Courage in a White Coat

by Mary Schwaner

  September 1936 — Letter from Fred to his Mother

  I am sitting on the verandah trying to keep cool and trying to keep from taking the first train to Gauhati. Between the heat and lonesomeness, I am just about good for nothing. I did not think I could ever fall so irrationally in love with anyone as I have with Dorothy Joy. Rather prided myself on my ability at self-control but this is one time when I capitulate completely. Write to her only once a day because there is but one mail a day. But from the time I waken in the morning until I fall asleep at night, my whole world is Dorothy and everything turns about her. I try to keep busy continually or I would simply go crazy. We bargained for it and I would not take back the six weeks we had together, but it is mighty hard to try to keep my mind on my work and remain in Jorhat.

  If anyone in this world has all the marks of an ideal wife, then Dorothy has them plus. I marvel at her understanding of so many little things that make for perfect harmony between us. Surely God has a special purpose for us in this country and we are gloriously happy to give our best to what comes to our hands to do. We are both coming to a fuller realization of John 10:10.

  “Fred, darling?” Dorothy crooked a finger at Fred and beckoned him to the window. “What do you call that flower? That one right at the step up to the verandah. See?”

  Fred peered over her shoulder and grinned. Dorothy pointed to one of the plants Amu had recommended.

  “Sea moon flower, dear. Don’t you like it?”

  “Oh but I do, darling! It reminds me of...of morning glories back home.”

  Fred drew her into a hug. He’d never tell her why the sea moon flowers were planted strategically along the front walk. They reminded her of morning glories. They reminded her of home. And that was all that mattered.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  GOING HOME

  Just as Dorothy began to cope with her separation from Fred, news from home shattered the tentative joy she’d managed to recover.

  Images of her father pervaded her thoughts today. How could they not? He’d been there in that first moment when Dorothy had realized her life’s passion, when she’d known without a shred of doubt that somehow the practice of medicine would define her future. Each baby she delivered reminded her of it, of that day when a wide-eyed twelve-year-old girl helped her father deliver a baby, beneath a bridge in the foothills of Colorado.

  He’d been every bit as present with her today.

  Dorothy paused for a moment to take comfort in the quiet darkness that had engulfed the hospital. Most of her patients were doing well, and Dorothy could only give thanks for that blessing where it was due. God had blessed her with the dearest staff whose skill was as great—greater, even—than anyone could expect in a remote outpost like Gauhati. Today had challenged them like few others had. And they had risen to the tasks. Dr. Randall would find her support team ready and superbly able.

  When she gets here, Dorothy thought. If she gets here.

  She stepped into her office and poured a glass of cool water that Edna made sure was always fresh and waiting on her desk. She caught a glimpse of herself in the little Bohemian mirror and brushed an errant tendril off her forehead.

  She moved closer and reached out a finger to trace the trompe l’oeil art that twisted about the mirror’s frame, surprised as always at the suggestion of depth it achieved. The flowing vine was so skillfully painted that it deceived the eye with its illusion of depth and substance. But her finger proved once again, as it had each time she’d touched it since her childhood, that it was merely an artist’s clever treatment of a flat surface.

  Merely a deception.

  Dorothy caught a sob before it spilled into the silence of her office. It was the word that triggered her unexpected reaction. Deception. The word floated behind her eyes. It twisted her heart with its too-fresh memory of the day’s tragedy. Deception. Like the signs of life that seemed so strong in the young woman with the ruptured uterus.

  Everything had pointed to success. The surgery went as well as she could have hoped. But the blood loss was too great, and her patient had lost her tenuous hold.

  October 1936

  We had a young woman brought in three hours after a rupture of the uterus had occurred. Altho we operated immediately it was too late to save her. How I did long for some of the blood donors that every hospital at home has on call. Altho we typed her blood with that of three of her relatives, there was none that matched hers.

  The patient was a beautiful young woman, brought in by a husband who clearly loved her. Dorothy had found herself bereft of words when he wept, begging her to save his wife.

  She blinked her weary eyes and realized she still held the cablegram that had arrived on this day that was already so filled with sadness. The little mirror glimmered in a shaft of moonlight and reflected her tears that she could not manage to hold back. Bits of silver paint gleamed, nearly bringing the painted vine to life. Her mind seemed as twisted as the trailing vine tonight. Sorrowful thoughts warped into plans for the coming day, then dipped back into thoughts of Fred and then by some strange mental distortion became vivid memories of home.

  How does it do that, Daddy?

  She’d asked her father once how the moon could play such a trick on her eyes the way it brought the painted mirror to life at night. He’d launched into a sketchy scientific explanation until he caught her looking at him with a sort of disappointment on her face.

  He’d sighed and scratched his head, then tucked his thumbs into his vest pockets, rocked back on his heels and declared, “Of course I always think a moonbeam is just God’s fingertip. So it’s not really a trick at all, is it, Doffy Joy? It’s just God’s finger painting.”

