No author has ever written about the death of a parental figure better than J.K. Rowling. Her prose becomes restrained and yet allusive to events or things of symbolic or other importance. One of her best efforts is writing about the death of Sirius Black.
Harry can not believe Sirius is gone, can't get himself to say the words. He sits on the grounds of the school, marveling that others continue their lives in the sunshine while all he can think about is Sirius. He looks over to a spot where he had rescued Sirius from dementors. With great restraint Rowling writes that he suddenly found it was nearly dark, and he wiped his face with his sleeve as he got up. He then has a pair of experiences where he is sure, completely sure, that he will speak to Sirius again. And, of course, does not, making his loss as keen as at first all over again.
Those few sentences (paraphrased but thanks to Rowling) convey much of the death of a parent as I experienced it. At first it was aceepted but unaccepted. I was so sure that I would see my father that I couldn't quite believe it wouldn't happen. He had been on many trips, many hospitalizations. This was just one more. I recall vividly seeing a man from behind, of the approximate shape and bulk as my father, wearing a dark overcoat just like his, black shoes, and a grey homburg. Just like his. I remember to this day the feeling of elation that he had returned. It was so intense that I was walking down the supermarket aisle toward him, entranced by my belief, before he turned and I saw it was not him. My disappointment was as overwhelming as any memory I have of the first 6 months after his death.
My father seemed like a kind of ubermensch even when alive, and he was almost deified after death. The smartest, the funniest, etc, etc. But especially the smartest. I was keenly aware of being the lesser son of a greater father. Or, as put in a movie title, a child of a lesser god. A lesser man. The physical residue of a great man whose life was shortened cruelly by disease.
I never competed directly against my father at anything. He died too soon for that. But there are several areas of commonality. One is singing. Both of us could do that, and neither of us seems to have had much valuation of it. Another is modeling. I learned a love of model building from watching my father. In retrosepct he was not a modeler of great experience, although he was creative and patient. And of course the obvious similarity is school and academic achievement. He was a research pathologist. I am an ob/gyn.
Throughout my academic efforts I have always competed with his ghost. My living competition was not relevant to me. I felt always the burn of his questions when I would present a report card. All As, one B- why did you get the B? And so forth. After death his reputation, stoked by my mother, as an intuitive, creative, synthetic thinker grew until he was unassailable, the overarching presence that asked why if I got less than an A but whispered always 'you could do better' even when I got perfect grades.
And if there is one word associated with his intellectual legacy it is research. Whatever else he was my father was an accomplished player of the academic reasearch game. He published 70 papers and 5 book chapters in about 12 years, a prodigious output, especially for a man sicker than those who have not been on dialysis can imagine. His articles are quoted in bibliographies even today. One of them is 50 years old now, about the technique to remove potassium from foods for dialysis patients. The method is still used (although for all the difference it makes the technique removes not potassium but flavor, a flaw my father readily admitted with a laugh). He testified to Congress, museuems, traveled Europe and the US to present papers. At the research game he was a winner.
And that is what this essay concerns. I have always felt grossly intimidated by the word 'research'. There are few thngs where I feel a sense of personal defeat, of personal unworthiness to participate as complete as I do with medical research. It is like competing with God for holiness. You Lose. Immediately. And given the size of my father's personality and reputation, you don't go down gracefully. It is better not to play than to be that humiliated, especially by a competitor no one else can see.
This has had a substantial impact upon me over my career. I have shied away from seriously pursuing research all my life. I did a project in residency that turned into a seminar presentation at District III ACOG some years ago. And I did a project with a resident that won a research day award and turned into a poster project at distirct IV ACOG. But they were simple little clinical projects. Basic science, serious reasearch, the applying for grants, the hiring of staff, etc, etc were outside of my scope.
But I wanted to return to teaching, which I love, and that means your promotion is based not on teaching ability or clinical skills but on publication. I have several items I can publish but I have let them languish over the years. In discussing them with my chairman I admitted my sense of inadequacy and certain failure in facing the details of research work. And he directed me to assistance, and told me about the owrkings of some of the modern tools available for background work.
On Friday, I performed my first, independent, successful MedLine search. It is for papers related to a topic of great interest and where there is great need for information. I did it myself, without any help. My sense of accomplishment was substantial. So was my sense of grief. I felt I had violated a barrier of definition between my father and myself. He was a researcher. I was a clinician. And no matter how good I was at surgery, or diagnosis, I would never be that higher breed of doctor, a researcher. This weekend I violated that boundary.
And while I feel a great and exciting sense of accomplishment I also feel I should apologize to my father. I have not the slightest intellectual question that he would have rejoiced at my career and at this recent effort. But emotionally I have violated the Ark of the Covenant, come before the small letter father almighty with unwahsed hands and feet, a child of a lesser god and a flawed man, to do the work of other, more accomplished people.
In '20,000 Leagues Under the Sea' Captain Nemo spares a ship and is found kneeling in front of a picture of a woman and two small children. He is crying hard, and asks for their forgiveness.
Part of me feels I must ask forgiveness for stepping where I should not. And even in knowing that is false I experience the loss of my father all over again, so that, as Rowling so beautifully puts it, I am aware of a universe different from the one around me.
And, for all that I too must wipe my sleeve across my face and see that which is not there, I also feel the excitement of a child discovering new abilities. And for that, I am sure my father would have been grateful, and rejoiced.
