Visiting a friend dentist

Owing to a crown on a teeth coming off, I headed to a dentist in a town nearby yesterday. He has been a friend of mine since the university days. Even though we were not very close each other those days, we talked a bit from time to time. He was a gentle fellow always smiling and a basket ball player.

Years later, when I started my practice near to his office, he and his wife visited me at the clonic bringing a bouquet and a clock for the reception room. Their kindness was impressive to me since I was doing with everything alone. He has taken their children to me at the clinic when they had any health problem. In a sense, it was another support from him to me. When I closed my office almost 3 years ago, I visited him to report that. He has accepted me with the same smile at that time.

His children have grown up and, as a rumor said, have gone to Department of Dentistry at some universities. I thought his daughter in her late twenties of age now might already have taken over his clinic.

He has busily asked what happened to me. I wanted him to make another crown on the teeth. While he was doing the procedure, I asked how his children were doing. I also added that his daughter could have worked at his clinic by now. In low voice, he answered that she had married and got a son. Her son, that is, his grandson had some chronic neurological problem. Seemingly a degenerative disease. She has been occupied with caring for him, so that she could not come to take it over or even to help him at present.

I did not know how to respond to him. In a few seconds, I told him he should go on working as a grandpa for a while. I could not see how he looked since I was laid on the dentistry chair. He told his son might come back there soon. His wife, working with him, has greeted to me saying thanks for my visit 3 years ago. A slender beautiful lady with the same smile as a couple of decades ago. It was her who always took their children to my clinic.

Such a thing could happen to a family of good will. A kind of cruelty in life. As a pediatrician having experienced with many cases of those handicapped children and their families, I have learned those family members  could unite each other strongly. The mothers with handicapped children always look bright and positive for life. Of course, there could be various difficulties in life for them. Despite of that, they are always bright and positive as if they were living the happiest lives in the world. It is a mystery but still a fact. I really hope that he and his family get bonded even stronger and would prove another example of that miracle.