Dr. Bergman
[My Grandma Reading to Esther]I was blessed to call my doctor “Grandpa” as a child. Not everyone is as fortunate, I know. Most people have to go through the front entrance of their doctor’s office, in through the waiting room. We always went through the back door.
I have a keen memory of the smell of his office as we entered that back door. I could only describe it as a pungent mixture of rubbing alcohol and iodine. Along with that awakening of the olfactory nerves came a rush in anxiety, as visits to his office, sometimes unexpectedly, meant needles penetrating soft fleshy spots of the skin, usually the buttocks. He tried hard to avoid our having to be inoculated, since that is what every child seems to fear most from such visits. And when he couldn’t escape it, he always made sure someone else administered it, ensuring that we weren’t scarred with the memory of our grandpa injecting us. He was always there to console us afterwards, though.
Grandma was one of his nurses. They had met at Stanford Medical School in the late 1930s, and it was a match meant to be -- he, the doctor, and she, his nurse. There was something always very reassuring about knowing my grandparents were there to take care of us when we were sick or even during those fated wellness checkups, where shots could never be avoided.
When I broke my arm, Grandpa put a cast on it. When I gashed my head open, he swerved the necessity of stitches. When I was electrocuted in a bathtub, he was there at all hours of the day or night, not only to offer his concerned medical expertise, but his unconditional love, Grandma always by his side.
They practiced and lived in Wilmington, a little town on the “other” side of the tracks, so to speak. The indigence of their community, however, never precluded their decision to stay there and be of assistance to all who came to them. Their generosity knew no bounds. There were often those who could not afford to pay; they were never refused treatment. I remember my grandparents’ house was studded with gifts from these patients who had been shown this generosity, like valor medals on decorated soldiers.
We always lived nearby, never more than a block away. We could walk to Grandpa and Grandma’s, literally. How blessed we were to have been so close all our lives, to have been loved by such giving, self-sacrificial individuals.
There were hundreds of people who thronged to my grandpa’s funeral to pay honor to this very dignified and generous man, some whom he had helped bring into this world. They had the privilege of calling my grandpa “Doctor.” To me he was always just “Grandpa.”
I have a keen memory of the smell of his office as we entered that back door. I could only describe it as a pungent mixture of rubbing alcohol and iodine. Along with that awakening of the olfactory nerves came a rush in anxiety, as visits to his office, sometimes unexpectedly, meant needles penetrating soft fleshy spots of the skin, usually the buttocks. He tried hard to avoid our having to be inoculated, since that is what every child seems to fear most from such visits. And when he couldn’t escape it, he always made sure someone else administered it, ensuring that we weren’t scarred with the memory of our grandpa injecting us. He was always there to console us afterwards, though.
Grandma was one of his nurses. They had met at Stanford Medical School in the late 1930s, and it was a match meant to be -- he, the doctor, and she, his nurse. There was something always very reassuring about knowing my grandparents were there to take care of us when we were sick or even during those fated wellness checkups, where shots could never be avoided.
When I broke my arm, Grandpa put a cast on it. When I gashed my head open, he swerved the necessity of stitches. When I was electrocuted in a bathtub, he was there at all hours of the day or night, not only to offer his concerned medical expertise, but his unconditional love, Grandma always by his side.
They practiced and lived in Wilmington, a little town on the “other” side of the tracks, so to speak. The indigence of their community, however, never precluded their decision to stay there and be of assistance to all who came to them. Their generosity knew no bounds. There were often those who could not afford to pay; they were never refused treatment. I remember my grandparents’ house was studded with gifts from these patients who had been shown this generosity, like valor medals on decorated soldiers.
We always lived nearby, never more than a block away. We could walk to Grandpa and Grandma’s, literally. How blessed we were to have been so close all our lives, to have been loved by such giving, self-sacrificial individuals.
There were hundreds of people who thronged to my grandpa’s funeral to pay honor to this very dignified and generous man, some whom he had helped bring into this world. They had the privilege of calling my grandpa “Doctor.” To me he was always just “Grandpa.”
[Today would have been his 93rd birthday.]
Comments
Time DOES fly, as it's inching by ever so slowly, huh? Strange how that works sometimes.