The next day, we hopped in the car and drove over to Smith Haven Mall, the only big shopping mall in that part of Long Island. Jen was all excited to go, as one of her favorite things to do is shop. Unlike Jen, I don’t like shopping. In fact, my old friend Andria and I used to go to the mall as teenagers. We would be no more than one hundred feet in the door and my eyes would start watering as I began to sneeze. Andria was convinced I was actually allergic to shopping in the mall.
Jen and I arrived at the Smith Haven Mall in my new little Infiniti G37 coupe (I’m an autophile, so I talk about cars whenever possible), and I was feeling quite proud to be in this moment—with the gal I loved at first sight, shopping for something to help her prep for the interview that would start her career as an attending physician, which would be only five miles from my front door . . . excuse me, our front door! We got out of the car near the food court entrance, and I could see a bunch of young teens, skateboarders, hanging out to the left. I had become quite attuned to anticipating issues with people before they developed, and these guys popped up on my radar a bit. I heard someone mumble out of the corner of his mouth, “Blah, blah, blah, midget . . .” It definitely bothered me a little bit, because Jen heard the comment, too.
From the instant Jen had told me she was flying into Kennedy, I had wanted to put my best foot forward and make sure she got to see the best of Long Island. I wanted her to absolutely love it here and see no other future for herself than sharing my home and my home turf with me.
Jen and I had even talked about this very subject, how the population on Long Island treated Little People. I had told her that for me, it had been great. I belonged to the local chapter of the Little People of America. There were about fifty members, maybe thirty Little People and twenty others who were family members. When I had been growing up, the group was mostly adults and very few kids. By the time I became an adult, the group was mostly kids and very few adults. However, I’d found great support in the group, and my local community had always been very cordial and supportive.
In general, although I had suffered more than my share of being bullied, I had encountered very little outright prejudice. I had had some issues with trying to get a job, but that was more like discrimination than mean-spirited bigotry. Anyway, I blew it off, and Jen did the same. We walked around the mall a little until Jen finally found the perfect scarf, and, of course, I started to sneeze—that mall air! We walked out to the car, where Jen noticed something on my windshield.
She said, curious what it could be, “What is that?” I told her it was a mystery to me, too, and chivalrously opened her door. I closed her door, walked around to the windshield, and grabbed the piece of paper from underneath the wiper. It was a Post-it size piece of paper with a message that read, “Die midget die.”
I was stunned. I stood by my car holding the note looking around the parking lot in complete disbelief. I wanted Jen to love Long Island like it was a dream come true, and now someone was taking the rude but benign comments to a new level with a real threat. When I didn’t see anyone, I realized it was probably one of those skateboarders, who had since disappeared from the mall entrance. The safety of my girlfriend was at the forefront of my mind, and I quickly surveyed the immediate space around me to see if any of the hoodlums were still skulking around, looking to pick a fight or worse.
Jen was waiting patiently in the car. “Well, what was it?” she asked me when I finally slid into the driver’s seat. “Wow, that is totally messed up,” she said when I reluctantly showed the note to her. Jen was horrified. She was actually terrified. She had heard insults before, but this was among the worst she had ever experienced. It actually made her very nervous. “Do you think they could follow us back to the house?” She wasn’t sure if the threat was random or truly personal. I told her that was crazy; they were just a bunch of kids.
I presented myself as calm, but I was absolutely boiling inside. I was trying to make it seem that it hadn’t upset me as much as it had, but I was livid. The “die” was the part that upset me the most. They took ignorance and escalated it to a threat by saying, “Die midget.” This was not the first time I had been threatened. But this was the first time I had been threatened with Jen.
I drove home at a thousand miles an hour, smoke pouring out of my ears. I was processing thoughts that shouldn’t even have been occurring. Maybe we should move someplace else . . . maybe I should sell my freaking house . . . maybe Jen is done with me and Long Island both . . . maybe I should have stayed outside the mall and called the police. Maybe I should go back to the mall and look for retribution.
I just hated everything about the three words on the note. I understood that our size was different from that of the majority of people. Little People walking into the Smith Haven Mall probably happened rather infrequently. However, the timing of the note, in the middle of my trying to showcase my Island, couldn’t have been more horrible. A bunch of cowardly bullies, as ignorant as the day is long, were trying to intimidate us and make us feel uncomfortable, even threatened.
It bothered me more than it bothered Jen. Well, in truth, it really bothered both of us. The reality was, it was everywhere. Any place you go, there will be a bully or two, despicably mean, ignorant loudmouths who hide behind notes or other places cowards hide. They don’t single out Little People or different races or religions, or fat or thin, young or old. They are not discriminatory in their prejudice.
Basically, they are so insecure, they will bully anyone who doesn’t look like them and who maybe won’t fight back. I mean, to leave such a note on my car window? Come up to me and say that to my face, and I will give you a wonderful story to take home to your buddies about how you got your ass kicked for being hyperignorant to the wrong person.
