“The most massive characters are seared with scars.
”
Cypress Homecare Solutions, the agency that rescued us during our care-giving crisis, sent Moni.
“I think you’ll like him,” said the woman who called to tell me who to expect. “He has a really good outlook.”
When I opened the door to him, I thought, “Seriously? This is not going to work.”
Moni is small, a few inches shorter than me, and lithe. Where most of our caregivers have been sturdy SUVs, he is a compact car. I could not imagine him picking Jamie up, much less transferring him from place to place. So I hovered as he did his work that first morning, breath held. Moni is amazingly strong. And competent. It was all good.
You know that cliché about how someone’s smile lights up a room? Moni could have inspired it. His smile never quite goes away. He shined it when he told us we were “in beddy, beddy good hands.”
During his first visit, he pointed to the Om pendant Jamie wears around his neck. “You know what that means?” Yes. We practice yoga, we told him. We could tell he was delighted. Moni, who is 35, was born in Bhutan, a tiny country wedged between India, where his mother was born, and China, his father’s native country. “I am Hindu,” he told us that day. He sometimes sings us mantras, some of which we know from our yoga teachers.
A few days ago, at our wedding anniversary lunch, Jamie told Zak and me that he had a story to share. We leaned in to hear.
Jamie woke up that morning feeling overwhelmed. He was sick of being helpless, frustrated and depressed and whiny.
“Moni, I am a mess,” Jamie said, full of self-pity and on the verge of tears. “I am just a mess.”
But ... you have had a good life, yes? Moni asked.
“Oh, yes,” Jamie replied. “Yes, I’ve had a very good life.”
Not me, Moni said, still smiling. My life has been full of misery. I have had a very hard life. I have suffered.
Moni’s family left Bhutan in the 1990s, when the rulers began harassing, then expelling, an ethnic population called the Lhotshampa. His parents, fearing a violent revolution, fled with their two young sons. The violence never really materialized, but when they tried to return, the family was refused entry because Moni's parents were not Bhutanese citizens. The family spent 18 miserable years in refugee camps in Nepal and India. Eighteen years of extreme vulnerability. Constantly unsettled. Food scarcity reigned. Water, when it could be had, was unclean. Finding a sheltered place to sleep was a luxury.
I have suffered a lot, Moni told Jamie in his accented English. “My role was to suffer. Not suffering just for me, but for humanity.”
We are all actors, acting in a larger play, he continued. We each have a role. Sometimes we play only one, and sometimes we play many. And sometimes roles change.
“Do you know who Stephen Hawking is?” Moni asked. Jamie smiled and nodded. “He plays two roles. He is a warrior for ALS, and for people suffering with ALS. But he also is brilliant scientist and teacher for the world. He found black holes in space.
“You have roles, too," Moni continued. "You are father to many children. You were successful business man and a teacher. Now you are dying with ALS. Now your role is suffering. You do it for many people, for the world.”
Jamie let that soak in a moment. He suddenly felt less overwhelmed and depressed and whiny. Then he asked Moni: “What is your role now?”
“I know what it is like to suffer,” Moni said. “And now my role is joy. I bring joy to those who are suffering.”