A Tale of Two Wanderers Who Met, Then Met, and Then, Met Again: Or “Life Is but a Bowl of Cherries”

By Thomas C. Jones MD

This is a true love story, with the addition of some fantasy parts mainly related the role of a saint, St. Antonio of Padua, who has been a guide to the two lovers throughout the years.

The story begins at Allegheny College in 1957 where Thomas and Madeleine meet. They become close, but then time and distance intervene to separate them for twenty years. The story resumes in 1977 with a single telephone call, then a dinner together, then a week in Portugal followed by endless travel between Switzerland and the USA and trips together all over the world.

Thomas describes his years of medical research, military life, clinical practice, teaching, and loneliness in the years between the above dates. But, with that simple telephone call, everything changes. The love story begins. Thomas and Madeleine are married in 1985 then they settle in to the companionship phase of their life.

Thomas closes the love story with some poems, nursery rhymes, and music he wrote during the many years of this adventure. All along, St. Antonio does his best to keep their love alive, and Thomass father, who had died in 1960, makes a small but timely intervention in New York City in 1962. St. Antonio is hoping that this story will help others to look at their own close relationships and perhaps call on him to help them along the way.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Sep 9, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524662363

Thomas C. Jones MD

Thomas C. Jones, MD (author) is emeritus adjunct professor of medicine at Weill-Cornell Medical College, New York. He lives with his wife in Basel, Switzerland. He has had an extensive career in medicine, clinical practice, research, and education. He trained in infectious diseases and international medicine. He has written three other books, been a medical journal editor, and written over two hundred scientific articles. This is his first fictional love story.

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2016 Thomas C. Jones MD. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 09/09/2016

ISBN: 978-1-5246-6237-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5246-6236-3 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

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Contents

Foreword

Chapter 1 Reflections in a Mirror

Chapter 2 Recalled to Life

Chapter 3 A Strange Breath of Air

Chapter 4 An Invitation to Dance

Chapter 5 Parted by a Small Ocean

Chapter 6 A Life of Medicine Begins

Chapter 7 The Trip–Close become Closer

Chapter 8 Parted by a Large Ocean

Chapter 9 A New Life, but a Strange Mystery, begins in New York

Chapter 10 A War in Vietnam

Chapter 11 A New and Exciting, but Lonely, World of Science

Chapter 12 A Phone Call from Zurich

Chapter 13 A Beautiful Day

Chapter 14 A Week of Introspection

Chapter 15 A Fishing Village called Nazare

Chapter 16 Parting in Lisbon

Chapter 17 Parted by the Tiniest Ocean

Chapter 18 Together at Last (Story Totally Fiction—but Exciting!)

Chapter 19 Epilogue; The True Ending–just as Exciting

Poetry

Thomas Jones

A Collection of Children’s` Nursery Rhymeswith Special Welsh Endings

About the Author

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Figure 1. A vacation trip to Wales 2010

Foreword

She was 3 years old in 1940 when the air raid sirens started in Basle, Switzerland. They signalled potential danger, perhaps from a German invasion, or from British aircraft. Her name was Madeleine, and her home remains, as it was then, in Basle. She endured the frequent trips to the basement of her parents` apartment building until 1945 when she reached her 8th birthday, guided by her brother, who was 2 years older than she, or by her mother. Her father had to do civil defence work, so he was out in the street checking on sand bag distribution, or the availability of emergency services. She recalls the fear of the unknown and the confusion as each siren began. During the last 2 years from 1943 to 1945 she must have known, though she does not now recall, that the sirens mainly alerted citizens to potential damage by bombs from American airplanes. She recalls only a few times when the windows panes shook, or when there were explosions in the distance.

One has to wonder how this experience might affect a little, sensitive girl. Did the experience drive her to study languages, particularly English and French, even harder? She was already fluent in Italian (as her father was Italian, and she by Swiss law was therefore also Italian although born in Basle), Swiss-German, and German. One has to wonder why she went to England to study for 2 years at the age of 16, then to Paris for 2 years, and then to apply for a scholarship, and be accepted, at Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania where she received a BA degree in 1959. It was at Allegheny in 1957 that she met Thomas Jones, a small town boy from Ohio who had never travelled out of the USA. Thomas also experienced WWII, but in Pasadena, California as his father was a physician in the Air Force. Their fear was from a Japanese invasion not from American bombers. Thomas went on to medical school, then he also served his 2 years in the Air Force at Clark Air Force base in the Philippines supporting the troops in Vietnam. Though Thomas and Madeleine were close during their years at Allegheny, they went separate ways after she returned to Switzerland. It was over 15 years later, in 1977, when Thomas visited her at her home in Basle during a break in a medical conference that he was attending in Zurich. They had both had some unhappiness in their personal lives, but after they met again and for the next 35 years they were to be a story of unity. In 1985 they married and Thomas moved to Basle to start a new career, one quite different from his position in academic medicine at Cornell Medical College in New York.

Thomas looks upon his role as the protector of a not-so-young anymore little girl (they are both now 75 years old). Maybe, Madeleine looks to this big, not-so-young American as her protector, as one to keep the sirens quiet, as one who might keep American pilots from accidentally dropping bombs on her home. We will never know the deep psychological effects of such an experience, but for Thomas, if the fears of a little girl age 3-8 led her to Allegheny College, then WWII, with all its destruction, was a cloud with a silver lining.

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Figure 2. Medina Ohio 1957

You will almost certainly ask, right at the beginning of this adventure, why Santo Antonio of Padua was asked involved with the tale of these two wandering people. Well, like all things, it is partly by accident, and partly because Thomas and Madeleine stood in my church, Santo Antonio de Se, in the city where I was born in 1195. They had heard about me–they had heard that I was considered to be the patron saint of brides. They had also heard that when few were listening to what I had to say, I would preach to the fish and animals -—thus, I became the patron saint of wildlife. Most important perhaps, not expressed by these two, I was also the patron saint of things that had been lost.

For these reasons, perhaps, they stood in my church. They did not pray, neither was any good at that activity. As reported in the chapter, Recalled to Life, Thomas simply said while standing with Madeleine in my church in Lisbon in 1977, Tony, if there is anything you can do to watch out for her and protect our love–well, all I can say is that I would appreciate it a lot.

They were both unaware that, following my duties as a patron saint, I was fully aware of their complex tale of wandering. It was not entirely by accident they were standing there asking for my help. They already had been receiving it for some time!

St. Antonio was surprised, however, over 30 years later, to be asked to be a part of the tale so well known to him–—after all he is a patron saint of brides, animals, fish and things lost. He has taken to the task gladly and he has been rewarded each day with the joy of reliving these remarkable feelings and events.

Chapter 1

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Reflections in a Mirror

H is reflection in the tiny mirror on the wall of that dimly lit bathroom yielded more the appearance of age than youth, more of experience than naïveté, a reflection of one who has seen both happiness and sorrow, one who has seen the outside of the world not only its quiet interior. Indeed, the reflection was more like that of Robinson Crusoe after years at sea than of a New York physician in his early forties. Three months before a friend had spoken of her feelings of anxiety as she watched this man consumed for days in that Daniel Defoe classic, enveloped as if called to studies by some stern and unknown professor. Why had he selected that book to read on a completely quiet and relaxed period of vacation? Why had he found himself reading it so intently? Why did that book raise such a feeling of fright in his perceptive friend? Now, three months later, the answers were written clearly in that tiny mirror. Preparations for a long and lonely journey had been completed, his voyage had begun. Already in the reflection he saw the journey was