35
Mrs. Panim and her son got to the door of Mr. Panim’s home,
and Abraham Lincoln Panim saw the doorbell and pushed its button, which
produced a loud ring.
There was an intercom on the door. After a few seconds, a
voice came through the intercom.
“Who is there?” the voice said.
“It is Mrs. Panim and my son.”
“We were expecting you. OK, I am going to buzz you in.”
The buzz came, and Mrs. Panim turned the doorknob and the
door opened. Both stepped into a small foyer, and they almost immediately saw a
woman with her back turned. The woman was poring over some papers, and Abraham
Lincoln Panim noted that she appeared to be an older woman, short in stature,
with her hair tied up in a bun.
In an instant, the woman put down the papers and turned
toward the mother and son.
“Hello, I am Nurse Stottlemeyer, and I have been taking
care of Mr. Panim for a few years. He has been very, very sick.”
Mrs. Panim gulped, and Abraham Lincoln Panim looked at her
and said in a whisper, “It’s Mrs. Stottle!”
“No, it can’t be,” his mother replied. “She died several
years ago. She just looks like her. Her last name is different.”
“She said Stottlemeyer. Didn’t she tell you that she was ‘Miss
Meyer’ before she got married?”
“Hrrumph!” said the nurse, trying to get the full attention
of Mrs. Panim and her son. “Are you ready to see Mr. Panim now?”
The mother and son quieted down, both shaking their heads
affirmatively.
“Mr. Panim has requested to see you each individually. He
can only see you each for a few minutes. He simply does not have the strength
for any time more. Mrs. Panim, would you like to go in first?”
“Yes,” Mrs. Panim said, still kind of staring at the nurse
as she was led to a room by her. The nurse, who had something of a limp, opened
the door and let her in to speak with her husband alone.
Abraham Lincoln Panim sat down on a couch in a corner of
the foyer, nervously put his hand in his hair, pushing it up in place, and when
the nurse came back into the room, he continued to stare at her.
“Can I help you with anything?” the nurse asked, aware that
she was being stared at.
“No … no … you just look like someone that my mom and I
used to know,” Abraham Lincoln Panim said, staring at the woman’s thick legs.
“No, it can’t be.”
“What can’t be?” the nurse asked.
“Umm … nothing … umm … how do I look?
The nurse hesitated, then said, “You look like an average
person your age,” as she went back looking at her papers.
“No, how do I really look?” Abraham Lincoln Panim asked
again, a little more forceful this time.
The nurse looked up from her papers. “Look, you appear to
be fine to me. You look good enough to see your father, if that is what you are
asking me.”
Abraham Lincoln Panim, looking for a different answer than
he was getting, sat back on the couch, and continued to play with his hair. He
looked around the small room, which was pretty barely furnished, but across the
room, he saw a plaque on the wall. It appeared to have some writing on it, and
not being able to clearly see what the plaque said, he got up from his seat and
walked over to wall where the plaque was.
The nurse looked up from her papers, saw that Abraham
Lincoln Panim had become interested in the plaque, and said, “Yes, I put that
up a year or so ago. It is something I believe in fully, and I hope that
everyone believes in it, to tell you the truth.”
Abraham Lincoln Panim got to the plaque, and read its
inscription to himself:
“Do unto
others as you would have the do unto you … treat other people the way you would
like to be treated yourself.”
