Grateful To Have Come This Far

On this chilly, breezy, sunny Thanksgiving morning, my gratitude list is topped by the mundane: I'm grateful to have power. Out here in the country, trees are plentiful and as you can see in the photo (pardon last winter's snow), they sometimes lean rather precariously close to the power lines. These particular ones are New England White Pines and are some of the oldest trees in the area, dating from the time of the Revolution. I'm very happy they resisted the forces of Nature once again and stood firm in the face of high winds.

I'm also grateful the hayfield wasn't completely under water when the dogs and I went out for their morning business. It rained yesterday, in case wherever you are isn't close to where I am and you came through the day dry. It rained enough that the Saco River estuary I call a stream, flirted with overflowing onto the west side of the field. It didn't and we only tramped through shallow ice-encrusted puddles instead of an ankle-deep pond.

Lately, the awareness I've completed medical school creeps up on me at odd times and I feel incredibly grateful. Watching 60 Minutes the other night, the lead story concerned veterans in treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder. If you happened to see it, too, you may recall one of them saying he missed the camaraderie, the feeling of brotherhood, that developed within his unit. It was a closeness he was certain he'd never feel again, a closeness you had to experience to understand. I immediately identified with what he was saying, having gone through my own version alongside the members, especially, of my entering medical school class.

Maybe it's because I'm slightly older or prone to reflection. Maybe it's because it took me so long and entailed so much to become a medical student and then remain one to the end. Maybe it's none of these. I do know that because of all we shared, I'm not the same person who walked into our first year classroom in August 2006. Looking back, I was insecure, unsuspecting, and thoroughly wet behind the ears. So we all seemed, one way or another. We grew up together, facing death in Gross Anatomy and crawling on our bellies across a no-man's land strewn with disease indices and day-long exams, the like of which we couldn't ever have imagined.

I'm not sure whether it's the nature of our experience or the company we keep in the midst of it. For me, the company was as important as the landscape in which we found ourselves and found each other. Sitting in my comfortable chair with one dog stretched between my legs and the other curled up beside us, looking back on it all is a luxury I once only dreamed about. Now I dream about those who struggled by my side and I'm grateful to have come this far.


(Photo copyright 2013 by the author, all rights reserved)

The Liberty Bell: Just the Two of Us

Well, I did it again, said I'd talk about one thing and neglected it for another. Yesterday's post was supposed to be about Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell, but reading over it, I'm darned if I can find any reference to a bell. What is it they say about good intentions? 

I suppose, without realizing it, the omission was intentional. Independence Hall was the main attraction and my primary reason for driving downtown in the first place. I really didn't think about seeing the Liberty Bell, despite all the times I've watched National Treasure (2004). It simply didn't cross my examination-addled mind.

That's the thing about medical boards exams, if I've never mentioned it before. They're exhausting. Whether they test your command of first year science material, second year disease processes, or physical exam skills, by the time you've finished, you've got every reason to be justifiably weary. Whoever first described them as "marathons" was exactly right. They feel like 26 hard-fought miles whose successful completion depend as much on adequate sleep, nutrition, and psychological preparation, as upon whatever study and skills review you may have done. Which helps explain why I couldn't entertain seeing both Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell at the same time; by then my brain had seriously limited space and Independence Hall won the toss.

The moment I saw the Liberty Bell, however, thanks to the comment of a passing stranger, was more than a surprise, though definitely all of that. The last thing I expected was that it might be even remotely accessible. Especially considering how my efforts to position myself on the Independence Hall side of Chestnut Street for a closer shot of Washington's statue were quickly suppressed by a guard whose face clearly stated, "Don't Tread On Me." Spending the night in the Philadelphia hoosegow didn't seem like the best way to pad my resume, so I retreated across the street like Washington's forces fleeing New York ahead of the British. 

Oddly enough, where the Liberty Bell was concerned, there were no guards to be found. Then again, the glass enclosure surrounding it isn't the sort of thing a graffiti artist with a piece of chalk could insult, whereas the brick facade of Independence Hall isn't quite so resilient. But I liked that, their absence, I mean. It gave me a chance to stand a mere few feet away from it, nose pressed against the glass like a Dickens character, just me and the Liberty Bell, just the two of us. Maybe it comes from all those days spent wandering the meadows among the trees as a kid, the sense that inanimate objects aren't soulless, but to me, it felt like I was in the presence of something sacred. 

The Liberty Bell hangs in solitude, as though nothing else is quite worthy of its company, and the structure in which it is housed could easily be a glass cathedral. Maybe my theological background is coming out and someone else might view all of this quite differently, and that's fair to say. Still, there's something about the Liberty Bell that made me feel it ought to be shown reverence. It was the only thing I wanted a photo of myself alongside that afternoon. The unnamed tourist, the one who drew my attention to it, was my photographer.

The memorial itself is a city block long and the President's House or it's framework, lies at the far end. Walking back toward Independence Hall, I had to stop and gaze at the Bell again, truly feeling loathe to leave. The hour was getting late and I needed to, but I didn't want to. I can't explain it, but there's a beneficence, or better yet, a holiness about the Liberty Bell. Not the fearful, overpowering mystery of a burning bush, more like the gentle, suffer the little children to come unto me, sort of holiness. A holiness born of vulnerability, one the Liberty Bell was foundered with and that became evident when it rang. But even now, when it appears silent, it is not silent.

Draw near. Closer. Closer still and listen. Listen as I did. Can't you hear it whisper? 



(Photo copyright 2013 by the author.)   

Independence Hall, Itching for a Fight

 
Like most kids raised outside of New England, I suppose my earliest tour guide through Colonial America was Walt Disney. Televised reruns of classic films like Johnny Tremain (1957) and the animated Ben and Me (1953) coupled with my imagination to turn me into an idealistic young member of the Sons of Liberty or Benjamin Franklin's collegial churchmouse, depending on the moment. By the time college rolled round, I was a prime candidate for a major in history and when 1776 (1972) was released, I fell in love. With the movie, that is. There was a girl at the time, but that's another story and love wasn't destined to be the key player in our plot line.

Independence Hall is another matter. When Benjamin Gates was there, in National Treasure (2004), I was still in the throes of seeking medical school admission. It was the second of a three year process that ultimately led me to Maine and a farm on the banks of the Saco River in a town founded in 1772. But medical school is time consuming and Philadelphia miles away. It wasn't until this past week that the spin of fate's roulette wheel dropped me into place within a stone's throw of the building in which the Declaration of Independence was debated and signed.

As I wrote yesterday, I'd been in Philly for a day -- actually, two, one to settle in and get a decent night's rest, the second to repeat a medical board exam. I wasn't sure when I'd be finished, so I scheduled my flight home for late in the evening. Done at three, there was time to drive by Independence Hall, if nothing else. At least I could say I'd seen it. Well, you can guess the rest. Once I saw it, I had to find a parking space that wasn't reserved for carriages, and get as close as I could. 

