To my knowledge, I was Dr. Grasse’s patient only once. On the day I was born, he was the one to catch me.
According to my memory, I was grandpa’s patient many times.
After all, a doctor teaches.
So I got lessons on nutrition, though probably not the same
kind he taught his patients, as he handed me the turkey leg at Thanksgiving
dinner, when I was still in a highchair and the piece of meat was about as big
as my head. Or when he dipped my finger into the icing of my birthday cake,
which I have no doubt I was eager to follow along with. Or when we stood at the
stove, measuring out butter and sugar for peanut brittle.
I got lessons on anatomy at the yearly pig butchering, as we
would all gather around the table where he was dissecting the heart and showing
us the atriums and ventricles, veins and arteries.
I got lessons on operation – of machinery – as I sat on his
lap on the tractor, clinging to the wheel, focused intently on steering toward
the bale of hay that we were going to pick up and feed to the cows.
A doctor prescribes.
So I was prescribed books. Whether it was the Baby Blues
comic book that I read through at least once every time we visited, or the
children’s bible that he and grandma gave me for my birthday.
I was prescribed movies. From “The Wizard of Oz” to “Charlie
Chaplin”, he would draw from his vast library in the basement, always seeming
to have a particular one in mind, which he would find amongst the countless
VHSs.
I was prescribed a jean jacket for each year of my life,
graduating from small to slightly larger as I outgrew them one by one – though
each stayed in the closet in case another tiny farmer came over to visit.
Rubber boots too, from one size to the next, so that I was always equipped to
tromp out to the cows or the chickens or the rabbits, garbage dish in one hand
and a container for eggs in the other.
A doctor examines.
So I sat with him one evening in the pool of a hotel as he
examined his life, prompted by my intermittent questioning. We examined his
boyhood, his college years, his travels to Ethiopia and Nigeria, and his work
here in Arkansas. I was amazed by the places he had been, the things he had
accomplished, the lives he had impacted.
A doctors consults.
So I saw him, over the years, consulting a power much higher
than his own. In his morning devotions with grandma, in his regular attendance
to Calico Rock Mennonite, in his readiness to admit, whenever asked about his
admirable life, that it was not with his own strength, but God’s, that he had
come so far.
A few months ago, we sat with my grandparents at the kitchen
table in grandpa and grandma’s apartment at Menno Haven. During a lull in
conversation, my uncle absent-mindedly stroked his jaw. Grandpa, who had been
silent during the conversation, suddenly looked up and said “does your jaw
hurt?” We all chuckled and my uncle assured him that it was just a mindless
habit, but it made me realize something.
“Doctor” is not a job. It is not a profession. It is not a
way to make money. It is not something that you do during office hours and
leave at the hospital when you come home. It is a calling, a way to live your
entire life. Grandpa, Dr. Grasse, Meryl – whoever you knew him as, you knew him
to be a doctor.
He spent his life teaching every kind of lesson, prescribing
- from antibiotics to literature - , examining his own experiences and those of
others, and consulting the Great Physician on how to best care for the people
that he encountered at every moment in his life.
Now, as he finally rests, I can only be grateful that I had
the fortune to be one of his many, many patients. And I can’t help but picture
him standing next to some heavenly exam table, asking an angel “So tell me, how
long has that wing been sore?”
I read this piece at my grandfather's memorial service in Calico Rock, Arkansas. He passed away on January 29th, 2016 at the age of 92.
