Table of Contents
This book is dedicated to all the great men in my life.
To Walt and T, you are far more than I deserve.
To my father, Wally, thank you for my life and for making it what it is today.
To my brothers Mike and Bob, you are extraordinary men and I love you both very much.
Introduction
In September 1979, my father spoke a single sentence that changed my life. I had graduated from Mt. Holyoke College earlier in the year and had been rejected from several medical schools, so I was living at home pondering Plan B. One evening, on my way upstairs, I overheard my father talking to a friend on the phone. This was unusual, for my father was not a very social man and a phone conversation with a friend was noteworthy. I stopped outside the door of his study, which was slightly ajar, and listened.
Yes, he was saying. They really do grow up fast, dont they? Im excited to tell you that my daughter, Meg, will be starting medical school next fall. Shes not quite sure where, though.
My head went hot. I thought I was going to pass out. What was he saying? Medical school? Id just received a handful of rejections. Ill be going to medical school next fall? How can he say that? What does he know that I dont?
His words alone didnt change the course of my life. His tone, his inflection, and his confidence had an amazing impact as well. My father believed something about me that I couldnt believe myself. Not only did he believe it, but he, a doctor himself, put his reputation on the line in front of his friend.
As I backed away from the door, my heart rate doubled. I felt thrilled and excited, because my fathers confidence gave me hope. Going to medical school had been my dream since I was a young teenager. And sure enough, in fall 1980, I started medical school, just as my father had said. He called me routinely and asked specifics about my classes. Was I understanding gross anatomy? Was I spending enough time on histology? Did I need slides to look at just for fun? It didnt matter what my response was; he packaged them up and sent them to my apartment so that I would have something interesting to do on Friday nights, which, of course, were study nights.
Dont misunderstand. My father was not a man who needed to live his life through his children. As a matter of fact, many times he discouraged me from going into medicine because he quite accurately predicted the disaster and misery of managed care medicine. I wanted to go. Did I want to because I wanted to please him? Not really. I didnt need to do that. I wanted to go because I really wanted to be like his friendan orthopedic surgeon. This man let me come into the operating room and watch surgery for hours at a time. That was the coolest thing I had ever seen, and I wanted to be able to do it.
What my father gave me was confidence. Since I revered him as a giant in the medical field and a giant in our home, I knew that what he believed was right. It didnt matter what he said, I still believed he was right.
And he gave me a belief in myself. He communicated to me, I dont remember exactly how, that I could do anything I wanted to do. There werent many women in his medical school class, he said, but boy were they good. They were good, and I could be too.
My father always made sure that I knew that he loved me. He was an eccentric man, quiet, antisocial, and extremely smart. He published medical papers in different languages and kidded that only peculiar people became pathologists like himself. But he loved me. I was his daughter and that was a very important thing to be. Did he tell me often? No. He didnt talk much. So how did I know? I knew because I heard him worry about me to my mother. I watched him cry when my brother and I left home for college. He came to many of my athletic events but missed many more. But that didnt matter. I knew that he thought I was terrific at sports. (In fact, he believed me to be much better than I really was, but I didnt want to square him away on that one.) I knew he loved me because he made our entire family go on vacations together. Most of the time I hated going, particularly when I was a teen, but he made me go anyway. He knew something I didnt. He knew that we needed time to be together. In the same camp. In the same dining room. On the same hiking trails or in the same canoes.
My dad protected me fiercely, to the point where I was almost too embarrassed to date anyone. He was a hunter and he let my boyfriends know that. They saw the moose head on the wall as they entered our house and my dad made sure that they knew who put that head up there. He thought he was being funny; I thought he was embarrassing me. But he protected me, not from predatory boys or monsters, but from myself. I was young and too trusting of people and he knew that long before I did.
My father wasnt a good talker, and many times he didnt listen well, either. He was sometimes distracted and aloof. We used to jog together when I was in medical school, and he would ask me the same questions repeatedly while we ran. He never heard the answershe was always, always thinking of something else. I didnt care. I just repeated myself.
My mother listened to our problems much better than my father did, but I knew who I would ask for help if my life or health were ever threatenedmy dad. He was tough, he was serious, he intensely loved his family, and the most important job he held, in his mind, was to make sure that his family was cared for. We were, in fact, very well cared for.
My father is elderly now and these days I spend more time caring for him than he for me. But I know the ropes because he showed me quite well. We no longer jog together. His scoliosis causes him to shuffle along, his spine resembling a capital C, and he still repeats questions to me, no longer because hes thinking of other things, but because his memory is sliding. He has a few remaining wisps of white hair, but his eccentricity, his antisocial bent, and his love for me remain the same. He is a good man.
Most of you out there are good men as well, but you are good men who have been derided by a culture that does not care for you, that, in terms of the family, has ridiculed your authority, denied your importance, and tried to fill you with confusion about your role. But I can tell you that fathers change lives, as my father changed mine. You are natural leaders, and your family looks to you for qualities that only fathers have. You were made a man for a reason, and your daughter is looking to you for guidance that she cannot get from her mother.
What you say in a sentence, communicate with a smile, or do with regard to family rules has infinite importance for your daughter.
I want you to see yourself through her eyes. And I dont want this just for her sake, but for yours, because if you could see yourself as she sees you, even for ten minutes, your life would never be the same. When you are a child, your parents are the center of your world. If your mother is happy, your day is good. If your father is stressed, your stomach is knotted all day long at school.
Your daughters world is smaller than yours, not just physically, but emotionally as well. It is more fragile and tender because her character is being kneaded as bread dough on a cutting board. Every day she awakens, your hands pick her up and plop her back down on the board to begin the massage. How you knead, every single day, will change who she is.