A skeleton crew of park rangers or police, I never quite figured out which they were, had everything cordoned off, but it was still possible to walk along South Fifth St. and place my hand on the outside wall of Philosophical Hall, that adjoins Independence Hall on the north. Philosophical Hall is where Benjamin Franklin founded the American Philosophical Society. Immediately across the street is the Library Building, the site of the first public library in America, also founded by Franklin, whose statue adorns the facade over the entry.

I wasn't prepared for how it would feel, seeing Independence Hall for the first time. It's different from Boston and Patriot's Day or Maine and First Parish Meeting House, where the Declaration of Independence was first read aloud in this part of the Colonies. After the battles of Lexington and Concord, the war moved south. One of my neighbors, or he would have been had I lived in 1775, Lieutenant Samuel Merrill (his restored farm is Jessie Livingstone's dream house in Pink Hats), fought at Bunker Hill. I'd have been there with him, if I could. But what I mean is, there is a comfortable quality, almost an ordinariness in the best sense of the word, about the Revolutionary period up here -- it seems less formal, cozier, more familiar. It's everywhere you look. It's like visiting an old friend.

Independence Hall is surrounded by downtown Philadelphia. It's an urban environment and it was back then, too. As urban as you could get in 1776 when street sweepers cleaned up horse manure rather than cans and candy wrappers. Once you get past that, there's a feeling that virtually seeps out of the cobblestones. It was as though I was part of something electric, exciting, on the brink. There's a tension in that historic square mile that hasn't dissipated one bit in three hundred years. Visit City Tavern and you're certain Jefferson and John Adams will be there, plotting Revolution over a pint. One sight leads to another and before you know it, you're reaching for your flintlock, itching for a fight. 

I liked Philadelphia. It's a young city and a friendly one. The residents drive like bats from hell on the highways, but meet them anywhere else and they're pleasant and easy to engage. It's a city, nevertheless, and Portland is big enough for me. I loved Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell, but I love our homespun version up here even more. I'm sure Lt. Merrill must have felt similarly, when he left Boston behind for his farm on the banks of the Saco River.  


(Photo copyright 2013 by the author. Additional images of Independence Hall may be seen here.)

Once Upon a Rainy Afternoon

I was standing across the street from Independence Hall when I heard a woman's voice behind me, "Turn around." I obeyed, and in the dim light of the rainy, grey, late afternoon, about thirty feet away, saw a golden outline. My breath caught in my throat as I said, "Oh my God, it's the Liberty Bell." I must have looked like a child on Christmas morning when another tourist and her husband smiled and told me where I could get even closer. I hurried to the window they indicated and there it was, as though waiting for me all these years.

I'd never seen Independence Hall, either, until minutes earlier. I was in Philadelphia for a medical licensing exam and had a few hours to kill before my flight home. The day before had already turned miraculous when, while searching for a discount store to purchase a few items I needed at the last minute, I noticed the sign for Valley Forge park. I couldn't believe it. I'd wanted to go there quite badly, but it looked too far on the map and this was a business trip, or so I told myself. Yet, there it was, as though it, too, had known I was coming and had waited long enough.

The park was closed, naturally, because of the governmental shut down. The Tea Party members of Congress, ironically named for those who sought liberty of conscience rather than the freedom to impose their views of conscience on others, weren't aware I'd be in Philadelphia, I'm sure. But Valley Forge had other ideas because Washington Memorial Chapel, dedicated to George Washington and located immediately across the street from Valley Forge, was open. 

I turned my rental car into the parking lot so quickly I'd have been a road hazard to anyone unfortunate enough to be following close behind. The church, an active Episcopal parish, is built in the classic English Gothic style with a bell tower drawing the eye skyward. Cannon -- period artillery pieces, some field, some naval, but all of them veterans that bombarded the British -- guard both sides of the entrance and line the grounds to the west and north.  

Inside is a lovely nave with stained glass on four sides. But it's not ornate, as you might expect, and the only statue is one of a young Washington on the side of the bell tower. It has the feel, however, of a castle, but since I've never been in a real one, it's really how I imagine it to be. I encountered a parishioner near the altar who answered my questions and listened, indulgently, as I described the turn of events leading me there. And that's how it seemed, as though my presence was no accident, even if it was.

Behind the church is a log cabin replete with walk-in fireplace that serves as a gift shop. At first, I thought I could be happy with a large mug bearing the image of winter 1777, but then I noticed the brass cannon. A British six-pound field gun, the staple of the Continental Army. Solid brass, about ten inches long and four high, I could see it sitting in my study, alongside smaller versions from the battlefield of Saratoga, Ft. Ticonderoga, and Maine's Ft. Knox, named for Henry Knox, who directed cannon fire against the advancing British at Bunker Hill. I left with the mug and the cannon.

Valley Forge is beautiful this time of year and probably more so at Christmas. The Christmas of 1777 was different. Wind blowing off the Delaware River, snow mixed with icy rain, Valley Forge was anything but beautiful to the sick and starving, ill-clad Continental Army, nearing total collapse. On a good day with mild traffic, you can drive the 43.5 miles from Valley Forge to Trenton in less than an hour. Marching the same distance, feet wrapped in rags, must have been agony. If you haven't seen The Crossing (2000), with Jeff Daniels as Washington, I'd encourage you to see it. Even members of the Continental Congress were unaware how close was defeat that bitterly cold Christmas morning.

I can easily identify with George C. Scott's character in the 1977 film, Patton, standing among the ruins of ancient Carthage and recounting how it was when the Romans conquered the city. Not that I believe in reincarnation, I don't mean that; it's just that history has always been a living thing for me and visiting those places where the course of human events was profoundly altered, I can't help but feel as though I was there, if only for a while, once upon a rainy afternoon.

Tomorrow, Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell.     

(Photo copyright by the author, 2013. Additional images of Valley Forge may be found here.) 

Like Apples off the Tree

 
I was reading an older post this morning, in which I mentioned hearing the sound of apples falling onto the garage roof from the Black Oxford tree that stands next to it. They've been doing it again lately, dropping like fist-sized bombs and sending my youngest dog running for the window to see what or who's threatening his territory. He's a sensitive little guy, though little is not the best word to use, I suppose. He's almost the height of the big dog, a 90 pound yellow Lab, but half his weight and twice his nerve. I won't say he's fearless, but he does his best to act like it. 

I have four apple trees growing on this parcel of heaven, fifteen or so miles west of the Maine coast. All of them are ancient varieties, the offspring of seeds brought to the Colonies by European immigrants, as are most native Maine apples. You can go to commercial orchards and pick ancients as well as the familiar red and golden delicious and Macintosh. How these four came to be planted here, I have no idea, but I'd wager the largest, the Black Oxford, has been around at least a hundred years, from the diameter of its trunk.

