A homeless man is involved in an accident and taken to the hospital where he falls in love with the doctor who cares for him. To win her heart, he pretends to be something he’s not.
The last thing Joseph Kinkaid remembered was a screech of brakes and a dazzling light before a huge force sent him flying. When he opened his eyes, a face was hovering over him, a sweet face.
The face said, “Can you hear me? You’re at St. Catherine’s Hospital. You’ve been in an accident but you’re going to be alright.” Then a gentle hand touched his face. It had been years since anyone had touched him with such kindness.
Joseph’s parents had died in a car accident when he was just fourteen, and two years later, he ran away from foster care and came to Chicago looking for his mother’s younger brother.
He found his uncle and quickly realized the man could hardly care for himself, let alone take on the responsibility of a teen. So Joseph started working odd jobs, sleeping in shelters when he could, on the streets when he couldn’t.
It wasn’t an easy life, especially in the icy Illinois winters, but somehow he survived the pitiless life on the streets for nearly ten years. Joseph had a plan. He’d been saving every cent he’d earned, and whatever it took, he was going to college.
Now he was flat on his back in a hospital, and it felt as if he was badly hurt. There were several people around him, two of them looked like nurses, and they were talking to the sweet-faced woman, calling her ‘doctor.’
Then someone slipped a needle into Joseph and he found himself drifting away. When he woke he was in a hospital bed, on an IV, and surrounded by beeping machines. He tried to sit up.
“Please!” he gasped. “Take this off me!”
A kindly older woman came along, hushing him. “Now then, calm down. You’re safe. The doctor saved your life, you know!”
“The doctor?” Joseph asked. “What is her name?”
Doctor Elizabeth Carson,” the nurse said. “And now I think you need to sleep!”
Joseph was in the hospital a few more days, and he saw Elizabeth Carson several times. He couldn’t believe this lovely woman was touching him without apparent revulsion. He knew what he looked like, with his matted hair and long beard, but she only seemed to see the man beneath.
Lies are a shaky foundation on which to build a life.
When he was strong enough to walk, Joseph escaped from the hospital. He had no insurance and not enough money to pay for the treatment he’d received. But over the next few weeks, he couldn’t get the lovely doctor out of his mind.
He had to see her again, but how? Then he had an idea. He dipped into his precious savings and got himself a pair of jeans and a decent sweater. He went to the barber and got himself a haircut and a shave.
A look in the mirror showed him a handsome face with sad eyes. Would Elizabeth like him? That afternoon, Joseph slipped into the hospital and stole some scrubs. He saw a stethoscope lying on a desk and slung it over his neck.
He walked into the ER and saw Elizabeth there. A nurse he remembered was scolding her, “You haven’t eaten anything in 12 hours, doctor!”
“OK, Hannah,” Elizabeth said with a tired smile. “I’ll go down to the cafeteria and have a sandwich.” She headed for the door, and Joseph followed her to the cafeteria.
He bought himself some soup and walked up to where Elizabeth was sitting alone. “Hi!” he said with his best smile. “Mind if I sit down?”
Not at all,” Elizabeth smiled back. So he sat down and started casually telling Elizabeth he was a first-year resident working to become a pediatrician. He chatted about the city and asked her about herself.
Over the next two weeks, he ‘ran’ into Elizabeth several times at the cafeteria, and worked up the courage to ask her out. To his surprise, she actually agreed. “I hope you don’t mind a burger and fries,” Joseph said smiling. “As an intern with BIG student loans, it’s all I can afford!”
But Elizabeth didn’t mind at all, and their first date was quick, followed by many more. Joseph was in love, and the fact that he was lying to Elizabeth was beginning to wear on him. He wanted to tell her the truth, but he didn’t want to lose her…
He arranged to meet at their favorite diner, determined to tell Elizabeth everything, but as he looked across the table at the woman he loved, he lost his nerve. Then fate threw him a curveball.
A desperate voice cried out, “My baby! She’s choking!”
Elizabeth and Joseph jumped to their feet. At the table next to theirs, a woman was holding a two-year-old who was red in the face and gasping for breath. Joseph was there in seconds and carefully put his arms around the baby.
He still remembered the Heimlich maneuver from the First Aid workshop, but this baby was so tiny! Then he pressed carefully, and the child coughed up a chunk of a hamburger bun.
The baby started breathing normally and crying, and the mom gave Joseph a grateful kiss. Elizabeth grinned at him. “Hey, it looks like I have competition, doc!”
Joseph took a deep breath. It was now or never. “Elizabeth,” he said, “I’ve been lying to you. I’m not who you think I am. I’m not a doctor…”
Elizabeth picked up her hot dog and took a big bite. “I know,” she said calmly.
“…when you do know what I am, you won’t want me around…” he continued, then he realized what Elizabeth had said. “You KNOW?”
Elizabeth nodded: ” I know. I recognized you straight away. I will never forget the man I stitched up. I’ve been waiting for you to tell me.”
You know and you still went out with me?” he asked.
Elizabeth smiled, “I love you for who you are, Joseph, not what you are. What we are changes throughout our lives, but we are who we are, always.”
Elizabeth and Joseph stayed together. Joseph got himself a job at the hospital as an orderly and started taking his high school exams at night school. Three years later, he enrolled as a medical student with a full scholarship. His lie had become as true as his love for Elizabeth.
What can we learn from this story?
- It’s who we are that matters, not what we are. Elizabeth saw the good in Joseph, and it mattered more than his homelessness.
- Lies are a shaky foundation on which to build a life. Joseph realized that he loved Elizabeth too much to continue lying to her
