The Physician And The Golden Retriever

The Physician And The Golden Retriever

Early afternoon yesterday, I was having a stressful moment with a money manager from South Africa on the phone, and the sticky point between us was getting stickier and more entangled as each minute went by. Secretively in mind, I started preparing my mental state to be ready for accepting the impasses that seemed imminent. Then, all of the sudden, my email notifier popped up on my screen, normally I'd wait for a task to be finished before initiating any new ones. But since the guy and I appeared heading to a dead end,I figured it made no difference to change the scene in the middle of conversation by reading an email.

It's an email from 阳光mm. For years, she and I've tried to share many things from a joke to an experience in our lives as a way to encourage each other to make a difference. This time it was a picture taken in her iPhone without any ps. There again was she and her patient's dog, a golden retriever named Clifford. As I stared at the photo for a few second, without warning, my already hardened heart began softening. 

"Do you own a dog?" suddenly, I asked the guy at other side of line.

 Paused and hesitatingly he answered"Yes, I do", obviously he must be "spooked" by my complete unrelated question. 

"What kind of dog is ? I kept"grilling" him.

"She is a 4 years old German shepherd." He answered my question without his normal seriousness in his tone and then he asked me "Do you have a dog?"  

For a good five minutes of time we swapped our funny and heartrending dog stories with laughter.

Magically, when we returned to our business subject later, the wall previously existed between us was somehow demolished, and we actually crossed the breaking point and moved forward to have an agreement in good spirit. 

Maybe It's because the timing of the email or her picture or Clifford or something that happened in my childhood, I didn't know for sure. But it didn't matter any more.  In the end, it was a good day.

Life is so unpredictable, isn't it? A simple thing like a picture, a smile and a soft voiced hi may tip the dial for a total different direction and outcome. 

阳光mm and I have been friend for quite a long time. Let me put this in other way, my first comments were left at her blog in this virtue city. I witnessed her as a scared and soft-hearted intern who cried"uncontrollablly'' when a patient of hers died unexpectedly to a confident and experienced specialist who treats her patients with care and compassion today. 

Form the photo, one can hardly tell that just short time ago, 阳光mm perhaps sat in her office and listened to Clifford master's descriptions about her current diabetic conditions, dissecting the difference between the normalcy and an onset of something that is needed to keep eyes on; asking her to taking medication regularly and reminding her to watch diet and keep physically active... In other words, as professional as a physician she can be. Yet, here she was, awhile later,  petting Clifford happily as if she were a child.  

My grandma once told me that one of the best ways to truly reveal a person's personality is to see how he or she would treat, behave and react to other people's kids and pets. I think my grandma could have a point.

 Note:   Put a video clip about golden retriever;please don't interpret it as my endorsement.