To Little People, the word “midget” is completely derogatory. Aside from using the word to lump together anyone short in stature, people used to use the term for proportionately “correct” little people as opposed to those with unmistakably shorter limbs. When P. T. Barnum made Tom Thumb a feature act in his circus, the term started to be used a lot everywhere. His sideshows in the “Greatest Show On Earth” had more Little People on display for the amusement of others, and the signs above the circus cars read “Midgets and Freaks” or “Strange People of the World.” The “M” word has nothing to do with a medical condition. No one who has employed the word in my presence has said it with good intentions. At best, their use of it can be chalked up to a lack of education or a legacy passed down from a previous generation. At worst, it is used to specifically taunt, insult, and enrage the person it is directed toward. In my opinion, often times, it is both.
Nonetheless, there was no one to challenge in the mall parking lot. The skateboarders had disappeared into their bully holes, probably snickering about their low degree of intimidation. Back home, Jen and I had a nice dinner and put this rogue group of nasty cowards behind us. Moving forward was what we did best.
At her interview, Jen pretty much got the position on the spot. She called me up afterward, very excited. The division head who had interviewed her was fantastic; she had some friends there; she thought Stony Brook University Hospital would be a great fit, and it had the convenience of being close to her one true love, me. It didn’t hurt that a Starbucks was literally the first building on the right once she left the neighborhood on the way to work, either. Talk about kismet.
For the most part, her interview weekend was action-packed. She met my mother and stepfather, Chuck, when they came over to the house. Mom was very excited, as was Jennifer. Correction, Mom was over the moon with excitement. Based on how I described Jen and the love we had for each other, Mom knew this was the girl I would be with for the rest of my life. They got along great. I knew they would. They say that you look for characteristics you’ve become fond of or accustomed to from your parents when you are in search of your perfect mate. Jen and Mom are alike in a bunch of ways, the most noticeable being the kindness they have toward others. Anyway, my
mother led the conversation, asking Jen all sorts of questions. Jen must have felt like she had more than one interview that weekend! Mom is one of those bubbly, personable types, so there was never an awkward silence.
Mom was my biggest fan, and while she felt I was handsome, smart, and deserving of a wife of the same caliber, she wasn’t sure I would ever get married. When she met Jen, she knew I had found the right girl, someone whom I would put in front of everything else, including work, which Mom knew spoke volumes about where my heart was. She thought Jen was very sweet, which made me very happy. She knew that when I told her months earlier, “Mom, I think this is the one,” that I was right.
Jen also had the chance to meet my brother Joe. Joe lived in Port Jeff, too, and had heard a lot about my new love, as I had told everybody I could get to listen. Joe and Jen hit it off, too. I would have loved for Jen to meet everybody, but my stepbrother James was in Charleston, South Carolina, where he had lived since college; my stepbrother Jonathan was living in Cincinnati, Ohio; and my brother Tom and my father and stepmother, Debbie, had all moved to Florida.
Jen had one other interview in New York City, at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx. She got that job, as well, but she accepted the job at Stony Brook, which meant she was moving to Long Island! Unfortunately, as doctors apply one year in advance, she had a fellowship in Pittsburgh to finish and wouldn’t be moving in for a year.
We kept up our long-distance romance into the fall, and I finally proposed to her on November 3, 2006. Two weeks earlier, I had gone to the Diamond District in New York City. One jeweler helped me pick out the diamond and another one helped me pick out the setting and a third helped me get it all together in a wooden box. I took that ring with me everywhere, never leaving it behind. In September, Jen and I flew to Florida to see her parents for a mini-vacation. It was my chance to pop the big question . . . not to Jen, but to her parents. As an old-school New Yorker, respect for elders and my future in-laws was at the top of my list, so I wanted to ask the Arnolds for permission to marry their daughter.
I took Jen’s mom and dad out onto their back porch and told them my intention was to ask Jen to marry me. I asked for their permission and their blessing. “It would be an honor,” her mom said, smiling. “You love Jennifer, she loves you, treat her well.” They both gave me a hug, and Judy started talking about how excited she was to be able to give Jen the family pearls to wear on her wedding day.
With permission granted, I started scheming. I booked a flight to Pittsburgh for Friday evening, November 3, even though I actually intended to fly in in the morning. I sent my phony evening itinerary to throw her off the scent. The first thing I did when I got to town Friday morning was stop at the florist, where I picked up an order I had placed for seven dozen roses and a few bags of rose petals. Then, I went to Jen’s apartment, where her super let me in. I put roses and candles everywhere—rose petals on the bed, on the doors, on the floor, and a single rose that I set aside to give to Jen when she walked in the door. I dressed in a tuxedo and put on some cheesy Frank Sinatra music that I had burned on a CD. The biggest problem was how to get Jen back to her apartment, as she thought she was picking me up at the airport after work.
I had a great idea. I called her and told her there was something very important I had mailed to the house, and that she needed to get it before she got me. I also told her my flight was delayed, so she couldn’t argue that there wouldn’t be enough time to do that. So she finally said, “Okay, I will go home and stop really fast, and then come pick you up.”
I knew she was home when I heard the keys in the door. She poked her head in and saw me in the tux, the roses, the candles, the whole thing.
“Is this really happening?” she wanted to know.
