A Love Letter

As doctors, it’s critical that we dig deep into our beliefs, desires, motivations and reflect on who we are as contributors and citizens. Personal and spiritual growth grounds us to be truly present with those who are suffering, but as importantly it prevents us from making the kinds of mistakes that come from a lack of personal clarity.

All of us make mistakes but mistakes when you hold a position of influence can have greater consequences to a wider group of people…and so the onus is on the physician, to “heal thyself”. To that end, I consider the personal work that I do to show up for each and every one of you to be as important as the medical and clinical expertise I bring to your care, and with that in mind, I share on Father’s Day.

For years I have thought of my dad as my hero. This may sound romantic, but it has its deficits. Limiting beliefs muddy the waters and impact how I show up. My father’s hurt was my hurt. His shame, mine. And as he has faced health challenges, I have been plagued by an intense fear of losing the one person on earth that I know truly loves me. I saw myself as an extension of my father. He is and therefore I am. This false belief forced me into spiritual work to unlearn and instead, draw close to my true Father, my God. 

This doesn’t mean that I abandon my dad. Learning to separate out my identity from daddy, has actually deepened my love for him as I see him more clearly now, a person in his own right, human, broken, himself a dear child of God.

My father, as many of you know, was a physician. His worldview was impacted by his work with those who were sick or in need. He was both deeply loving and an unyielding taskmaster. I was raised at a time where parents thought, “Spare the rod, spoil the child,” but I also was raised at his hip, my hand always in his. I did everything with him, and really, for him, for years. 

In some ways this was a great blessing, to me, and now, to my practice. Because he gardened and curated my character, I am disciplined, hard-working, and service-oriented. Core principles around faith and what is true and good are drivers for almost every decision I make. I am highly self-reflective as I know that there is much I do not know and this humbles me where I would be arrogant. 

I am a servant. 

But in learning to see my dad from the eyes of a woman, and leaving the child behind, I have also seen where I could continue to grow. And this gift of sight has, in turn, deepened my desire to come closer still to God. 

My father is almost 80 now and his vessel is failing. Where he once walked 10 miles a day, he now can’t walk for more than half a mile. He is bent at the waist from pain, and the mornings are excruciating. He uses a cane or a walker to toilet, and falls are his greatest challenge. He is thin, the muscle in his legs, reedy and soft. He has few real teeth. He sleeps poorly, in spurts, like a cat. He is post-stroke, blind in one eye, and needs frequent dilation for esophageal stricture. But his mind is viciously robust. He wants to move. He wants to work. Even now, he dreams to build a school for poor children and to teach. He dreams of buying tracts of land and building tiny free homes for the poor. 

When I was last in Florida, he insisted on driving to a property he was working on and working all day. The property is a rental intended to provide income for my mother in case he was unable to ambulate after his most recent surgery. So work all day he did. Cleaning, sweeping, moving bricks, weeding, cutting back brush. At some point in the day, his legs gave out, and he shuffled on his bottom and continued to work. He worked until he almost literally couldn’t move. As he got in the car so I could drive him home, lifting his leg to sit in the passenger seat was a time consuming effort, and yet lift his leg he did, using both hands, hooked around under his knee, yelling and refusing my help.

I have never seen someone work like that. As his child, I can look at my father’s failing health and be convinced he should be coddled towards his near death…but as a woman, I see that my father wills himself to live. His mind is in the driver’s seat. He will not go gently into the good night. It is painfully beautiful.

As the sun trailed an arc over the blue, blue sky, all manner of people came by. They called him “Papi”, “Baba”, “Doc”, “Man”…and they were from all walks of life. Primarily poor, and clearly people with histories of addiction, criminality or migrants; some disabled, some able; some blue collar…all salt of the earth, all with a lot of lived life behind them, these people saw him as their equal and he saw them the same. 

When my father was in practice, he wore a pressed suit with neat creases down the front of each leg, a clean white shirt and one of 100 beautiful silk ties daily. When he left medicine he took to wearing dirty sneakers, soccer shorts, and fishing hats. My sisters and I have to beg him to get dressed up and while he will sometimes concede the point, and throw on long pants, he never takes off that stupid hat.

He is unfussy, unfiltered, and uncouth, and so are his people. When he spoke about them, Jodi, Harry, Gabe…he spoke of them in glowing terms. “Jodi is the hardest worker I have ever seen, never complains, always smiles, such a very good girl, oh I feel so bad inside that I can’t give her more.” When I met Jodi, I was surprised to meet a young lady, who looked older than her years, clearly recovered from methamphetamine and alcohol, with several teeth missing, a sheen of sweat on every visible surface. My dad doesn’t see race, color, creed, history, he sees the spirit within. He is present with people on a level I have never witnessed. My father is a humanitarian, not in intellect, but in practice. He is non-judgmental, he is not separate, he doesn’t use clothes or class or education to de-identify with his brothers and sisters. And still and yet, he knows he is privileged. Both are equally true for him. At the end of the day, he gave all the food in his fridge to a mentally disabled boy who he had paid to keep him company. Two large hefty bags of food, unopened jugs of milk, Costco sized bags of frozen patties, silver bags of chips…

As I got him home and he curled up in his bed, his dog jumped in and laid beside him. Patches is a pit bull and a sweetheart. I am afraid of dogs and this was the first dog I had ever met that I felt nothing but peace around. As I rubbed pain medication into my dad’s hands and feet, he said, “I wanted a dog so I went to shelter. All the dogs were barking and shouting and this guy was sitting completely still and quiet. He looked straight at me and I looked at him and I knew, he was my dog.”

The next morning, I walked on the beach with my dad and Patches, but he wouldn’t let me take the leash. As other dogs neared, my dad knelt, crowned the dog with his whole body, the way you would cradle a small child and spoke softly to him. Other owners seemed cautious but open and would let their dogs trot up. My dad would coach his dog, keeping a firm hand on his shoulders, his voice dulcet and low, singing, “It’s alright, you are okay, good dog.” Daddy never seemed worried or tense. 

Later I asked him, “Why did you do that with Patches?” And he said, “He doesn’t like other dogs. One day I was on the beach and a big, big dog came by and Patches attacked him, and the other guy had to go to the hospital. I paid all the bills.” Stunned, I said, “Why did he do that?” My father answered, “It is his nature. He cannot help what life he has lived, so I just love him through it.” 

Daddy has an unusual capacity to tolerate pain, an equanimity of spirit, a gift of egalitarianism, a generous heart and a wild will. I am learning from these now. But I would not have seen these things if I had not had the spirit to see my father, as not my leader, my divine mind, or my hero, rather as my brother, himself a unique creation of God. 

As we celebrate Father’s Day, I encourage us to see our fathers as men. Men who make mistakes, who love and fail, who have fragile places and joys all their own. I encourage those of us whose fathers may be absent, abusive or distant to still honor this day. I encourage those of us whose fathers are ill or who have passed, to remember them as much as men…more than who they were to us as children and less than who we make them to be in our minds. 

We came through them, but we are not of them, and they, not of us. Our fathers, are perhaps more so, our brothers…and ultimately our friends, in this thing we call life. 

In this way, for many of us, we may be able to offer our dads on this day, the true gift of forgiveness, admiration, and respect they deserve. It is no small thing for a man to have to model our Heavenly Father on Earth...for them to fail is human and for their children to love them not despite, but for it, is truly divine.