(revised on the First Day of Elul 5775 . . . 16 August 2015)
While I was working as a pharmacy technician in Sacramento, Bruce Cohen was a patient who tried my patience.
This hunched over man, with his fist clenched tight to his chest, was ornery, gruff and angry in almost all circumstances. I learned that he had suffered a massive stroke in 1996 at the age of 36. He had few words - possibly 100 - in his vocabulary. He could no longer read or write - he has Aphasia. He had been born and raised in Los Angeles to Jewish parents and was raised in a kosher home. When Bruce was 15, his parents divorced and soon thereafter his mother died of lung cancer. Bruce became a "juvenile delinquent" and his father gave him the option to join the military or go to "juvenile hall". Bruce chose the Army. While there he fell into addictive behaviors including alcoholism and drug use.
As a heavy user of "crank" (a low purity, crystallized Methamphetamine), Bruce suffered a hemorrhagic stroke and he lay in a coma for six months. When he awoke he was paralyzed on the right side, could not speak and could not walk. Most remarkably, he did not know who he was.
By the time I met Bruce in 2001, he was able to walk and talk again. He was living alone in a low-rent apartment, working at Burger King and Toys 'R Us doing menial jobs. He couldn't read or write, which limited his ability to function in society. He rode a bus wherever he went and it is there that I saw him most frequently.
In the beginning, I found Bruce to be annoying, aggravating and downright miserable to associate with. After a few years I became more capable of tolerating him. Occasionally, we would see each other on the bus and would acknowledge each other on the days Bruce remembered he knew me. I continued to respect his efforts to overcome the obstacles of living with the limitations of his handicaps but in all honestly, I would generally avoid interaction, as he frequently appeared to be angry and surly.
Over the next three years, I began to notice a softening and a kindness develop in him. I didn't try so hard to avoid him. He began to encourage me when he would see me in a depressed state of mind.
In the summer of 2004, I encountered Bruce at a bus stop and we talked as we waited for a very late bus. He shared that he was doing all right but was beginning to consider finding himself a wife to help him. Bruce had relinquished his financial affairs to SSA appointed administrators and they did not allow him many choices.
He said, "Dad said I should go back to the synagogue and meet people so I am. I'm trying to find a good Jewish wife who can help me with these things."
I chuckled and responded, "Seems we're in about the same boat. I'm looking for a good Mormon husband to help me with things!"
Shortly after that meeting - it seemed that Bruce was more frequently on my morning bus. When I was getting on the bus to head for work, he was getting off that same bus to go to his job.
One morning, as Bruce got off the bus, he handed me a yellow piece of paper on which he'd written his name and number. He beamed and said "That's my number" and he asked if I'd call him.
I took the paper . . . verging on the edge of confusion and consternation and stepped on the bus. I looked up to show my pass to the bus driver and turned to take my seat. My spiritual eyes were opened and for a brief moment . . .
. . . I was standing before an exalted or perfected Bruce Cohen . . . and his appearance was breathtakingly perfect. My gaze paused on his glory and it took me a moment to recognize that Bruce was standing at the right hand of God . . . and I was being told that Bruce was mine if I'd have him.
Though, perhaps the words were "take this man unto yourself".
When the vision closed, I took my seat . . . slumped in exhaustion yet exhilerated that I had received the choice of my Lord for the remainder of my existence . . . for eternity.
My mind was racing . . . as I quickly rehearsed all that could . . . should . . . and would come from this moment. The next step in the story was in my hands and I began to consider making the phone call that Bruce had requested.
When should I call? What would I say? If I said, "HI, this is Sharon" would he know who I was? How embarrasing that would be. I shouldn't call.
I couldn't. I imagined the conversation and the difficulty he would have just trying to identify who was calling. I knew of nothing I could say that would help him remember who I was. He never had learned my name. I'd never told him, he couldn't read my name badge and now years had passed. He was accustomed to living in a world of nameless friends and strangers.
I had learned that he could read numbers enough to place phone calls, find the right bus and even find addresses. So, I decided to slip him a note when we crossed paths at the bus stop again. I was in the process of addressing little children's Valentine cards to share with my office-mates. I took one of those juvenile cards and wrote a little note with my number on the back.