I got down on one knee, opened the little box with the ring, and asked her to marry me. She quivered for a moment, then said yes! That was it, we were engaged.
In fifteen seconds, she was already on the phone with her mom and Lakshmi, planning the wedding. We hadn’t even had dinner yet. Finally, I coaxed her off the phone and we went out to Morton’s Steakhouse to celebrate.
Jen moved in with me in July 2007, and I really did start showing her the best of Long Island. I took her to the Hamptons, Quogue, Southampton, East Hampton, and Amagansett, specifically, to show her the ocean and the estates. There was also great shopping out there, as there wasn’t a New York designer who didn’t have a store in one Hamptons town or another. There were lots of people around, but this was before the summer season really kicked in, so we didn’t have to fight the crowds. This was Jen’s first time to the Hamptons, and she was duly impressed. I also took her to wineries, the farm stands, and the bakeries on the North Fork. I wined her and dined her at all my favorite restaurants. In the summer, we rented a house four blocks from the ocean, had a few of Jen’s best friends from the ’burgh make the trip, and enjoyed a week on the beach. We were in love.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Jen
Going to the Chapel
AFTER GRADUATING FROM MEDICAL school, I moved to Pittsburgh for my pediatric residency training and then stayed for my fellowship in neonatology at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC). My years in Pittsburgh were probably some of the most tiring and amazing years thus far. I worked hard as a resident at Children’s, overnight calls, sometimes thirty to thirty-four hours straight in the hospital. That was before they had work-hour restrictions limiting medical trainees from working more than eighty hours in a week. I fell in love with medical education and neonatology. I realized that I loved the adrenaline of intensive care, but never wanted a critically ill patient to be bigger than me.
Neonatology seemed to offer the best of both worlds. I decided to stay in Pittsburgh for my fellowship in neonatology because I finally felt at home there. I had developed strong roots. I had also developed close friendships and two of my very closest friends from college were also there for their training: Lakshmi was doing her family medicine residency at UPMC and Suketu was doing obstetrics and gynecology. The city of Pittsburgh was not only easy to live in but the people were all very nice. It had a small-town feel without actually being a small town. During my fellowship I pursued a master of science in medical education and fell in love with health-care simulation as a powerful teaching tool. I knew early on that no matter how much I loved clinical care, there was the distinct and likely possibility that my body would not allow me to practice medicine forever. Intensive care is just that, intensive. As much as I loved it, I knew that I needed a plan B in case my body wore out before my mind did. Education as an emphasis in my career made so much sense. I loved it and found out over time I was not too bad at it, either!
I feel as though my years in Pittsburgh were the years I truly became happy with the life I had created for myself. I loved where I was living, had a robust social life, and loved my career and where I was working. The only thing that had been missing was true love. I finally found it in March 2006 when I met Bill, a little over a year before finishing my fellowship, and by 2008 we were getting married!
I was getting married! My dad told me I was a lucky person to have met Bill, and my mother was almost as happy I was. From the day I started fantasizing about getting married, I knew I wanted to be with someone who truly loved me. My future husband needed to be intelligent, funny, handsome, and kind—and of course treat me like a princess! Not too much to ask! Now I had found my prince charming, Bill!
When I first met Bill, he mentioned that he was always a gentleman, but he was far more than a man who opened doors for me. He’d go out of his way for me in every way he could. When he was living in New York and I lived in Pittsburgh, I’d get chocolates or flowers delivered to my door almost every week. Before we got married, he even bought me a new car. While I think some of that had to do with his embarrassment at being in my cute but slightly dilapidated Kia Sportage, the larger concern was my safety. My Kia had died on the si
de of the road on snowy days in Pittsburgh one too many times for his liking, so he bought me a car—not any car, but a dark blue Audi A4. I went from a Kia to an Audi; he started spoiling me early on in our relationship.
Bill and I initially struggled over a wedding date. He proposed on November 3, 2006. This was during the second year of my fellowship, about nine months after we had officially met. Because I wanted plenty of time to plan our wedding, we decided to wait to get married until after I graduated from my fellowship, which would be in June 2007.
The hardest part about choosing a date was that after I graduated I would need to take my neonatal-perinatal board exam, and I really didn’t want to have to spend the last few months of wedding planning studying for my boards. Because there is only one date every two years that this board exam is given, I had to guess, based on the last cycle, when the next one would be. The last exam had been in the fall of 2006, so I reasoned that if we planned a springtime wedding after I graduated, it would be far enough from my boards for me to be able to enjoy those last four to six months of wedding planning. We choose April 12, 2008. It seemed to be the best day for us, as we knew we might have the wedding in Florida, and not only is April in Florida beautiful, but it is after the craziness of spring break and before the summer thunderstorm and hurricane season. It was also my dad’s birthday, which I thought would make it even more special.
But just to be sure, Bill and I immediately asked my father if he would mind sharing his birthday with our special day, and his response was, “How lucky is that, to be able to share my birthday with my daughter’s wedding day?” So, that was that! April 12, 2008, was going to be the big day.
Life Is Short (No Pun Intended) Page 17