We laughed. Then they remembered another case, a sad one. A colleague of Pyotr and Mukhitdin decided to have a mole that was irritating him removed from his arm. Mukhitdin tried to talk him out of it, explaining that it was dangerous. The poor man resisted. He died during the surgery – they failed to stop internal bleeding.
Doctor Umarov saw patients in Galina Feodorovna’s small bedroom. I was there as a patient. I saw a list of patients and found my name under number 257.
It seemed to me that he treated us like relatives, always asking about our kids. He even remembered their nicknames – Polvan and Chimchukcha. He was glad to tell us about his grandchildren whom he was proud of. “My grandson, the son of my eldest daughter, won the German language competition so I gave him a present, as I had promised.” The tabib considered the knowledge of foreign languages very important for both cultural and business purposes. He had promised to give a car to whichever of his grandsons could master 3,000 foreign words. And he did… not bad to have a grandfather like him.
We met Mukhitdin Inamovich in Moscow for four years. When everything is all right in one’s life, it seems that it will be that way forever. Troubles arrive unexpectedly. Once, in the winter of 2010, we learned the terrible news from Galina Feodorovna that the tabib’s daughter Dilfusa had been killed in a car accident on Christmas night. She was the eldest of his five daughters, the most beloved, a talented, brilliant person.
Is there anything worse than the grief of losing a child? We suffered, imagining how devastated this person who so close and dear to us was. We were so used to his constant help. And now he needed it himself.
So, after a seven-year break we went back to Uzbekistan. A long line of patients, about 30 people, could be seen at the door of the one-story building of the Railroad Workers Hospital where Mukhitdin’s Tashkent Center was located. There were many women in ethnic silk dresses with long jet-black hair.
On entering the reception area, I saw Mukhitdin at his desk at the back of the office behind a loosely closed curtain, and my heart skipped a beat. The doctor, as always, wore a starched snow-white shirt, his face thoroughly shaven, but what a thin exhausted face it was, and how much gray hair he had.
A woman’s sniffling could be heard from his office. The doctor calmed her down, “Your disease is at the very beginning. We’ll overcome it.” He was calming her down, but how unusually weak his voice was.
That was out last encounter. I will never forget it. I won’t forget our last parting. I hugged the doctor, feeling the warmth of his body. Clinging to him with particular tenderness, I whispered, ”Take good care of yourself.” He patted me on the back…
Yes, our last encounter was sad, as was our visit to Uzbekistan. But during that visit, as in the ones before, there were moments when I rejoiced with all my heart at my encounter with my homeland. It was May, the most beautiful time in Uzbekistan. The greenery of the city, the blossoms and fragrance of its orchards, the outdoor markets piled with vegetables and first fruits. As I went out onto the balcony, I watched the sun rise from behind the peaks of the Tian Shan, covered in snow. What a sight! And again, I remembered Mukhitdin’s words: “Every living thing in nature welcomes the sunrise.” There were swallows and swifts flitting around, crisscrossing the sky. The voices of children could be heard from the yard. Birds were catching insects, children frolicking together at the gate of the kindergarten, and they all seemed to welcome the sunrise…
The sunrise, the birds and the children were forming a beautiful picture of being. This state of bliss gripped me for a few moments, but then my heart sank from the pain again – Mukhitdin… Would he be able to bear that enormous spiritual and physical strain after such a blow? His pupils, hundreds of patients, his enormous work as an herbalist, a researcher, regular trips (once every two weeks) from the Tashkent Center to Namangan…
And then I remembered Mikhail Blay, my mama’s old doctor. Once I found him very ill at his office – he had a weak heart. I asked him why he wasn’t at home. “And who will take care of my patients?” The doctor answered in surprise.
Yes, there is a noble breed of people with special souls, not many of them. They are the best of what mankind has created. They need “to cool one pain" from someone’s life. Otherwise they cannot live.
That’s how the tabib lived, until his heart stopped beating.
In the book about Eastern Medicine and about Mukhitdin Umarov’s place in it, his pupils ranked him on a par with Hippocrates, Galen, and other great physicians. I often remember that when I light a Sabbath candle dedicated to Tabib Mukhitdin Inamovich Umarov. I am proud that this wonderful man was my friend.
The End.
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• Photos – from author’s archives
Photos
Ester with first grandchild Daniel (1988)
First meeting with Doctor Umarov in Namangan (June 1993).
Mukhitdin Umarov is seated second from the right
Doctor with my family during first New York City visit
in 1994
Doctor Umarov in his office
Student studies at the ‘Center for Eastern Medicine’ in
Namangan
Herbal Pharmacy in the ‘Center for Eastern Medicine’
Last meeting with Doctor Umarov (Summer 2010)