The next largest is a Moses Wood, named for a Winthrop, Maine, farmer who was an early grafter of the tree, and the others are either Summer Sweet or Winter Sweet -- I don't know for sure what they are, to tell the truth -- and produce yellowish-green fruit that are better for cooking than eating from the tree. The Oxfords are a winter apple and really need a frost to bring out the flavor. The Moses Wood, if I've identified it correctly, that is, has had a difficult few years, but it bounced back this month as though trying to make up for lost time. It's been so prolific, I've had to give bags of tangy-sweet apples to my neighbors before they went bad. The apples, not my neighbors.

The little yellow trees are full this year, too, but the fruit are so small that by the time they're pealed, there's little left but the core. They're better for throwing, anyway, or so I imagine a younger version of myself thinking and then doing, trying to see how far he could launch them down the long grassy slope that leads to the hayfield. Much to the delight of the deer that have been feeding there in the evenings.

My tenant, Freddy the Porcupine, who lives under the barn. has taken to munching apples in front of the garage at night. Most mornings I'll find the evidence of his nocturnal snacking inches from the door -- a half-chewed apple -- as though he feels he should leave it for me to finish. I guess it's his way of paying rent. Two years ago, when he moved in, he had the habit of snoozing in the flowerbeds, snuggled up against the house in the afternoon sun. I saw him the other night and he's no more afraid of me now than he was then.

I've been like the little apple trees, it seems, for a long time. Ideas a plenty but none juicy enough to write about. Now, I feel more like the Moses Wood, if not prolific, at least more productive. Pink Hats has been on my mind and like Freddy's apple, "someone" needs to finish it off. Reading over the chapters, a couple of things have caught my attention. We've never really gotten a glimpse of Jessie's inner process, how she got to the place in her life where marrying Bob and becoming an adoptive mother straight off was doable. I've been working on that as well as a post about the conversation between Bob and her father in Untarnished and in Uncharted Territory. I hope, like apples off the tree, they're worth sitting down and biting into. In the meantime, have a wonderful Labor Day weekend.


(Creative Commons image of ancient apple trees by gemteck1 via Flickr)

Newtown, Connecticut: The Streets of Heaven

"The streets of heaven are too crowded with angels tonight..." ~ President Josiah Bartlet, The West Wing

Following a tragedy such as took place yesterday in Newtown, Connecticut, one often hears the statement, "Let's not politicize this." But failing to recognize its political implications is as irresponsible as attempting to use them for political gain. Remaining silent on the pretense of respect, renders the needless, senseless deaths of children meaningless. Can there be anything worse?

In the latter days of the war in Iraq, when it had become clear there were no weapons of mass destruction, when the Bush administration determined a "war of liberation" would play better in the media, families of soldiers killed in action relied on those three words to assuage a loss no parent should ever have to face. The alternative was a sacrifice without meaning, and that was unthinkable.

We flirt with meaninglessness, however, when a murderer rips our loved ones from us and from the public stage we hear, "I hope no one uses this as an excuse to talk about gun control." What we've witnessed in Connecticut is neither an excuse, nor is it evidence we need an armed electorate to take the place of those we've empowered to protect us against violence and mayhem. What is is, is evidence of our national refusal to listen to the voices of victims at Columbine High School and a theater in Aurora, Colorado.

If we could tune down the noise of our own convictions, we'd hear a voice shouting from the periphery of those convictions, "For the love of God, please, don't let this happen again." But we do. The gun lobby argues, "guns don't kill people, people kill people," and there's an element of truth in that. I've never seen an M-16 walking down the street, creating havoc. Not without a person at the butt end, pulling the trigger. Then again, what if they couldn't get hold of a semi-automatic weapon with a 30 round magazine in the first place? Would that really impinge on anyone's Second Amendment rights?

We treat gun ownership like pornography. We put up with Hustler because we want to be free to purchase a copy of The New Yorker or Road and Track at the grocery. We also regulate Hustler to keep it from falling into the hands of children. We presume the right to own an assault weapon secures our right to own the 12 gauge we take bird hunting in the fall. Maybe it does, but that doesn't mean anyone who wants one should have one. Mutual responsibility in a free society requires us, at key times, to limit the exercise of our freedoms for the sake of the common good. 

We regulate pornography better than we regulate guns. If we're going to honor the memory of those who've died tragically, we've got to change and we've got to start now.

(The West Wing citation from 20 Hours in America, (2002); GNU free documentation image of the Columbine High School Memorial via Wikipedia)

Graduation: Catching Up at Last

If the road to hell is lined with good intentions, I was well on my way yesterday, having fully intended to write and yet finding my brain utterly exhausted from the events of Saturday. To say graduation was memorable is so far from the truth as to almost be a lie: it was more like a dream and I was living it. Truthfully, though, Sunday morning I was almost certain it had been precisely that. It wasn't until I took the dogs out for their walk and looked in the car for my sunglasses, that I noticed the box my robes had come in. "Well, guys," I said, "I guess I wasn't dreaming, after all."

It sure felt like it and I'm sure it stems from the fact that I've never had any absolute assurance I'd make it this far. Not that I was a doubter, like Hero Boy in The Polar Express, who wanted proof of the existence of Santa Claus before committing himself to believing. I knew in my "heart of hearts," as my mother used to say, the obstacles and difficulties I'd encountered along the way would only make graduation sweeter. But still in all, our demons have a tendency to haunt us in the darkness of night, especially before exams, whispering wickedly, You're a fraud -- you're in over your head -- if you were meant to do this, it would be easier. 

Martin Luther, the 15th century church reformer, said the Devil was exquisitely sensitive to humor and the trick to banishing him lay in laughing in his face. I've wondered if that's a skill we must learn to employ and if so, medical school has given me a lot of practice.I was definitely laughing Saturday, along with my classmates, when my best friend placed my doctoral hood round my neck backwards. It wasn't intentional; he'd been handed it backwards and the rest will go down in Hooding Ceremony history. But what better way to thumb my nose at all those demons?

All the same, there is a tender, albeit bitter sweetness to graduation, that comes from having to hold off being called "doctor" a bit longer. I've gone through the exercises and taken my Osteopathic Medical Oath, but with rotations yet to complete, I won't hold my degree in hand until later this year. Like a teenager who is neither child nor adult, I'm in a liminal space. I'm no longer entirely a student, but then again, I'm not entirely a doctor. Thankfully, however, I'm closer to one than the other and the confidence I've gained from standing shoulder to shoulder with my graduating classmates, pledging my life, loyalty, and sacred honor to the practice of medicine and the care of patients, will see me through.  

To my beloved entering classmates, nearly all of whom preceded my graduation in 2010, I can truly say, look behind you, the footsteps you've been hearing are mine. I'm catching up at last.        