The next day, as he stepped from the bus, I gave him the Valentine's card.
His eyebrows raised, eyes wide open, his head dropped and he stared at it in his hand. He then looked at me completely bewildered and ashamed.
"I can't read", he said, seeming humiliated because he didn't know if that would be all right with me. I watched fear, hope, despair and anticipation cross his face in milliseconds.
"I know." I responded with a smirk on my lips and a twinkle in my eyes. "But you CAN read numbers. That's mine. You call me!"
Two days later, he did and, after identifying himself, got straight to the point.
"You're a church lady, aren't you?"
Bruce's question was charming.
"If you mean am I a Christian? Yes, I'm a Christian. Why?"
"Well. My mom came to me in a dream. She's dead, you know. She died in 1975. My mom told me to ask you about your church. She said your church has what our family needs to be saved. Do you know what she's talking about?"
Of course, I did! As a Mormon, I believe that church members can offer the blessings of salvation to deceased ancestors by performing the necessary ordinances vicariously. I had done the work for ancestors myself but I had never personally had anyone visit from beyond the veil to request that their work be done. Fortunately, the magnificence of the question did not render me speechless.
We talked for hours, sharing about ourselves. He talked of his commitment to Alcoholics Anonymous, the twelve step program, and The Big Book. He explained what he had done for the 'steps' that required repentance and restitution. He spoke of his commitment to progress, to service and of his devotion to God, and to prayer. He had spent seven years focusing his energies on self improvement, much of it in response to his personal conversations with God.
He became curious about my commitment to the gospel, to repentance, to progress, and to my hopes for eternal exaltation. I was engrossed in a personal improvement program and it monopolized the description of myself. What I was saying was so familiar to him. He could remember learning similar things in AA. His curiosity grew to the extent that he accepted my invitation to meet the Mormon missionaries.
He agreed that they could come to his apartment if I would join them to act as translator. When the elders arrived they began the first discussion with a question.
"So, Bruce. Tell us what you know about God. Who is He?"
And Bruce, the Jew, responded, "Oh - that's easy. He's the guy with the holes in his hands."
It was obvious by the way that he spoke that he had actually "met" God or conversed with Him. He had seen the Holes in His hands.
When we asked what he knew of the "guy with holes in His hands", he told us that He was the only man who could understand him when he woke up from the coma - He was the only guy Bruce could understand, too. Bruce shared that when he did as the "Guy with holes in His hands" told him, "everything worked out right". But, when Bruce did what Bruce wanted to do, it all went wrong.
Bruce shared more of the story like this:
When I had my stroke, I had to start going to places for school. And as I was walking to go to school I had to turn around because I thought somebody was talking to me and there was nobody there.
And I turned around and I started walking back to Easter Seals in the area where I was at and again ... it happened again. And I had to turn around and I tried to find out who it was that was talking to me. And I didn't know who it was.
And then as I was walking further to Easter Seals, all of a sudden God smacked me in my head and said "This is God, Bruce. Pay Attention" and He helped me to understand.
Bruce shared that he learned to pray at AA. He did as he was asked and prayed frequently. He discovered that he could hear answers to his every question whenever he "shut up and listened". When Bruce speaks, people usually have a difficult time understanding him. He has aphasia. But he was always understood when he prayed. He learned to trust the answers. He knew that he was talking to God and he knew that God was answering. He knew what God wanted him to do and he was doing the best he could.
Everything developed quickly from there. Within six weeks of giving me that little yellow piece of paper - with his name and number - he was baptized on March 26, 2005. On March 27th, Easter Sunday, he was confirmed and ordained to the Aaronic Priesthood in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. More importantly, that same day, Bruce proposed marriage. On April 15th, 2005 we were married.
In 2011, Bruce came to me as I arrived home and told me that God had told him we had to move to Nauvoo.
I blurted out. "Do you even know where Nauvoo is?"
It was a reasonable question as Bruce is not able to read anything about church history, had never left California and had little comprehension of American geography.
"No. But God says we have to go there."
He prayed for a timetable and God gave us five months to organize ourselves and move to Nauvoo. With the help of incredible people in and out of the church and all around the globe, the way was paid, a job and a home secured. We arrived in Nauvoo in May of 2011.
