The lady was beginning to annoy me. I had explained both her diagnosis and the best therapy for her condition, but she was balking.
“How do I know you know what you’re doing?”
“Because I’m well trained and I keep up with recent trends.”
“I just don’t know whether I should take your word for it or get a second opinion.”
It was busy in the ER, so I kind of lost it. “Well, make up your mind. I’ve got other patients to see, Mom.”
Talk about no respect! I call home. My wife answers. I say, `I love you, honey. I’m glad I married you’
She says, `Who’s calling, please?’
I met a lady in the ER. “You’re Erin’s dad, aren’t you?” For years my children were `Dr. Garvin’s kids.’ As they make their way in the world, however, the point of reference is shifting, as it should. Now, I am Erin’s dad.
This patient had recently lost a great deal of weight with Erin’s help as a personal fitness instructor. The woman had always wanted to run a 10K race. “Let’s do it!” said Erin.
The woman worried she couldn’t keep up, but Erin encouraged her until she consented. “I ran last the entire race, but Erin ran with me. She could have won the race easily, but she stayed with me. I wanted to quit. Erin wouldn’t let me.”
“No crime in finishing last,” I said.
‘I didn’t finish last,” the woman answered softly. “Right at the finish line, Erin abruptly slowed down. I went across the line ahead of her.”
Sometimes the races of which we should be most proud are the one’s we `lose.’ A peculiar notion isn’t it? To win by losing?
I am, in all probability, a poor role model for my son, Cailan.
He is still suspended in that zone of development, well known to all parents, where he feels an irrepressible urge to `beat you’ somewhere.
If you are going to the bathroom, he wants to race you there. To the garage? “I’ll get there first!” A random movement in any direction is, to him, a Heaven-sent opportunity for competition.
Like good fathers the world over, I wish to teach my son.
The other day, as we came out of a store in a small shopping center, a gleam erupted in his eye. “Beat you to the car, Dad,” he challenged.
He is too young to know that for a ten year old to outrun someone close enough to fifty is an event unlikely to be snatched up by World Press International.
It is not a head-turning occurrence.
Time for a lesson.
“OK, son. In a minute. I seem…,” I mumbled, as I beat my pockets vacantly, “..to have lost my keys.”
His eyes swept the ground to see if I had dropped them.
I only need a half-step head start to outrun him….
He looked down for my keys and I took off for the car like a shot [well not a shot exactly, but I did the very best I could] and beat him to the car.
Yes, this is the lesson: young and strong gets a lot of publicity; but always put your money on old and unprincipled.
Young Garvin is a wiser man today for that experience.
Check out Lucky’s books “The Oath of Hippocrates” and ‘A Journey Long Delayed” available locally and on-line.
By Lucky Garvin [email protected]