Lunch Date

A couple of weeks ago I started eating my lunch in the main dining room at Hesed with the clients and other volunteers (though I can’t distinguish them from the clients, and indeed, some of them are clients), and not in the staff dining room as I had been. Something about the paper work being easier this way as all the other volunteers eat in the main dining room...and it turns out that I don’t have to pay even the 6 grivnya: I eat for free like all the other volunteers! The food is exactly the same, and it is nothing particularly special, though it is edible.

The first time I went to the dining room, I sat with a man who was sitting all by himself. After briefly introducing myself, just so that he understood that I was an American here for the year volunteering at Hesed, he immediately started talking to/at me, telling me all about his life, his family, his time in the army (he wears his army medals every day)…I have sat with him every time since, which is several times a week (whenever I am at Hesed at lunchtime). He has come to expect to see me at lunch and seems to take great pleasure in having someone to talk to/at. And I really enjoy sitting with him and hearing his stories and seeing how happy it seems to make him to have someone to talk to. I have to admit, he speaks a little softly and rambles, so I don’t understand everything he says, but I seem to be smiling, nodding, and furrowing my brow in sympathy in all the right places. I’m pretty sure he’s told me some of the same stories a couple of times…but whatever makes him happy!

I finally learned his name today. It’s Abraham. Abraham goes to lunch at Hesed everyday. He is 87 years old (I would have guessed late 70s, he looks GOOD for an old Ukrainian, I mean Jewish, man). He lives alone in an apartment near the center of the city. His wife is dead, he has a daughter (I believe…) and she has two sons. They live far away and he never sees them. He talks to them occasionally on the phone but doesn’t think that they are “good boys.” In fact, he seemed to really not like them or is really displeased with them…he may have said it was because they live far away and make no effort to be as involved as a family should be. In short, he is lonely. I am happy to brighten his day.

Abraham, like everyone else in this country, is very concerned that I am not married. They are eager to offer up sons and grandsons…and are then a little disappointed, but also relieved, when I tell them that I have a boyfriend. Today after reassuring Abraham that while no I am not married but do have a boyfriend, he asked, joking a little, “Where do your good looks come from? Your mother or your father?” I laughed and told him they were both very good looking.

Today Abraham told me a little about his wife, and how she was very sick towards the end of her life…some kind of blood disease and she had to have a leg amputated…He told me that good health is very important. Then he told me something that I’m sure I will never forget and hope that will serve as a reminder of all that I have when I’m having a bad day or a frustrating moment (of which there are many here). He said, “If you have health and love, you will be happy.”