Pat Issarescu, MD--a friend in need and in deed --R.I.P.

ISSARESCU TO THE RESCUE


Reading the obituary in the Journal of Dr. Issarescu who worked for years as an Emergency Room Doctor, I was not surprised to learn that she had a motto as she would  move from one emergency to another  ISSARESCU TO THE RESCUE.

She certainly came to my rescue  on more than one occasion --and not even in the  Emergency room.  I met Pat socially  through the good offices of her sister Anne Kennedy Ilacqua  at marvelous  family get togethers at  Xmas and other occasions. We  often chatted and she  told me of her fascinating marriage to Dr Issarescu who was from Romania.

That fact came to the forefront when I found  myself a little baffled in a terminal in Germany waiting to transfer to a Romanian airline for the final leg of my journey to Romania. Jet-lagged and not reading the perfect German signage, I kept wandering.  Someone finally directed me  through many walkways to the departure area for Romania. As I stood in line exhausted waiting for yet another  seat assignment, I suddenly heard a friendly voice-SPEAKING ENGLISH. 
Is that you, Norma I turned hearing my name and Pat was standing there. 
I am waiting for a seat. I am going to Romania.
Oh, so are we.  But why stand in this line? Come join us in the VIP  Lounge and they will take care of  your seat. I went into a comfortable room with a lavish  buffet on  a central table and chairs and sofas and magazines on tables.

Once I sat and Pat introduced me to her husband, an airline rep came over and took my ticket and assigned  me a  seat. Not in first class, but  very close to it.  What a relief. 

 The flight was brief and easy and when we landed in Bucharest I saw Pat and her husband swept up in an official welcome, and she sent people to help me with my bags and to be sure that someone was waiting for me at the Gate.

There was a delegation waiting from the American consulate because I was there to take up a Senior Fulbright and would  be teaching for a year  in Timisoara, another city in Romania.
I would remain in Bucharest for an orientation for four days with others of that year's Fulbright award winners.

So just  four days later I was taken to the train station in Bucharest and handed over to a porter. At the week-long Country Orientation in Washington,DC,  I had been told to bring cartons of cigarettes to Romania as a way of tipping people there and of obtaining favors.

 So when the porter stowed  my bags over my head, I asked  him to  take the small carry-on  down, and I  fished in it and came  up with two packs of Marlboros. He  smiled with pleasure, but he had seen that I had cartons in that bag and suddenly he would not give the bag back to me. We engaged in a tug of war, and  I am sure I was shouting.  Suddenly a uniformed figure was at the door of the compartment. He  banished the porter and restored my cigarette treasure trove, and then asked me to join the important guests in the  first class compartment near mine. I did and Dear Reader what did I find but Dr. Pat and her husband Dr. Stefan!

They were on their way to Stefan's ancestral village and he had been gifted with a huge picnic  basket of food so that he would not  get hungry in the 2 hour  train ride. We attacked that basket with gusto since there is no food on Romanian trains except for what wandering gypsies bring through to sell when they throng the train at every station stop. So again Pat used her magical powers and appeared in my time of need.
OH STOP you are saying --surely  you knew that  she would be on the same train.
NO I DID NOT KNOW!
I shared only one of Pat's great traits--I also was and am a voracious reader. So when we  met and when we spoke, there was little or no factual  or practical exchange. NO SMALL TALK. We immediately got to the important business of sharing what we were currently reading and described it. As I recall I had spent much of our time on the airplane and in the lounge in Bucharest showing her the paperback I was absorbed in and scared by. It was  INTO THIN AIR an account of the mountain climbing party that had  attempted to scale Mount  Everest and had lost several members of its party including the famous guide. In fact on the train I gave Pat my copy because I had finished  reading it.

Their train stop came up too soon --mine was a few more hours down the line.  I walked with them to the door of the train, and  they were greeted by a welcoming  group that included a small brass band. It seems Stefan was a  close member of the former  Royal Family and was given much respect and acclaim as people from his family's estates stood and sang and bowed before him.  HOW AMAZING IS THAT?

Pat gave me a hug and turned me over to a friendly porter and I went back to my compartment. That was  my last sight of them in Romania.