On my Father’s Retirement 

October 1, 2020

Yesterday was a bittersweet day for us. My father, Anil Patel, retired after almost 36 years in practice as a medical doctor in Port Huron, Michigan, where he specialized in Geriatrics and Internal Medicine. He's been a doctor for much longer (47 years!), and on three continents. I wish we would have been there for yesterday's celebratory event, but the travel situation and the impending birth of our little girl made it impossible. I shared a letter with him yesterday, and if you have the desire and patience to read it, I'd like to share part of it with you, with the hopes that you can see what an incredible figure he is in my life and in the lives of so many others.

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Dad, I think part of the difficulty with the concept of retirement for me is because, like your teacher father, I've seen how you've devoted your entire life not to a job, not to work, but to something deeper, something sacred: a calling, a profession, a standard, a duty. How does one say goodbye to that?

Long before I was born, there was Dr. Patel. And I know that long before you were born, there was a dream in your parents' minds of a future Dr. Patel. My memory is speaking to me now, creating images only known to me through stories:

When I look hard enough, I see a boy sitting at a table with his father meticulously checking over his homework. I see a teenager, who, rather than studying or attending classes, is running around Bombay indulging in street food and Bollywood movies. I see his serious side, observing a dissection lecture, only to return to his dormitory afterwards and write it all out verbatim, from memory. I see a superhero saving a young boy's life in Voi, a village daktari bringing Kenyan babies into the world, a young man with long hair and bellbottoms that meets the young, beautiful woman that changes his life forever. I see that same person, no longer just a kid, leaving behind the two continents of his life's story for a new, uncertain path. I see him stepping off a plane at JFK Airport without a proper coat and little in his wallet (How did he have such courage? How was he so brave?). I see him working in a hard, crime-filled city, the Detroit I've never known. I see him helping an Indian doctor, who like himself, was once new to this land, this place. I see him dropping his wife off in the early morning hours to wait at McDonald's before her own job started across the street, only to not see her until late that night. And I see them navigating a life in this new land: buying a bed, searching for a place that sells basmati rice, saving up to buy a house, and meeting friends and colleagues who, also so far from home, would take on the role of family.

And then we came along, and the floodgates of my memory are now wide open:

I see your Military Street office, which was in our eyes the world’s best playground: the big Xerox machine, a dictaphone, the countless number of charts in shelves that towered up to the ceiling, the endless supplies of test tubes that we'd later put food coloring in when we returned home. We'd play with your reflex hammer, your blood pressure kits, all the things we weren't supposed to touch. I hear mom, endlessly devoted to your work as much as to us, answering calls and using the typewriter in the next room. I see our elementary school artwork proudly hung on the wall behind your cluttered desk, pairs of shoes underneath it. Over on the shelf are the thickest books I’ve ever seen, full of wisdom dating all the way back to Hippocrates. If Raky and I were to visit you today, on your last day, I'm sure we'd still fight over who got to sit in the chair behind your desk, in what had been for us a throne.

Being a doctor's son was never a burden; Mom explained early on that we had to share you, and because we knew your work was heroic, we always had a certain pride about it. So we could bear hearing, "I saw Mr. Bynum today in the office...we talked about your science grades a little bit..." Or we could tolerate those long car rides from Detroit on a weekend afternoon, only for you to then say, "I need to stop at the hospital before we go home and check on a patient; I'll be back in a few minutes." (It was never just a few minutes). We waited not only because we had no choice in the matter, but also because we knew you were doing something important: maybe saving someone's life, or grieving with a soon-to-be widow. Yes, we may have grumbled, but underneath all of our childhood frustration was an immense pride of having a dad who took on superpowers whenever he donned a stethoscope.

And now my mind is blazing with memories. Waking up in the morning, I can follow the scent of your cologne all the way to the garage, knowing you were already gone for the day, only to return that night to help me with my geometry homework or to do a word puzzle in the newspaper. I see charts strewn across the living room floor and couch on a Sunday afternoon, the Pistons game on in the background. I see myself in the waiting rooms of nursing homes, the doctors' lounges of hospitals, and the cafeterias where you'd never let us eat (though we always wanted to). I see teachers asking me to help decipher your doctor's handwriting on permission slips (always signed Anil/DAD). I see thank you notes from families, people kindly interrupting us during dinner at a restaurant just so they can say hello to you and meet your family. I see an ambulance across the street from our house and you running to check if everything is okay. And I see you playfully chiding a patient in front of us in line at Dairy Queen, telling him to enjoy his dessert and his time with his family. I see shots administered at our kitchen table, dinner parties where you and the other uncles would talk about the hospital, our dog, Lucky, playfully running around your office. I see your loyal office staff leaving lunch on your desk that would eventually go uneaten. I hear your voice answering my questions about the health situation in America, the sound of your golf swing in the office basement, the speed of your dictations. And I see the photos after a car accidentally crashed through your waiting room windows and doors (!).

Most importantly, I see my doctor father dropping his work to fly across the world to be a doctor to his father.

I see myself picking up your dry cleaning, full of laundered shirts along with a single white jacket. I see Dr. Anil Patel, M.D. embossed in red cursive, stitched on the jacket breast pocket and tears begin to stream down my face.

Is this goodbye?

I hear you trying to dictate the same sentence into Dragon for the fifth time, the software’s (lack of) intelligence failing to understand your accent. I look at the clock and it's 11pm and there you are at the dining table, computer wide open and yet your eyes are almost closed. Mom says you're tired, but how can you be tired if this is the only life you've ever known?

Early in the pandemic, I see my son Facetiming his Dada, wanting to check in on him, asking about his gloves and mask. I see myself praying for you, hoping that your superpowers won’t have to be used this time. And I see how telehealth has impacted the one thing you've never shied away from: the examining room, being one-on-one with a patient as if nobody else existed in the world, and being able to use the senses of touch and sight to diagnose them like you learned in medical school in a far away land.

Sometimes I think you didn't deserve the endless paperwork, the late night calls, the hospital politics, the EMRs, the endless rules and regulations, to be around so much death and dying. And yet I think that maybe you have given the world what it's always deserved to have: compassion, empathy, trust, integrity, humility, wisdom. The held hand on a deathbed, the comfort to those that grieve, the respect for the sanctity of the profession. Your humanity.

Now the charts will stop, the dictations will end, the face shield can be discarded, the on-call duties in the middle of the night will finally halt. I know there's even more life beyond today, and I couldn't be happier about this. But while your work has been retired, I know your virtue will continue. I'm proud of you, and always have been. You used to say to me, "Try to learn only the good things from your dad." But when I look at you, when I look back at all these memories, all I see is good, and I know there’s even more good to come.

Sameer Patel