LONDON  PART THREE: 17 YEARS LATER AND THE UNEARTHING OF PAIN
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> > “He regifted!!!”
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> > BY BRIAN O’KEEFE
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> > “Just do as I say, Brian!” said my dear old friend Mimi Mouakad, a woman who I hadn’t seen in more than 20 years and a rather worldly yet private person who at one point was Garrick Utley’s personal assistant and researcher at NBC News.  He was Chief Foreign Correspondent and I felt really unworldly, kinda dumb and very, very  short whenever I was around him….though my inner Mary Claude would get rather excited.  I met St. Mimi of Greenwich in 1985 when I was an intern at NBC’s New York Bureau.
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> >>There I was in one of Garrick’s old stomping grounds:  London, my other hometown. “Get in a taxi…they are expecting you. Don’t ask questions. My sister has arranged for them to look at your head,” she announced, ever pleasant.  I was wrapped in gauze from the eyelids up..after being violently attacked by one… perhaps two faceless bandits that  I never did see after following me from a central London ATM the very night I arrived to produce Barbara Walters segments for Good Morning America’s Wedding of the Century coverage.  Discovered on the ground bleeding by a lovely couple, I had an emergency stitch up of an ugly gash smack dab in the middle of my forehead. I may seem to be glossing over this horrible episode in my life that actually, in a Pandora’s box kind of way, wreaked a terribly destructive and painful and, worse, lonely period in my life. I never did deal with that pain…both physical and emotional until recently. (This blog is a personal gift to myself in that recovery.)

 I was neurotic as usual and my lovely friend Mimi through Facebook messages and texts reached out to make sure I was OK and to have me looked at by her sister Joanie’s family physician.  Incidentally, Joanie is Mika’s mother…Mika, the British-Lebanese singer who had a huge hit with “Princess Grace” a few years back, my inner Dominick Dunne reminds me.
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> > I was treated as a VIP…or as a FOMM… a  Friend Of Mika’s Mother, so I thought.  Little did I know who these people were. (You’ll have to wait a few paragraphs for the reveal). At the Harley Street (That’s where all the fancy schmancy doctors in London are) office I waited in their luxurious waiting room not even a minute.   Joanie’s physician was tied up so his younger practice partner saw me.  A good-looking youngish- looking doctor saw me, just back from a skiing holiday.  He traveled in high circles ( little did I know).
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> >  He told me that my emergency room casualty surgeon had done a terrific job with very tight stitches and that “you may not even have much of a scar after it heals”.  I thanked him for his post-surgery opinion and assessment and headed out.  
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> I went to check out with the receptionist and was reminded I was in the United Kingdom, land of free medical care.  But even in fancy schmancy offices, I would assume there is some sort of co-pay just to help them pay their rent on Harley Street.   The woman waved me away, “everything is taken care of.”  St Mimi or St. Joanie –or Queen Elizabeth?   “Be glad you got in to us today, we won’t be here tomorrow”, she told me.
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> “Why?”, I asked.  “We are all going to the wedding,” she responded.   Ummm, THE  wedding …the wedding of the century..THAT one?!  I was flown from Los Angeles to New York…and then New York to London to cover as a journalist.  “William’s wedding?!, I asked dumbfounded.   Yes.
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> >  That’s right….The youngish physician was once Prince William’s and the older doctor who was too busy to see me…was once Princess Diana’s. They and the ladies in the office were invited to the Wedding of The Century and were on those special busses of family and friends brought to the Abbey.  And Fergie wasn’t invited? … I thought.    Seventeen years after his mother’s death William remembered them and invited them. How cool is that William?  A bit like his mother I’m told….and if you think about it..he spent a lot of time with her, during her drama but also during his formative years.
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> >Back to St. Mimi who I realize I never really thanked enough for being so caring.  (Thank you, Mimi).  She also assigned me to a doctor’s visit and consultation by a top New York City plastic surgeon, on my way home from London.  Again, no charge and we weren’t in London anymore…but Park Avenue.
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> >In London,  I didn’t have too much to do, since the tape pieces were completed in New York before we left.  Even with gauze on my head and walking around with a head injury, it was so exciting and reminiscent of so many previous visits to London during some very newsy times.  When London is energized, its much more beautiful.
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> I even heard from St. Judith of Orlando. You remember her, the 48 Hours senior producer with a big heart …and the creator of “48”’s occasional premium edition: Live to Tell.  Judy sent me a flower arrangement that was probably worth three hundred dollars or more translated from the exhorbitant pound Sterling, of which I witnessed parity in the Fall of 1984, myself a student in Northern England.  I’m not really much of a flower guy and my room looked like a messy hospital room anyway so I told the bellman to bring them to Ms. Walters room instead.
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> Not a minute passed. Ring, ring (in a British accent) It was Barbara Walters on the phone.  You don’t forget phone calls like those.   “Brian, you’re hit in the head and you’re walking around working with gauze on your head..and you send MEEE flowers!?,” She exclaimed in her distinct New York semi-bark.  “Well, Barbara, I must confess something.”   “What , Brian?”  “Barbara, I re-gifted.”   “He regifted!!!” …dissolving into a roaring deep laughter to whomever was with her.   She couldn’t stop laughing…and hung up the phone.
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