(Photo of the author and graduating classmate and friend Dr. Joseph Scott, copyright 2012, all rights reserved) 

"Merry Christmas," She Said.

Not wishing to remove my gloves in the cold, I said, "I'll catch you on the way out." It would be simpler, I thought, to keep my wallet handy once I'd finished at the cashier's. She smiled and nodded, not missing a beat, our conversation another verse to the song she played inside her head.

I didn't have to say anything; her back was to me, I could have walked on, completed my business, then done as I intended. No one needed to know; none would be the wiser.

Except that I wanted her to know because so many just walk on by. I almost forgot myself, until the last second when I saw her again and remembered. I marveled at her patience, at her consistency. It wasn't like she expected everyone to stop; only those who were supposed to. She was on her appointed rounds, waiting for her people to show up, even if they didn't realize they were hers until that very moment. In the meantime, she kept on, ringing what I heard as Jingle Bells and she maybe something else, her eyes peeking over the rim of a muffler wrapped round her face, twinkling in good faith.

I would get impatient, I'm sure. Impatient, disgruntled, discouraged and then cynical, passing judgment, playing God. It would be easy to do, to forget how easy it is to be guarded in times like these, to blame the unfortunate for their misfortune, to cross to the other side of the road like the Priest and the Lawyer once did and a Good Samaritan didn't.

A Samaritan, by the way, who wasn't like we paint him, one of the good guys going about doing good deeds at Christmas, someone you'd like to have living next door or upstairs. He was a Black man in 1950s Alabama who dared touch a White woman who'd been raped and left for dead. Or, maybe she's homeless, living in a tent constructed from cardboard boxes. The Good Samaritan was like that, unacceptable by the book, but caring anyway.

She was also a Salvation Army Bell Ringer on a frigid Portland morning waiting for me to step up and be counted. To stuff a bill in her bucket. To render aid. To follow her example, to not cross the street and walk on by.

"Merry Christmas," she said.


(Creative Commons image by miliu92 via Flickr)

Gratitude

St. Francis of Assisi knew gratitude was good for us long before this month's Harvard Mental Health Letter added its two cents, but isn't that the way it usually goes? Evidence follows intuition. Well, according to my friends at Harvard, gratitude helps make us resilient. In fact, it's one of many things that have that effect. For instance, working at something you love rather than working less, having a sense of life purpose, giving for no other reason than because you can, forming and maintaining meaningful relationships, and possessing the confidence to steer your own course, also render a person more resilient in the face of whatever life throws at us along the way.

Resilience doesn't mean resistant, it means durable. Resistance can carry the connotation of immunity to injury. Resilience and durability are fluid concepts that describe those who endure what Hamlet called, "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune," and come through scathed and scarred, perhaps, but not embittered. Resistant, to me, is a wall; resilient is a membrane, tough and tender, alive, open to experience.

Thinking about gratitude and the resilience it engenders, on this Thanksgiving eve, I'm grateful for a young woman who became the first live human in whose body I've inserted a scalpel to make an incision. She was unconscious at the time, "thanks" to the wonders of anesthesia, but I was sufficiently aware for both of us and so grateful for the privilege she'd granted, I was close to tears when the final sutures were in place. It felt as though I was incising something from my own life (a topic for another post) as much as something from hers.

I feel grateful for my entering medical school class, a group of people, all of them younger than me by months to years, in whose company and because of whose support, I've somehow managed to come this far. They play hard, work harder, each having sojourned in at least one of Dante's Twelve Circles of Hell, and survived with hope and heart intact. It's a privilege to be numbered among them.

I'm grateful for the snow that began falling overnight, the plow that woke me at 4.06 AM and the hunger that followed in its wake, dragging me from the warmth of bed to face the chill of my upstairs room. I'm glad I raked the leaves crowding close to the kitchen door and straying carelessly onto the driveway last night, so that shoveling snow this morning was easier. It was dark in central Maine, dark and cold, and the drive to my hospital slickly hazardous. I'm grateful my CRV takes little note of the weather, embracing ice and snow as a challenge, instead of a threat.

I'm even grateful for the fuse that blew in the kitchen this morning. Power outages in the forecast, I made coffee last night and put it in the fridge -- cold coffee being better than none. Warming it in the microwave was too much too early, it seems, so I had to take flashlight in hand and brave the depths of the cellar I've considered the ghastly realm of goblins, spooks, and creatures unspeakable. It was nothing of the sort, but gazing into the black basement of our creakily ancient temporary housing, my imagination ran rampant. Yoo hoo, Stephen King, are you down there?

Some things only a fool or a madman would be grateful for, but it's the trivial we most often overlook. Those insignificant moments of inconvenience over a blown fuse teach us how to draw upon gratitude when we need it the most. Those moments that remind us that faith, hope, and love can be found anytime, anywhere, and not merely the one day of the year we remember to give thanks. Whoever said, it's the little things that count, wasn't kidding.

Happy Thanksgiving!


(Creative Commons image of St. Francis of Assisi via Wikipedia)

I Heard Sleigh Bells

She must have been about four, old enough to go shopping with mommy but still too young to make the entire trip without being carried to the car afterward. She was holding her mother's hand, waiting, as was I, for the Portland Williams-Sonoma to open. 

If the holidays are magical -- and for me they definitely are -- Williams-Sonoma has a corner on the market. From peppermint hot chocolate to china to cookie and pie cutters (my target purchase this time) -- I wonder sometimes if they don't have a direct line to the North Pole. I realize Thanksgiving is a couple of weeks off, and you're right, it really is too early to be writing about Christmas. I mean, Madison Avenue is bad enough. Turn on the tube two days before Halloween and from the ads, it appears Thanksgiving is nothing more than a minor bump on the road to December 25. But what was about to happen in front of Williams-Sonoma would be enough to make even the most jaded forget about the date and simply be glad the Holidays are here at last. 

I was standing with my back to a long hallway leading to the mall offices, preoccupied by my sweet, diminutive fellow watcher and waiter and her fascination with the window dressings. A toy train bearing the name, The Polar Express, rolled round a track decorated with artificial pine bows, green ribbons on red packages, and a tiny town replete with a snow-capped mountain. She couldn't steal her eyes from it and neither could her mother -- there they were, two little girls, hand in hand, riding The Polar Express. 

Suddenly, I heard a loud, "Ho! Ho! Ho! M-e-r-r-y Christmas!" and quickly turned to see Santa Claus step from the hallway into the mall. Oh yes, you bet I smiled and waved, I never miss a chance. He smiled and waved back, then greeted other shoppers who stopped at the sound of his voice to wave. Then, I heard something else, a rapidly indrawn four-year old breath that made me look down. With eyes like saucers, she whispered in awe, "S-a-n-t-a." At first, I wasn't sure how it would all unfold -- did he notice her? Of course, he did, he's Santa, he knows when we are sleeping, he knows when we're awake -- not a child on the planet goes unnoticed by him and that includes this one. 

