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thought of facing Katrina again.
    “Let’s go to your guy first,” I offered. “What’s his name again?”
    “Madhu. Sounds like ‘Mud Who’. His full name is longer, but I can’t remember how to say it.”
    Aaron had met Madhukar Amburi on the previous visit and found him fascinating, if not slightly comical. The door to his room was cracked open a bit, allowing the sound of music to escape from within. It was unlike any music I’d ever heard before. The lyrics were definitely foreign and were sung in a rhythmical chant that throbbed like oriental yodeling.
    We knocked hard several times, but the volume of his music was too high for our knocking to be heard. Aaron spoke loudly through the crack.
    “Hello? Madhu? Are you in there?”
    The music went silent.
    “Ohmyyes. Mostdefinitely. Iamverymuchhere. Constantlysoinfact.” The words raced out in a phonetic blur.
    “What did he say?” I whispered.
    Aaron shook his head and whispered back, “Dunno. He talks
really
fast. It takes a few minutes to catch on.” Aaron tried speaking through the crack again. “Uh, can we come in?”
    “Absolutely,” he replied in a flash. Madhu spoke faster than my brain could comprehend. “Ofcourse youcancomein. Mydoor isalwaysopen asyoucansee. Butwhoareyou exactly? ThatiswhatIamwondering.”
    We assumed that all of those words boiled down to “yes” so we pushed the door open and stepped inside. The boy sat at a small desk near the bed. He had a lanky build with dark olive skin and jet black hair. His deep brown eyes reminded me of Dr. Ringle, for they radiated when he smiled.
    Following brief and somewhat misunderstood introductions, we spent a good portion of the next thirty minutes listening to the ebb and flow of Madhu’s amazing vernacular. Within a few minutes my ears adjusted to the inflections and timing of his speech, allowing me to catch at least the gist of what he was talking about.
    Madhu was originally from Delhi, India, but had moved with his family to the United States when he was eight. He was a wiry ball of energy who never stopped smiling and seemed to know something clever about everything. I liked him right off and found myself drawn to his amiable personality.
    Most remarkable to me was how uncommonly optimistic Madhu was, even about his medical condition. He had been brought to the hospital just one month earlier after tests for liver cancer came up positive. The disease had not spread beyond the liver so there was hope of recovery if the doctors could find a liver donor in time for him to receive a transplant. Time, however, was of the essence because his liver was beginning to show serious signs of failure. Without a new liver within the next few months, Madhu’s chances of recovery diminished significantly.
    Since my brother and I were at the hospital in conjunction with the holiday season, our conversation with Madhu eventually landed on the subject of Christmas. It was a topic that evoked strong opinions from our new Indian friend even though he had never celebrated the holiday.
    “The fact of the matter is,” he said as matter-of-factly as he could, “that most of the Christian world does not even understand what they are celebrating at Christmas time. According to everything I’ve read, Christmas is, at its heart, about Jesus Christ. And yet Santa Claus appears to be the primary figure celebrated in practice. Does that not seem strange to you? It does to me, but I’m not a Christian so my point of view may be skewed. Can you set me straight?”
    Aaron tried to respond, but it was hard to argue with Madhu’s reasoning. “Well,” he said, “Santa Claus was . . . a saint.” By the look on his face, I surmised that the wheels spinning in my brother’s head were trying hard to get some sort of traction for wherever he was going next.
    “Yeah, a saint,” he continued. “He’s Saint Nick, right? And everyone knows that saints are Christians who do good things, and . . . and the good