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When my parents were getting on in years, they offered to give up personal possessions to clear their house before their time came. I had little desire to have any of their belongings. There were two exceptions. One was a dark, plaster bust of a newborn which my Dad, a pediatrician, was given as he retired. The other was his black doctor’s bag.
Since my wife Pam was a mother-baby nurse with the heart of a midwife, I felt the sculpture of the infant would be meaningful to her as well as me. Dad held who knows how many babies. He followed many from birth to their teen years. Although I enjoy the head of the child, the doctor’s bag is more significant to me.
Dad was very busy in his private practice in his early years. There were a number of occasions when I was able to tag along with him on a home visit. I would sit in the car while he went into the house.
His black bag contained things like syringes, tongue depressors, an ENT flashlight, a stethoscope, sutures, and medicines. The bag was packed with the tools of the doctor of the 1950’s. As a kid, I could not appreciate what he did for others, but I knew he was being helpful. I felt Dad was both an important and kind man. I knew others felt that way about him, and this made me proud.
Mom and Dad met at Saint Luke’s Hospital in Cleveland, Ohio. He was an intern, and she was a head nurse. Medicine was a big part of both of their lives, and that black bag was a piece of it.
Dad carried the bag into many homes, to the relief of many families. He had a good bedside manner as well as a professional grasp of the science of the day. He was loved by his patients.
He was a lifelong student of medicine and respected by his peers. He was known as a doctor who could diagnose a medical condition even if it had only occurred a dozen times in United States history. He was a good doc.
I was amazed at Dad’s wealth of medical knowledge; just ask a question and out would pour a medical lecture. Dad was more to me than a doctor. I respected him as a man of compassion, education, good humor, and dependability. He was security, joy, steadiness, reliability, perspective, wisdom, silliness that sometimes embarrassed me, and a faithful husband and father.
The black bag tells a story of a good man who once squeezed its handles and carried it home to home. That old bag has heard the fears of parents, the croup of an infant, the distress of a child with meningitis, the crying of a child with a broken arm.
Worried parents would find solutions and comfort from the man who carried that black bag. Now, most of the parents, and many of the thousands of children he cared for, have aged out of this life.
When Pam and I pass, the felt significance of the bag will likely be lost to future generations. The bag and its few contents may be sold at a garage sale, dumped in the trash, or perhaps end up in a museum where modern people laugh at the antiquated notions of medicine of former years.
I have good reason to hope Dad is now in the good company of One called The Great Physician. His black bag is left behind as a testament, at least to me, of a life of consequence.
Steven C Johnson
LandingStripEnterprises.Com