His two female elvish helpers continued on to his "workshop," unware he'd halted in front of Williams-Sonoma and knelt down on one knee. He reached a mitted hand to his face, thoughtfully stroking a beard I'm absolutely certain had to be real, and softly said, "Merry Christmas, Jennie." She looked up at her mother, whose face was a study in amazement, then broke free and ran into his arms. I didn't hear what was spoken, that's between she and Santa, and maybe nothing was. Maybe her actions said everything. I know they spoke clearly enough that when he released her and tenderly touched her hair, rising to his feet he looked at me with eyes moist with tears. Yes, Virginia, Santa has a heart, you can be sure of it. 

Something told me only a fool would let this moment pass, so I followed after him and laid my hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry to intrude, but..." He interrupted me and said, "You want to know how I knew her name. Well, Beggar -- yes, I know yours, too -- after a few hundred years at this, you start to develop a pretty good memory. Merry Christmas." Then he smiled once more and winked. As he walked away, I could have sworn I heard sleigh bells.. (Creative Commons image by dkjd via Flickr)

Things Dads Do

For a long instant, it felt like Thanksgiving this morning, stepping into a warm living room from the chilly garage where I keep my ready access firewood. With four inches -- nearer six or eight if it was powder -- of firmly packed, heavy, wet snow covering the hayfield, it looks like Thanksgiving. It also looks like a few of the Halloweens of my youth when the end of October mistook itself for the beginning of winter. With a fire softly burning (thanks, JD, for the image) in my study...by the way, we didn't have a fireplace when I was growing up, have I told you?

Our house was small -- three bedrooms, one bath, kitchen/dining and living room, all heated electrically. The closest we came to a fireplace was a small wood-burning stove in our unattached garage that my father used as his saddle shop for several years. Hardly a stove, it was a twenty-five gallon oil drum turned onto its side with a door cut into one end and four welded feet. How he worked out there, winter after winter, is a testimony to a father's love and determination.

I split firewood for him. I remember grousing about it at first, as any kid might, torn from afternoon cartoons to trudge out to the woodpile near the barn. I'm supposed to play, not work, I thought. He overlooked my complaints and taught me how to set up a block of wood, take aim for the middle, and swing without missing. It wasn't long before I began enjoying standing there in the snow with my axe and carrying armloads of split logs into the shop, losing myself in a "living-on-the-ranch" reverie. Writing about all this, I recall a day when I grew up a bit, realizing how my "work" kept him going. I must have been around nine or ten, but I began appreciating my father more than I had before.

Shared tasks, working together, those were his values and he passed them along to me. He was raised in a time and place where everyone had a task and everyone contributed to the family's welfare. He and his siblings had chores, a word one rarely hears anymore and tends to be associated with black and white reruns of old western television shows like The Rifleman on AMC. When used now, it's often in the pejorative sense, life is a chore. And some of his were all of that, especially when he was too young to ride after the cows and had to content himself with milking them, instead. Reality fails to imitate art every now and then.

He wasn't heartless about chores, though, and perhaps that comes from his own experience. One afternoon after school, he'd been too busy to cut wood into sections as he usually did, leaving them for me to split. So I started in with my axe, intent on doing both the man's job and the boy's. He came out a short while later and in a gentle tone he reserved for just such moments, told me I could stop, he had enough wood for now. I was hesitant -- the wood box was nearly empty as anyone could see -- but he assured me he was fine and to go on into the house and get warm, The things dads do.

A person has to wonder where the desires of the heart come from. I still love fireplaces and going out into the forest to cut wood. The axe of my youth has been replaced with a splitting maul, five pounds of steel at the end of forty inches of Ash. There is a sectioned tree trunk, well over a hundred pounds itself, sitting in the garage, the legacy of the doctor who lived here before me, that is our common chopping block. The open rafters are high enough for a full-armed swing.

Sheltered from the weather, it's not the barnyard of my childhood. Nor is my work that of my father. But the appreciation for a warm fire on a cold morning we share, as well as the effort to bring it to life. From whence comes the desires of the heart? I can't always say. What I know with any certainty is, I can't plunge my maul into a block of wood without thinking of all those afternoons, splitting wood in the snow, and my father who taught me how.


(Creative Commons image by Gadget_Guru via Fkickr; "a fire softly burning," Back Home Again, words and music by John Denver, copyright 1974)

The First Breath of Autumn

I love mornings like this, early fall maple muffin mornings, with fog as thick as a cloud bank hovering over the hayfield. Freddie the Freeloading porcupine sneaking breakfast under the apple tree, unaware I'm watching. Dew on the grass that will be frost soon enough and air already cool enough to faintly see your breath. It won't last long, the mid-morning sun will see to that.

The first breath of autumn always goes fast.

Kind of like third year rotations. When you're in the starting gate, gazing down the track toward the clubhouse turn (the first curve in horse racing), six weeks appears endless. Before you know it, you're in the home stretch and the written exam lies ahead at the finish line and you're wondering what madness possessed you to think you were too weary to study after a day on the wards. Surely, you didn't need sleep that badly, did you? Yet, somehow, like Seabiscuit, you dig deep, pulling a passing grade or better out of your hat like a magician's rabbit. A weekend of freedom passes like a thief in the night and the process starts all over again

But not this time. At least not with internal medicine. IM is a twelve week test of endurance, though broken into several subgroups you get a wide glimpse at the field. Thus far, I've been on the residents' teaching service, spent eight days with a hospitalist, and Monday heralds rehab medicine. Two weeks later comes two weeks of night float and assuming I'm still afloat after that, my final two with the residents. It's not as long as it sounds, like the first breath of autumn, it goes fast.

At first, the twelve hour days are exhausting and you wonder how the residents do it, how you'll do it when you're one of them. A week and they're familiar, another and they're commonplace while you're hustling to get all your patients seen, clinical notes written and patients seen once more before evening report. If you've had an admission or accompanied a patient to a procedure, you realize this is what cranberries feel like when they're tossed into a blender at Thanksgiving and the switch clicked on.

The good thing is, it's only week six. Instead of feeling like you've just gotten accustomed to finding your way before it's time to move on, you have a chance to actually practice what you've been learning. The context in which you'll see patients will change, but it's still internal medicine. It's not as though you've been doing well-child visits, diagnosing colds, ear aches, and strep throat, and suddenly have to distinguish between major depression and an acute grief reaction. Racing to a code blue cardiac emergency is a bit different from rushing to intervene with a telephone wielding patient who checked self-control at the door to the locked psych unit.

