As he retires from pediatrics, I’m proud to have shared my dad with his community
After 37 years in practice, my father ushered in a well-deserved retirement this spring, finally closing the doors of his pediatric practice on the Near West Side. It marked the end of an era not only for our family in a season of change, but for the thousands of children and generations of families in the surrounding communities that he and his staff cared for and watched grow.
He immigrated to Chicago for a second life, where he completed his residency training, continents and oceans away from the tropical savanna of his origin. Chicago greeted him warmly, although he still shivers when he talks about those first winters, never forgetting that day in 1985 when it hit 27 below zero.
Day in and day out, he worked inside the first floor of an unassuming greystone in Ukrainian Village, around the block from St. Volodymyr Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral, a stroll past the giant steel Puerto Rican flags on Division Avenue. He always recounted the first day he opened his practice, arriving in a crisp suit, new tie and ironed shirt and simply waited. Not a single person walked in that day, or for that matter, the rest of that week.
But, before long, the clinic was consistently overflowing as the community got to know him and love him and his staff. As health systems and hospitals came and went around him, he remained constant, staying on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week, from the days of the pager that would buzz on his belt at all hours, to the cellphone that would ring at odd hours of the night, always at the ready to triage and treat.
Because of his work his patients have gone on to be everything from business owners and police officers to MMA fighters and doctors themselves in the city that raised them. We can seldom walk through any local landmark, be it Millennium Park, O’Hare or United Center, without someone inevitably recognizing him like a celebrity out of his white coat persona, running up to him elated.
There was even a set of parents who named their child after him.
In this month that celebrates fathers and their sacrifice, it is hard to fathom how lucky we were to share our dad with the community, and how blessed he felt to be shared with an ever-expanding family. Every month, invitations arrived for the staff, a newborn’s baptism or a family quinceanera. He celebrated the sweet 16 birthday of a patient with Down syndrome, and wept at the funeral of a 19-year-old patient, gunned down after returning as a soldier from the National Guard.
When he retired this year, as a tribute, the community and the clinic threw a surprise farewell, which turned out to be a traditional pandemic-era-style car parade. The response was monumental, shutting down one lane of Western Avenue, and led off by a fire engine from the Chicago Fire Department that was so moved by the procession that it circled back again.
There were lines of balloons tied to side mirrors and windshield wipers, poking into the chilly air for as far north as the eye could see. Children themselves poked out of sunroofs and passenger-side windows, bundled and waving for their turn to say goodbye. The vehicles were adorned with posters and streamers and spray paint, with people bursting to get out, express their gratitude and shower him with superlatives that embarrassed him.
A slow roll of two hundred some cars and two hours had passed by on a frigid, sunny Saturday morning. Our throats ached from tears and yelling, faces sore from laughter, fingers frozen and hearts warmed, with him trying to process what had just happened.
“I just showed up to work,” he said, bewildered as to what he just witnessed. “I did not think I was doing anything special.”
Well, Dad, I think we would all beg to differ.