Becoming friends behind a hospital privacy curtain

Last month, after entering Kaiser hospital in Terra Linda for minor surgery, a nurse led me to a double-occupancy room on the fifth floor. As I passed by my roommate-to-be, a glance told me he was he elderly, had unruly facial hair and wore a dirty baseball cap. Not a great first impression. But a sturdy floor-to-ceiling privacy curtain hung between us, so how bad could things get?

Minutes later — when my roommate began making calls on his cellphone — I found out. Though I couldn’t see him, I could hear him; and he was loud.

“What I want is to see a doctor,” he’d all but yelled, “not a nurse, a doctor.”

Then he’d be on another call to another person.

“I think I’m going cah-razy; I want to see a doctor, not a nurse,” the voice behind the curtain nearly shouted. Ending one call, he declared, “I think I’m ready to die.” With slight variations of “I’m going cah-razy” and “I’m ready to die,” the irritating calls continued into early evening.

The hospital was full, so I couldn’t be moved; I seriously considered sneaking out and driving home, but my surgery needed to be done (hospital staff was aware of the problem and doing their best to minimize it).

That night I fell asleep early, but was woken at 10:30 a.m. by my roommate’s bright lights and blaring TV. Desperate, I called a nurse who quickly remedied the situation. Then, in the darkness, the voice behind the curtain suddenly said, “Thanks for doing that, I just couldn’t figure how to turn the damn things off.” I took that as a good sign and fell back asleep.

Based on my previous day of eavesdropping, here’s what I knew about the voice behind the curtain: His name was Bob, he’d already been in the hospital for five days and he, like me, was retired and in his 80s.

So when morning broke, I reached out. “How’s it going over there, Bob?”

He answered like we were old friends. “Oh, pretty good. I got upset yesterday but a doctor’s seeing me at noon today.” And, flat on our backs while staring at the ceiling, we began talking. I told him I was Jim, we were about the same age and both retired. Unable to see each other, silence gaps didn’t bother us; after we’d say something we’d shut up until we had something new to say, then we’d talk.

I learned that after unhappy years as a salesman, Bob turned to his true passion, photography, and was soon getting assignments from the San Francisco Examiner and California Living magazine.

“Interesting,” I replied, “after 25 years as a successful but unfulfilled Realtor, I became a newspaper columnist, a magazine writer and a part-time photographer.”

Soon we discovered other things in common: We both followed certain tenets of Buddhism — Bob had traveled extensively throughout China, I’d twice been to Tibet. We both wanted someday to revisit Cuba, and each of us had done considerable hitchhiking — Bob all over Europe and me across America twice. And, possibly best of all, a few years back, both our families belonged to the fun-filled Sausalito Cruising Club. (Bob said he was known there as “Dancing Bob.” When I asked what type of dancing he did, he replied: “the hippie freestyle.”)

Later that afternoon, through the privacy curtain, Bob shared that seven years ago his wife had died from breast cancer and, in many ways, he was still grieving. “She didn’t tell a soul when she was sick, only me; and we were in bed together when she died.” Then, I told Bob that seven months ago, my oldest daughter had died; also from breast cancer and she only told close family that she was ill. “And we spent our last day together doing what she loved to do, working in her garden — and I think about her still, every day.”

It was almost dark when I told Bob, “It’s been great talking; even if we haven’t been able to see each other.” Bob responded with what I was thinking: “I wish we’d met earlier in life, we have a lot in common, we’d have been great friends.”

The sturdy privacy curtain was still hanging between us, but not really. My one-time nemesis was now my new best friend.

Jim Wood is a Tiburon resident. He is the co-founder of Marin Magazine and of GreenTeam, a volunteer organization that develops and maintains beautification projects on the Tiburon Peninsula. IJ readers are invited to share their stories of love, dating, parenting, marriage, friendship and other experiences for our How It Is column, which runs Tuesdays in the Lifestyles section. All stories must not have been published in part or in its entirety previously. Send your stories of no more than 600 words to lifestyles@marinij.com. Please write How It Is in the subject line. The IJ reserves the right to edit them for publication. Please include your full name, address and a daytime phone number.