You get used to it, we all do, but it's nice once in a while when you don't have to. When you can to get close to a patient without having say goodbye before hello has barely passed your lips. When you've grown confident walking into a hospital room without a resident holding your hand because you've done it thirty or forty or fifty times and lived to tell the tale. When you can step into the doctors' dictation room, sit down at a computer and do your business because you have business to conduct, just like the other doctors. Don't get too comfortable, though, because it won't last, it can't -- you have other things to learn, other patients to see, and like the first breath of autumn, it all goes fast.

It always does.

(Creative Commons image of autumn colors by franzikus garten via Flickr)

A Little Boy's Dream

I was four years old when my love affair with fire trucks began. At the time, it was a pumper with a hook and ladder truck and an ambulance that caught my eye just before Christmas. I still have them, battered and scarred with parts missing from good times. I wish I'd taken better care of them since they're worth many times more than what my parents paid on the collector's market. Not that I'd sell them, because, well, you know, they're a part of my childhood. For everything else there's MasterCard. You can't buy memories -- not like these, anyway.

On that Christmas morning, though, I was in for a bit of a disappointment. The only sets left on the shelf were ones without the ambulance and I really wanted the ambulance most of all. How else can you rescue the people, I thought? Someone has to take them to the hospital because they've been hurt in the "fire." It was a childhood fantasy I later fulfilled as an adult when, in my first pastorate, I volunteered as an ambulance driver. Little did I know, either then or as a four year old, I'd end up a medical student seeing patients in a hospital. The most amazing things creep up on you when you're least expecting them.

Kind of like another little boy's dream, the one you see in the photo. It's a 1936 Chevrolet I saw a few nights ago, parked in front of the Knights of Columbus in Old Town, Maine. Of course, I had to stop and take pictures. How could I not? My guide for the best tour I could have asked for, was a tow-headed little guy about seven or eight years old who happily indulged me by climbing into the back to ring the bell. He was able do that, you see, because his daddy, as he proudly informed me, owned it.

Old Town has a special connection for me which I discovered the same evening, when I noticed a sign on its outskirts identifying it as the home of Old Town Canoes. We paddled Old Towns when I was a Scoutmaster on white water canoeing trips in Southeastern Oklahoma. And there I was, driving through the place where they were made. I don't know, it just struck me as sweet, and it brought back very pleasant memories of sunburns, campfires, and friends far away.

Anyhow, back to the fire truck. Walking around it I noticed a plaque that told me everything I needed to know about the person who owned it and why. If you look closely you can see it, right there on the passenger side. It reads simply, A Little Boy's Dream. Yeah, you guessed it. Daddy wanted a fire truck when he was was young and promised himself one day, when he was all grown up, he'd have one for his very own. And now he does and he shares it with his son.

Who shared it with me.


(Photo copyright 2011 by the author)

Stuck in the Trenches

If we could hop into Mr. Peabody's WABAK (pronounced Way Back) Machine -- remember Mr. Peabody and Sherman, the dog and his boy from The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle? You can see original episodes on Hulu, revealing Bullwinkle to be not nearly as stupid as he was depicted in the movie, definitely an insult to tall people with big antlers everywhere. Anyway, if we could enter the WABAK and take it way, way, way, back -- hold on, it wasn't that long ago -- to my high school days, we'd find Dylan's The Times They Are a'Changing was one of my favorite songs.

As a fairly normal teenager with a fairly normal desire to separate from parental influence and declare my independence, I particularly liked the second verse:

Come mothers and fathers throughout the land,
and don't criticize what you can't understand;
Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command,
your old world is rapidly agin';
Please get out of the new one if you can't lend a hand,
for the times, they are a'changin. 

Naturally, this drove my father crazy, which was not my conscious intention -- unconscious is another matter. In some ways, though, I'm the same person now I was then. Not that I'd attempt to drive my dad crazy if he was still living; we'd gotten long past that conflict of interests by the time I was in college. What I mean is, I haven't lost my sense that change is a pretty good thing and it's even better to try and keep up with it.

I'm probably thinking about this because one of my housemates showed me his ipad over breakfast yesterday and it was the first time I'd seen one up close. Out loud, I wondered, tongue in cheek, if I shouldn't genuflect in its presence. Have you see one yet? They are something. Steve Job's crew outdid themselves big time. Surf the web, watch movies, make a phone call, you can even connect with your home computer and work on files at a distance. In the words of Will Smith at the helm of an alien spacecraft (Independence Day, 1997) "Man, I have got to get me one of these!"

The willingness to embrace and even promote change expresses the essence of the term, "liberal," or so I was taught in high school. Conservative, in contrast, was about preservation, and holding onto what's good about the past. A wise person, I reasoned, does both, since history forms the basis for whatever lies ahead. So, on the drive home yesterday -- turns out I had the day off, as well today, and it made no sense to spend the time up north when I could more comfortably spend it here with sleeping dogs around my chair -- I began thinking about something Jesus said. "The Sabbath was made for humanity, not humanity for the Sabbath."

The context for his statement was a conversation involving the religious leaders of his day, some of whom accused him of violating the laws concerning Sabbath observance. He countered by saying, the needs of people outweighed tradition. It was a pretty radical assertion, especially to make before a group of people who depended on maintaining tradition for a sense of meaning and purpose. Suggesting something else might take precedence, naturally drove them crazy.

Just then I switched the radio station and came upon a message from James Dobson's Focus on the Family, one of many contemporary organizations that seems intent upon codifying behaviors as either acceptable or unacceptable, and doing so on a religious basis. I thought about comfort and discomfort with change and it struck me that it's easier to become entrenched in what one believes than to expand one's beliefs to accommodate new ideas. Once we're entrenched, we have limited options for maneuvering.

Recognizing that none of us possesses the absolute, final word about anything and any description of ultimate truth is partial at best, might help. Not that there isn't a final word or an absolute truth, but how we speak of it reveals more about us than the truths we espouse. Even if we deny the existence of absolutes, that says something about us. I guess it's just hard to see that sometimes. Especially if we're stuck in the trenches.


(Image of unknown licensure via Wikipedia)

Taps

Today, I'm reprising a post from 2009 -- I hope you don't mind -- honestly, it's hard for me to say it any better, on Memorial Day, than this.

Memorial Day used to be less personal for me. Often, it was an opportunity to make the trek over the high mountain passes from Denver to the Western Slope and visit family in late May and early June when the peaks are still snow-covered and marmots (woodchucks to Mainers) are just starting to creep out of their burrows, rub their eyes and yawn, muttering one to another, "You snored all winter."

But Viet Nam altered the holiday's innocence, and once you start down a road you may not be able to turn back quite so easily. It's that way with a lot of things but, thankfully, though difficult -- damn difficult -- it doesn't have to be impossible. My cousin's husband was a decorated helicopter pilot, killed in the boundary-less jungle somewhere between South Viet Nam and Laos. He's buried at Ft. Logan National Cemetery in Denver and I found his name on the traveling Viet Nam memorial last year.

