MGordon_MD
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Apr 1, 2010, 10:46 AM
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By Dr. Michael Gordon
Ephraim’s brown eyes were like saucers – bright and full of excitement. I had a plastic kite in my hand, and I was checking the somewhat unclear diagrammatic instructions.
I knew from my childhood how to put the kite together to achieve the aerodynamic shape it needed to fly. As I unravelled the long red plastic tail, I could feel the wind tugging at the plastic that was longing to catch the wind.
It rose above the other kites that were held by children from the low-income, primarily immigrant community of Bat Yam, south of Tel Aviv. Ephraim, an eight-year-old Ethiopian immigrant, danced around the sandy beach, yelling to his friends to look at his kite.
He tugged on the string, letting more out as the kite pulled higher than all the other kites, some of which had not been assembled correctly and circled furiously before hitting the ground. The owners then picked them up and adjusted the sticks and the strings, to try to achieve aerodynamic success.
Bath Yam’s sandy beach reminded me of Brighton Beach in New York, where, as a child, I flew kites with my engineer father. Pre-formed kites did not exist then. We cut the material from which the kite was made and bought the dowels and string in a hardware store.
My father was a master at kite building and flying, and taught me how to make a good kite. We would sit on the beach with the kite flying high, or if we went to sports fields, we would sit on the grass with the kite often so high, we could hardly see it, or so it seemed to me.
Even though Ephraim’s kite was pre-made out of plastic and wood, it was based on the same principles I had internalized so many years previously. Ephraim’s excitement lasted all afternoon. After we brought the kite down, he continued to describe its flight to his classmates.
Of the many gifts from my father, kite flying was not the most dramatic or one I might have recalled, if not for the Bat Yam visit. His gifts to me have helped sustain me throughout life and continue to impact my life.
My love for books was nurtured by his taking my younger sister and me to the local library every Saturday. We would return home with a pile of books for the week’s reading. He loved libraries and would say, “The library is the most wonderful invention of mankind.” And when we learned to ask the question, “Why is that, Daddy?” he would reply with his standard, “Because it contains all the knowledge of the world within it.”
I tried to follow suit with my own children many years later. Our financial situation, unlike that of my childhood, made it possible for us to buy books; however, I continued to love libraries.
Other gifts I received from my father include the desire to understand how things work – from his engineering background, a profession I, too, almost pursued. Lastly, he gave me, along with my mother, a love for music and, most profoundly, a sense of fairness and social justice. What more could a child ask to sustain a lifetime?
He is 98, and although not very communicative these days, his gifts will be with me for the rest of my life. I hope I have transmitted at least some of them to my own children.
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Dr. Michael Gordon is Medical Program Director, Palliative Care Baycrest Geriatric Health Care System in Toronto, Canada and Professor of Medicine, at the University of Toronto.
Dr. Gordon is the author of the engaging memoir Brooklyn Beginnings: A Geriatrician's Odyssey, published by I-Universe.
Brooklyn Beginnings is available in bookstores and online at: Indigo-Chapters, Amazon.ca, Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble and I-Universe
Moments That Matter: Cases in Ethical Eldercare: A Guide for Family Members, is available online at Amazon.ca.
His latest release is Late-Stage Dementia: providing comfort, compassion and care. It is available at Amazon and Indigo.
Visit Dr. Michael Gordon's website.
(This post was edited by MGordon_MD on Apr 1, 2010, 12:08 PM)
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