A knowing smile spread across the sick man’s face. “It’s OK,” he said. “Every now and then, I look in the mirror and I get scared too.” He ran his hands over his face and asked, in mock-seriousness, what happened. “I’m getting better though,” he continued. “I just need to take it one day at a time. By the time your Bar Mitzvah rolls around, I should be close to 100 percent.”
“I wish I didn’t have a Bar Mitzvah,” Andy blurted out. He hadn’t meant to confide in his uncle, or in anyone, for that matter, about this, but it slipped out anyway. He expected his uncle would chastise him, tell him how he should look on it as an honor and a privilege. Instead, Uncle Marty said he didn’t want to have his either.