Dynamite's Lifetime Premiere: Tuesdays with Harold

"Anthropomorphism," my sister stated triumphantly, as if she were a contestant in a children's spelling bee and about to enunciate each letter of the word with confidence and bravado. "Um hmm. You heard me. Anthropomorphism."

Seeing as I was standing in the check-out line at the grocery store with my requisite four cans of dog food and all the fixings for make-it-yourself pizza, I thought it best to congratulate my sister for her "keen insight" and tell her that she "nailed it" - even though she was dead wrong.

A more correct word to describe the psychological behavior I may or may not have been exhibiting during our phone conversation just minutes earlier would be projection.

To "anthropomorphize" (if that's even a word) is to attribute human characteristics to a non-human being or thing. For example, if I said, "My cat Sugar rolled her eyes in disgust and embarrassment throughout the vice presidential so-called 'debate' due to a certain female candidate's sheer inability to intelligently or knowledgeably address even one issue of national regard," then I would be attributing human characteristics to my cat. An-thro-po-morph-ism.

However, if I said, "My cat Sugar is terribly despondent and afraid for the future of this great country after watching a winking politician be congratulated by the masses for her ability to sidestep direct questions and regurgitate scripted lines of gobbledy gook," then I would be projecting human thoughts and feelings onto my cat. Pro-jec-tion.

[My cat, mind you, would like to add that she is doubly disturbed by the media's kid-glove treatment of a certain female political candidate, but rather than belabor the issue until her fur stands on end, she'd rather curl up on the sofa with a good book while sipping a stiff gin martini - extra olives, por favor.]

Uncannily perceptive cats aside, I am superbly blessed to have a sister like I do - the kind who is quick to put me in my place when necessary [very, very rarely] and one who can restore my good humor with her unique and hilarious brand of snip and snark. She's a funny one, that Dr. No.

She's the kind of sister who can help you turn your life into a Lifetime movie, if only in your head.

"I see that your screenplay is coming along great," she says, snickering just a little after I tell her about my week, a week in which I revisited some very emotional memories, raw emotions surrounding the birth of my son, when inspired to do so by a Boston man I met. A very special man.

"It should be called, 'Tuesdays with Harold,'" she says, deadpan. "Make sure you get someone good to play me."

I can't help but laugh at my sister and my melodramatic self, even as tears filled my eyes just thinking about the unlikely connection I had with someone I met by happenstance, by fate of circumstance. In an instant, transported by this sage of a man, I morphed from small-talking social gadfly to deep-talking real person, sharing honest thoughts and painful memories about things that matter most in my life.

And it was this relatively brief moment of connection that prompted me this week to pry open the Pandora's box of emotion I had tucked away and press on the nerve a bit.

And interestingly enough, while I've been pressing on this ultra-sensitive nerve and allowing myself to embrace the fear I've swallowed over and over again, one of my son's local doctors, an ophthalmologist extraordinaire, made the suggestion that I might want to touch base once again with another ophthalmologist extraordinaire - seeing as it's been years. Five and a half years, to be exact. It's been five and a half years since this other ophthalmologist extraordinaire, a most masterful and kind man - a sage of a doctor, a Boston man - saved my son's left eye.

I didn't hesitate to call him, and curiously enough, he answered the phone.

"Of course I remember you," he said in his soft-spoken way, adding, "You're not easy to forget."

It was my interpretation of this line that caused my sister to search for the word to accurately describe what she thought I was doing. "What's it called when you attribute your own thoughts and feelings to someone else?" she asked. "Personification? Transference?"

I had just shared how touched I was by the thought that this special doctor remembered my son, no doubt because of the urgency and magnitude of his medical situation at the time. In my mind, he recognized his critical role in my son's life, knowing that my son's eye - his vision, his future - rested in his hands.

Not one for Lifetime movies herself, my sister suggested otherwise. "Look, you guys might have been 'not easy to forget' for other reasons, you know," she said. "Maybe your son soiled his diaper in the operating room and made a memorable mess, or maybe he cried too much? It sounds to me like you're just - what's the word? - you're applying your own feelings to him, and you could be way off."

Perhaps.

Perhaps I'm projecting. That's the word. Pro-ject-ing.

I guess I'll know for sure when this Boston man to whom we are all forever indebted first lays his eyes upon our now tall, rosy-cheeked, stringbean of a boy with wonderfully healthy, unique and special eyes - the boy he only knew as a chubby-cheeked blob of a toddler seeming lifetimes ago.

But one thing I already know for sure is that we wouldn't be re-connecting with this Boston man were it not for another Boston man, equally special, equally sage, who got me thinking and feeling again in the first place.

Yeah. Tuesdays with Harold it is.