Ted
Harry can not believe Sirius is gone, can't get himself to say the words. He sits on the grounds of the school, marveling that others continue their lives in the sunshine while all he can think about is Sirius. He looks over to a spot where he had rescued Sirius from dementors. With great restraint Rowling writes that he suddenly found it was nearly dark, and he wiped his face with his sleeve as he got up. He then has a pair of experiences where he is sure, completely sure, that he will speak to Sirius again. And, of course, does not, making his loss as keen as at first all over again.
Those few sentences (paraphrased but thanks to Rowling) convey much of the death of a parent as I experienced it. At first it was aceepted but unaccepted. I was so sure that I would see my father that I couldn't quite believe it wouldn't happen. He had been on many trips, many hospitalizations. This was just one more. I recall vividly seeing a man from behind, of the approximate shape and bulk as my father, wearing a dark overcoat just like his, black shoes, and a grey homburg. Just like his. I remember to this day the feeling of elation that he had returned. It was so intense that I was walking down the supermarket aisle toward him, entranced by my belief, before he turned and I saw it was not him. My disappointment was as overwhelming as any memory I have of the first 6 months after his death.
My father seemed like a kind of ubermensch even when alive, and he was almost deified after death. The smartest, the funniest, etc, etc. But especially the smartest. I was keenly aware of being the lesser son of a greater father. Or, as put in a movie title, a child of a lesser god. A lesser man. The physical residue of a great man whose life was shortened cruelly by disease.
I never competed directly against my father at anything. He died too soon for that. But there are several areas of commonality. One is singing. Both of us could do that, and neither of us seems to have had much valuation of it. Another is modeling. I learned a love of model building from watching my father. In retrosepct he was not a modeler of great experience, although he was creative and patient. And of course the obvious similarity is school and academic achievement. He was a research pathologist. I am an ob/gyn.
Throughout my academic efforts I have always competed with his ghost. My living competition was not relevant to me. I felt always the burn of his questions when I would present a report card. All As, one B- why did you get the B? And so forth. After death his reputation, stoked by my mother, as an intuitive, creative, synthetic thinker grew until he was unassailable, the overarching presence that asked why if I got less than an A but whispered always 'you could do better' even when I got perfect grades.
And if there is one word associated with his intellectual legacy it is research. Whatever else he was my father was an accomplished player of the academic reasearch game. He published 70 papers and 5 book chapters in about 12 years, a prodigious output, especially for a man sicker than those who have not been on dialysis can imagine. His articles are quoted in bibliographies even today. One of them is 50 years old now, about the technique to remove potassium from foods for dialysis patients. The method is still used (although for all the difference it makes the technique removes not potassium but flavor, a flaw my father readily admitted with a laugh). He testified to Congress, museuems, traveled Europe and the US to present papers. At the research game he was a winner.
And that is what this essay concerns. I have always felt grossly intimidated by the word 'research'. There are few thngs where I feel a sense of personal defeat, of personal unworthiness to participate as complete as I do with medical research. It is like competing with God for holiness. You Lose. Immediately. And given the size of my father's personality and reputation, you don't go down gracefully. It is better not to play than to be that humiliated, especially by a competitor no one else can see.
This has had a substantial impact upon me over my career. I have shied away from seriously pursuing research all my life. I did a project in residency that turned into a seminar presentation at District III ACOG some years ago. And I did a project with a resident that won a research day award and turned into a poster project at distirct IV ACOG. But they were simple little clinical projects. Basic science, serious reasearch, the applying for grants, the hiring of staff, etc, etc were outside of my scope.
But I wanted to return to teaching, which I love, and that means your promotion is based not on teaching ability or clinical skills but on publication. I have several items I can publish but I have let them languish over the years. In discussing them with my chairman I admitted my sense of inadequacy and certain failure in facing the details of research work. And he directed me to assistance, and told me about the owrkings of some of the modern tools available for background work.
On Friday, I performed my first, independent, successful MedLine search. It is for papers related to a topic of great interest and where there is great need for information. I did it myself, without any help. My sense of accomplishment was substantial. So was my sense of grief. I felt I had violated a barrier of definition between my father and myself. He was a researcher. I was a clinician. And no matter how good I was at surgery, or diagnosis, I would never be that higher breed of doctor, a researcher. This weekend I violated that boundary.
And while I feel a great and exciting sense of accomplishment I also feel I should apologize to my father. I have not the slightest intellectual question that he would have rejoiced at my career and at this recent effort. But emotionally I have violated the Ark of the Covenant, come before the small letter father almighty with unwahsed hands and feet, a child of a lesser god and a flawed man, to do the work of other, more accomplished people.
In '20,000 Leagues Under the Sea' Captain Nemo spares a ship and is found kneeling in front of a picture of a woman and two small children. He is crying hard, and asks for their forgiveness.
Part of me feels I must ask forgiveness for stepping where I should not. And even in knowing that is false I experience the loss of my father all over again, so that, as Rowling so beautifully puts it, I am aware of a universe different from the one around me.
And, for all that I too must wipe my sleeve across my face and see that which is not there, I also feel the excitement of a child discovering new abilities. And for that, I am sure my father would have been grateful, and rejoiced.
Ted
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