Dr. K____

So mom's staying with me for a few days while Sean's out in Tampa taking the boards and it's late at night and we've been talking for hours and she's really letting her hair down.

She has, like pretty much anyone, a list of favorite stories, and we get through the greatest hits: Alice the babysitter meets Aubrey the driver, the shotgun wedding of Sandy and Bill, the adorable origin of Shadow's lifelong nickname. Then a whole new set starts showing up. They start out pretty lighthearted: dad used to give sleigh rides (and that's how I learned to jitterbug!), mom rented out my room while I was still in it. After a while, they get a little deep: you know we all think Marie was retarded, what do you expect when you meet your new husband in a bar.

And then it turns personal. We go through the greatest hits: you cried for three days when we brought you home, the only thing that made you smile was the dog, you never did like to be touched. But then the new ones show up.

I loved my pediatrician-- loved him! He was a kindly, grandfatherly sort with a beige Volvo station wagon and a fishing habit who died a very, very long time ago. He used to set aside a little time at the end of the appointment for you to talk with him one-on-one, in case there was something you wanted to say that you didn't really want mom to hear. I don't know if you can do that anymore, but I remember taking the opportunity to tell him that I would like to be a doctor, too and did he have any advice. (I must've been about five.) I remember him leaning back in his chair, giving a little sigh, and telling me with great sincerity that it was really a wonderful profession and that he thought I would find it very rewarding and enjoyable. He then leaned forward and advised me to do very well in school: get straight A's starting right now. After that, I would inform him of my progress at our yearly check-ups and he would teach me a little thing, like how to turn on the little light for the otophthalmoscope.

I remember that people would comment on the long drive we took to see him and the flashy neighborhood his office was located in but I guess I'd always figured that mom had searched around for the best pediatrician in the city and found him.

He might well have been the best around, but that's not why he was my doctor.

Dr. K___ donated his services to the Holy Family Adoption Agency, where I came from. And he knew my grandfather.

If you're not adopted, I don't know if you will appreciated the magnitude of this bombshell: someone that I knew knew who I was, really-- knew this shadow family that I wasn't part of but that was as close to me as my blood.

My genetic grandfather was a local physician and Dr. K_____ knew him, not well, not deeply, but he knew whose granddaughter I was, maybe whose daughter I was.

It's because of my forehead.

When I was an infant, my forehead was a little prominent-- I'm not a freak or anything, but in a baby that's kind of worrisome because you wonder if the brain underneath that little prominence is really normal. For an adoption agency, this is an administrative matter of some import, as it affects the placement: "special needs" versus "garden variety." As my pediatrician, Dr. K_____ would have been the one who spotted this and was responsible for determining if I was a special needs baby or not. I was held in foster care until everyone could be sure. We're all born with a series of reflexes that pretty much constitute our entire behavioral repertoire for the first few months, so intellectual capacity is measured by waiting a few months and seeing if the new behaviors pop up on time (making you milestones.) But my forehead (really, I'm not a freak-- let's just say I look better with bangs) still required an explanation. It could, of course, be a family trait, but to check for that, you'd need to look at the family. Apparently, my birth family obliged with a set of photographs to be compared with my head and, I guess I must've looked like them because after passing my milestones and photo check I was released into the main adoption pool and sent to my eventual family.

It must've fallen to Dr. K____ to check the photos. He must've recognized my grandfather from the photos. And then, like the honorable man he was, he took that secret to his grave.

Everyone is different: for some people it's a movie star, for some people it's a CEO, but for me, being a doctor is the finest thing you can be and all I can think since then is Grampa was a doctor! Grampa was a doctor!