I was in my early teens at the time and had only met him once but the reality of his death and its impact on my immediate family was even more acutely felt when it came my turn to register for the draft. My friends and I watched the drawing that year with held breath. I thought I had a fairly high number, but my margin of safety vanished quickly. Finally, like a roulette wheel ticking down, the ball dropped into place three spaces beneath me.

Uncle Sam apparently decided this nephew needed an education rather than military service, and I was given a deferment to  finish high school and attend college. Over the years, however, because my father was a Disabled American Veteran (it was an injury rather than a wound incurred in the final days of WW-II), I spent quite a bit of time on one base or another, learning the ins and outs of Veteran's healthcare.

Memorial day came home to me in 2001 and I'm not talking about 9/11. My father passed away the previous late autumn and like my cousin's husband and now, my dear friend and coauthor, Dr. Lynn Smith, he is buried at Ft. Logan. They say a man never truly becomes a man until his father dies. I believe that's true. Until then, if he's fortunate enough to have a father who loves him, dad is always there. We make decisions on our own, we're responsible, we may even raise a family, but there's a change that occurs when a father dies and it's not until then that we finally begin to grow up. It's universal in my experience; I've never had a man who has gone through the loss of his father disagree with me.

So, there I was, on a cold day in November, with my father's flag-draped coffin immediately in front of me, while an honor guard showed him honor in slow motion. I thought I knew my father, but witnessing this, I felt as though I was seeing him for the first time. I'll never forget the moment one of them placed the carefully folded flag in my hands and saluted. I met his gaze and nodded. Seven rifles fired three times and a buglar sounded Taps. I looked over my shoulder at the rifles stacked as though at bivouac and realized I'd brought my father to rest among those with whom he'd served. Since then, I've never been able to hear Taps or see a military funeral, even depicted on television, without tears.

Memorial Day isn't a holiday for picnics, games, and visiting family -- not for me at least, not anymore. Wherever I am, whatever I'm doing, on this Day I'm really standing among thousands of white marble gravestones with the mountains to the west, wind blowing over the grass, and Taps being played somewhere in the distance.


(Creative Commons image of Ft. Logan National Cemetery via Wikipedia)

Nuts R U

I so suck at small talk. Some people are masters of the lingo and I truly admire their facility. Even with friends, sometimes I end up babbling like the little fishy dude in The Return of the Jedi. Remember him? Lando Calrissian's co-pilot on the Millenium Falcon in the final, epic battle against the new Death Star? When he spoke, it sounded like he was saying, "Blabbada, blabbada, blabbada." Well, that's me.

If only social situations were like writing. Not texting, because my fingers are so big and the keyboard on my iphone so small I have to hunt and peck with one finger. Even with text shorthand, "hi how r u?" takes so much time that my co-communicant has gone on to "nice 2 see u bye" before I'm halfway through the conversation. I mean real writing where nouns are nouns and verbs are verbs and they follow one another in the sweet company of polite punctuation. Not likely, huh?

I don't know if I freeze up inside or what, but when confronted by situations where a dissertation is inappropriate and a few choice words are poetry, my brain goes blank and my mouth takes on a mind of its own. And that's where writing would help because I could always backspace and erase a comment before hitting "enter." Not that this guarantees anything but it does allow editing. The other way, where what you say is what they hear, it's anyone's guess whether I'm going to come off like a nice guy or a goof ball.

Now, it's very true that asking other people questions, giving them an opportunity to talk about themselves, is generally a safe bet. If you can listen well, and therapists are usually pretty good at that, you're covered. Inevitably, however, there comes a point when you run out of questions or they'd like to hear about you, and then the good ship and crew are in peril.

Occasions like these make me wonder about the extrovert business. On any given day, that's me, energized by interaction, eager to engage. In casual social settings, Mr. Introvert takes over and even Forest Gump would have a better chance of making a good impression. Maybe I should memorize some of his better lines? When someone asks how I'm doing, respond, "Well, life is like a box of chocolates, sometimes you get a smooth center and sometimes it's nuts." Just so long as they don't walk away thinking the nuts r u. That would probably be bad.


(Public Domain image via Wikipedia)

Look, Mom, I Passed!

This morning dawned chilly in my neck of the Maine woods and it's about time we had a blast of Canadian air to remind us it's December. I have yet to get my Christmas tree, but that's on the list for this week.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, the one I've included of Rocky Balboa says it all. I'm overjoyed to share the news that I finally passed my boards exams! A not-so-subtle subject line in an email from the Dean last night alerted me to check the exam web site once again and am I ever glad I did.

How do I feel? Like 40 pounds has been lifted off my chest and shoulders. As I've said before, boards are an unusual species of critter. No matter how hard you study, how well you feel prepared, how positive you are once you're done, it's really quite impossible to have any assurance that you've passed. There are questions that absolutely must correspond to the answers you've selected and there are others that defy prediction. Because of the inherent uncertainty involved in such a broad-based and wide-ranging examination, only Professor Trelawney, who teaches divination at Hogwarts, could possibly know the outcome. And I think she might even regard it as the ultimate challenge.

As a result, you never can quite relax until scores have been reported or at least that's been my experience lately. Now, however, the whole world looks brighter, as though someone cranked the rheostat up from medium to high. What comes next? Well, as far as medical school is concerned, rotations are on my horizon beginning in January. I don't know where I'll be working but I have a vague idea of what I'll be doing. To begin with, there will be two weeks of family practice right here in Southern Maine. After that, your guess is as good as mine, but I'll let you know as soon as I know.

Beyond this, there are the holidays of course, and I'm writing at last, after a long dry spell this fall. If it seems as though I'm spending quite a bit of time with Pink Hats and a Mack Truck, it's because I'd like to finish this series before rotations begin. I'm thoroughly enjoying the way this story is unfolding and while I have an idea how it will end, there are no guarantees. I may end up as surprised as you. So, please accept my thanks for your support and encouragement as well as my appreciation for all your well wishes these past months. They have paid off in spades.


(Creative Commons image by hsuanwei via Flickr)

Pink Hats, Part IX: Life is too Short for Playing It Safe

Women are instinctive, Jessie knew that much, and in the past few weeks, her instincts had been working overtime. Surprising her with coffee first thing in the morning meant Bob had done his homework: he checked her schedule to make certain she was working and brought something special, a "box of chocolates" in the guise of a large mocha. Dinner at Grace Restaurant was her idea of giving him a glimpse, but only a glimpse, of the cards she was holding, and things had gone on from there. Those same instincts woke her from a sound sleep two hours before the alarm on a Sunday morning, whispering, Go to New Hampshire, talk to your father.

