Friday I got a surprise at the door. A package had been delivered to me from a former patient. Thanks Lisa! Inside was a T-shirt and a wooden plaque. The shirts reads: “Retired Doctors Make the Best Grandpa.” The plaque says: “Never underestimate the difference you have made and the lives that you have touched.” Wow!!!
I’ll be honest…I sat with that for a while. Because when you’re in medicine, you don’t really think about it that way. You show up. You see patients. You do your best. You move on to the next one.
Day after day. Year after year. You don’t always see the long-term impact. You don’t always know what stuck. Or what mattered most. Or what someone carries with them after they leave the office. But every once in a while…something like this shows up. And it makes you stop. Over the years I have had the privilege of being part of people’s lives in ways that are hard to put into words. From routine visits…to difficult diagnoses…to moments where all someone really needed was to be heard. And somewhere along the way, those moments add up. Not into something measurable. Not into something you track. But into something meaningful. The gift wasn’t just about a shirt or a plaque. It was a reminder. That the work mattered. That the time mattered. That the connection mattered.
And now, as I step into this next chapter…maybe the title changes. From doctor…to grandpa. From schedule…to time. From constant motion…to something a little more intentional. But the purpose doesn’t really change. It just shows up differently. I’m grateful. For the patients. For the relationships. For the trust. And for the reminders like this…that what we do –day in and day out–can mean more that we realize. I am still striving. Still grateful. Just in a different role. I have looked at both of these gifts’ multiple times over this weekend. Floods of memories come back. Moments of future time with the grandkids floods in. I am lucky…to have done what I did for a career…and to now become fulltime as a grandpa. Because, like the shirt says…”Retired Doctors Make the Best Grandpas!” Keep moving everybody!!!
Dr. Dan
Consecutive Exercise Day of Newest Streak: # 795