Every day, there it was: a brown paper bag on the windowsill, unmarked and untouched. To the regulars, it was known as the "emergency bagel." Most days, it sat there uneaten, likely cleared by the hospital staff at the end of the day. But on rare occasions, it became the most delicious stale bagel you could ever imagine.
During our time living in-patient with Jacob in the pediatric oncology ward, I came to rely on seeing Robert, a volunteer with Chai Life. His daily visits had a single agenda: to make my day a little less isolating. Strangely, in the midst of a never-ending nightmare where conversations revolved around white blood counts, you come to miss small talk.
Robert always left his mark—a plain cream cheese bagel in a brown paper bag. No matter when he came, I could count on that brown paper bag appearing on the windowsill after he left. At first, I tried to give it back, hoping it could go to someone in greater need. But Robert never took it back.
“You may need it later. Please, it's just a bagel,” he'd say, waving off my attempts.
And he was right. There were days when that bagel was a lifeline.
Today, for the first time in years, I saw Robert again. With COVID-19 (which had ousted all the volunteers) and Jacob in remission, our paths hadn't crossed. But today, they did. The good news? Robert didn’t recognize Jacob or me. Jacob, now ten years old and 100 pounds, is a far cry from the frail five-year-old he once knew. And me? I wore pants that zipped and possibly even a smile. There was no way he’d recognize me.
But I recognized him. There he stood, clutching a brown paper bag. To some, it might seem like a stale cream cheese bagel. But to a mom on the receiving end, it was a bag of hope—a reminder that even if uneaten, you are not alone.
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