By nine-thirty, she and Sam were on 95, halfway across the Piscataqua Bridge, the point at which you leave Maine and enter the Land of No Sales Tax. From Portsmouth, she'd hop over to I-93. We’ll be in Concord before dad can shake hands with the vicar and tell him it was a fine sermon, she thought. 

A dedicated religious skeptic, her father married a 23 year old high school biology teacher and devout Episcopalian he met at a Grange Hall dance. That was 1975. Prior to, he did a stint in the Army complete with what he enjoyed calling an “all-expenses-paid vacation in Viet Nam.” Afterward, there was college and vet school. Seventeen years and three children later, she was killed when her car slid off an icy road and down a rocky embankment, the week after Christmas. The Sunday following her funeral, he walked into Concord's Grace Episcopal Church, and took a seat in the pew closest to the rear exit.

Jessie was thirteen, her sister eleven, and their brother sixteen. Somehow, they pulled together, and he managed to get them all through college, medical and veterinary school as a single parent. It took ten years for him to move from the back of his wife’s parish to the front row of pews, and five more to prompt him to enter the permanent diaconate. No one was more surprised than he. If you asked, he'd still say he was skeptical of religion, but this way, he feels closer to his wife. He'd also say it makes more sense to let his doubts argue directly with their source, rather than stand in the street and throw rocks at the windows. It’s the way he's generally approached life.

Jessie and Sam were waiting when he pulled his truck onto the meandering unpaved driveway that wandered through his five acres of orchards and tall grass. He was barely out of the truck when Sam was practically on top of him. Tail wagging wildly, he grabbed a hand as though it was a soft chew toy and led him back to the house. Sam was in charge of this walk. 

"And to what do I owe the pleasure?" he asked, wrapping his life-sized grizzly/teddy bear arms around his daughter and raising her on tip-toe, "my birthday isn't until next month." At 72, his strength never ceased to amaze.

"I missed you. I've been busy, you've been busy, and I decided I didn't want to wait."

He held her at arm's length. “Well, I'm glad to see you, too, honey." His eyebrow just then did a "Mr. Spock," and he added, "Hold on, something's different. Did you change your hair?"

She smiled and dropped her eyes, "It is? Leave it for you to notice. No, my hair's the same. What's that?" She nodded in the direction of a brown paper package he'd laid on the wicker porch table. She's changing the subject, he noticed.

"Bake sale at church. Abby Johnson's cinnamon rolls. You're mother would kill us both, if she knew. Twice the sugar, three times the fat, and all the flavor -- come on in, let's make coffee and put a dent in these."

Jessie's mother hadn't been a flower child, but she had sympathies. Organic farming was new and she threw herself into a study of its health benefits and used their orchard and large garden to experiment. Refined sugar and excess fat were strict no-nos at the dinner table except on holidays, and then she pulled out all the stops.

"Okay, sweetheart," he said, wiping his mouth with a cloth napkin that mimicked a black and tan chessboard, "time for you to tell dad what really brought you all this way on the spur of the moment."

"I told you, it's because I missed --"

"No, no, no. My hearing is still good, apart from that incessant ringing, and Alzheimer's I don't have. Not yet. Let's cut to the chase."

"It's called tinnitus and aspirin therapy is probably to blame -- it's the price we pay for the damage Abby Johnson's baking does to our arteries. Tell your doctor, maybe he'll adjust the dose – and, I’ve met someone. That sounds recent, but we've either known or known of each other since medical school. Anyway, we've started dating and I…wanted to tell you about him."

"Former student?" He took a sip from a white bistro-styled cup with the letters U-N-E stenciled in light and dark blue down the side. Jessie brought home a set of four after her med school interview and he used one every day until she received her letter of admission, "for luck." It was the same with her younger sister.

Jessie took a deep breath, and said, "He was one of my clinical professors in pediatrics.”

He stopped in mid-sip, lowered his cup, and set it carefully on the table. “I see.”

“You're enjoying watching me squirm, aren’t you?”

“Of course,” he said, smiling smugly and then ducking as she pretended to throw her empty cup at his head. And that’s how the conversation went, with her tracing the outline of her relationship with Bob while he tried to listen without making her smile and lose her train of thought. It reminded her of the way she and Bob were, and silently she breathed a prayer of thanks to her mother for finding a man like her father.

“I could make it easy and say I like him, and I do, but it’s deeper than that. I think I’m in love with him, dad. He’s older, as you’ve probably already guessed, and while that’s not a problem for me, I wasn’t sure how you’d feel about it…?”

“I think you’ve both been incredibly patient, to wait this long. What held him back, do you know?”

“Partly, he was recovering from his divorce and didn’t want to drag me into a messy situation. But he was also concerned, particularly during my residency, that no one could say my accomplishments were a consequence of him being in the background, covering for me. He wanted me to be able to take credit for my own work and be recognized for it. Meanwhile, I had no idea what was going on. We talked fairly often and even had lunch in the cafeteria a few times, but he consistently kept his feelings under wraps. When he told me all of this over lunch yesterday, I was speechless.”

“Not hard to understand why. Let’s go out on the front porch.” He stood up and walked over to a walnut secretary that stood against the wall in the dining room, opened a drawer and began rummaging around, eventually lifting a up an old pipe, an unopened tin of tobacco, and a box of matches. “I haven’t smoked this in years, not since your mother. But right now, it strikes me as a good idea.”

She settled in a large wicker chair letting her legs hang over one arm. Sam curled up at her feet and began snoring while her father lit his pipe and took a seat on the wide porch swing. Almost fifteen minutes passed before he said anything. “Baby,” -- he would call her that to his dying day -- “I think you may have found the pearl of great price. I don’t quote the Bible often, but I haven’t known many men who would put their girlfriend’s interests above their own quite like that, certainly not for five and a half years. Maybe it’s because of his age and presumed maturity or because he’s been divorced, but it sounds to me like he knows without question what’s important to him, and who.

Now, you wondered how I’d feel about his age. Well, the best answer I have for that is, your mother and I had nineteen years, seventeen of them married. If I had it to do over again, knowing I’d lose her and there was nothing I could do about it, I’d marry her in a heartbeat. If you love this man, and it sure looks like he loves you, whether he knows it or not, you’ve got something worth holding onto. Life is far too short to play it safe.” 

He knocked the ashes from his pipe on the railing and said, “This wasn’t near as good as I remembered it.”

She laughed. “Unlike Abby’s sweet rolls that get better each time she bakes them. I want you to meet Bob, and soon.”

“Oh, that’s a given, and the sooner the better. If I’m going to have a son-in-law, I need to start getting used to the idea.”

“Who said anything about a son-in-law?”

“You did. I saw it on your face when I said what I said about life being too short. And it is, Baby, never forget that.”

(Creative Commons Image of the Piscataqua Bridge, NH by plousia via Flickr)