gaston vadasz West tisburyThe importance of the human touch, the magic of opening one’s heart to express compassion and love. With Covid, we are experiencing the inability to bring comfort and love to those who need it most.... the dying, and their survivors.
Thank you for this story!♥️
Story made me cry thinking of
Basia Vineyard HavenStory made me cry thinking of how Dr Yukevich treated my parents with so much respect and loving care. A Wonderful person and friend doing so much healing work. We’re so lucky to have him on MV.
Thank you doc. I needed that
Geraldine Brooks West TisburyThank you doc. I needed that.
Dear doc, what an amazing
Fernando Lana Martha’s VineyardDear doc, what an amazing life story, and what a great way of telling it, thank you for sharing it with us.
Big hug,
FL
A beautiful elegy, Gerry.
Joanne Reilly BostonA beautiful elegy, Gerry.
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