Once the Son， Now the Father
W.W. 米德 / W.W. Meade
One winter evening as I sat reading， my young son， Luke， approached my chair in shy silence. He stood just outside the half-moon of light made by an old brass student lamp I cherish. It once lighted my doctor father’s office desk.
In those days， Luke liked to approach me with his most serious problems when I was reading. The year before， he did this whenever I was working in the garden. Perhaps， he felt most at ease with difficulties when I was doing what he was getting ready to do. When he was interested in growing things， he learned to plant seeds and leave them in the ground instead of digging them up the very next morning to see if they had grown. Now he was beginning to read to himself— although he wouldn’t admit to me that he could do that.
I looked up from my paper， and he gave me his wide-open grin. Then his expression turned abruptly serious， a not-too-flattering imitation of me. “I broke my saw，” he said， withdrawing the toy from behind his back. “Here.”
He didn’t ask if I could fix it. His trust that I could was a compliment from a small boy to the miracle fixer of tricycles， wagons and assorted toys. The saw’s blue plastic handle had snapped. My father， who treasured the tools of all professions， would not have approved of a plastic-handled saw.
I said， “There are pieces missing. Do you have them？”
He opened his clenched fist to reveal the remaining fragments. I did not see how the saw could be properly mended.
He watched me intently， his expression revealing absolute confidence that I could do anything. That look stirred memories. I examined the saw with great care， turning over the broken pieces in my hands as I turned over the past in my mind.
When I was seven， I’d gone to my father’s office after school one November day. My father was clearly the best doctor within a thousand miles of the small Ohio River town where we lived. He always astonished me—and his patients —by the things he could do. He could not only heal whatever was the matter with anyone， but he could also break a horse， carve a top and slide down Long Hill on my sled， standing up！ I liked to hang around his waiting room and hear people call me “little Doc” ， and I liked the way his patients always looked better when they left his office.