  Dorothy sobbed. She hadn’t thought of that in years. But tonight her father’s face was as clear in her mind as if he were standing right beside her.

  “Oh Dad! I miss you!”

  Her shoulders trembled as the emotion overtook her. As the deception of it began to sink in. She’d always had an anchor at home, a knowledge there would always be Mom and Dad to come home to.

  But the cable from home this week changed all that. Even as she knew that her anchor had already been lovingly secured in Fred’s heart, the anchor of her family home had not lost its place. It was merely being shared by the man in whom her faith and trust grew immeasurably day by day.

  She reached out to the mirror again, placing her hands where her father once had, touching the thing that in this moment was her only tangible connection with him.

  Your father has Gone Home.

  The words of the cablegram had stopped her breath, squeezed her heart, and taken the strength from her knees.

  Your father has Gone Home.

  And Fred had come to be with her. He had dropped everything in Jorhat and flown to her side, to hold her through the devastation he knew she would be feeling. A loss he felt, as well. It had meant the world to her that he had not hesitated for a moment to come to her.

  It was a comfort beyond words that her Fred had met her father before he ever met her. Fred could see her father’s face in his mind as she did, hear the measure of his voice and the weight of his words as she did.

  Her sobs quieted. Her heart found its peaceful pace.

  For nearly ten years she’d hoped her parents would come see this new world of hers. And now her father was here, at her shoulder. Not in the way she had hoped, but he was here.

  Dorothy wandered into the children’s ward. She lifted the chart from the end of three-year-old Ajola’s bed and was relieved to see his kidneys were showing stronger output every day. His little face had lost much of its swelling now, and she was struck by the beauty of it.

  She realized she’d wakened him when he opened one eye. But the moment he saw who was standing at the foot of his bed he opened both eyes wide, smiled and raised a small hand to wave at her.

  “Hello there, Humpty Dumpty,” she whispered.

  He giggled as he alwa
ys did at the name his terribly swollen face had earned him.

  “I’ll just make a note here in your chart that Humpty Dumpty—” she paused and dropped him a look. “That is your name, isn’t it? Mr. Humpty Dumpty?”

  Ajola suppressed a squeal. “No! My name Ajola Sunny Jeem Humpty Dumpty!”

  “Oh yes, how could I forget?” Dorothy turned back to her writing. “Ajola Sunny Jeem Humpty Dumpty is resting well.”

  Ajola giggled and let out a contented sigh as Dorothy leaned over to kiss the top of his head. His eyelids fluttered heavily, and a few light strokes of her fingers across his forehead sent him back to sleep.

  Slumbering children in every bed lifted her spirits. They had come in such a variety of alarming conditions, and all were doing well now.

  She stepped across into the nursery. The little row of bassinets boasted four newborns, and she stopped to check on the newest to arrive.

  October 1936

  We have had some very interesting cases in the hospital lately. One was a little woman who was brought in from a village some 15 miles away. She had malaria, kala azar, pulmonary tuberculosis. . .and was at term with a pregnancy. Due to certain conditions, normal birth was impossible and two days after she was admitted she went into labor and we had to do a Caesarian operation. She and the baby are both doing remarkably well. She is nine days past the operation and has had no fever for two days and has gotten along beautifully in every way. Has had to have intravenous medication for both the malaria and the kala azar. The baby is an adorable little piece weighing about five pounds.

  Dorothy gazed upon the infant. This was what she had wanted her father to see. This was how she wanted him to see her. Not as the child asking about moonbeams, but as the woman who brought new life into the world, who carried desperate women through the greatest travail of their lives and released them into motherhood.

  He knew her as daughter, as student, as aspiring missionary. But she wanted him to know her as she was now. As doctor. As peer. As woman.

  There was nothing for it now but to let her tears fall. In her heart she knew he had “seen” her, had grown in his understanding of who his daughter had become. Her letters had conveyed to him as much as she knew how to without seeming to brag, and surely his image of her had blossomed over time.

  But for him to have stood here at her side, to have witnessed the fullness of this life she had carved out for herself—that would have been a joy unlike any she might have conceived of. To see this wee walla in her father’s arms, to hear the blessing she knew he would speak over the child.

  The very image of it drew a smile to Dorothy’s face. She could see it so clearly. She could hear his voice as if he stood beside her. Her heart trembled with the phantom resonance of the voice she would never hear again.

  Not in this world.

  October 17, 1936

  Dearest Mother:

  How I wish I could have been with you and be with you during these days. I can’t realize yet all that has happened and all that it means. The cable came so unexpectedly. I got it about 5:30pm on Thursday the 15th. I couldn’t credit what I read at first. It left me feeling numb all over. If only I could have been with you and could have let you and Dad know how much I love you both. It seemed almost unbearable not to be able to go to you at once.

  All Wednesday night I couldn’t sleep (that would have been Wednesday daytime at home). I couldn’t find any known reason for it. Had done a Caesarean Wednesday morning and altho everything had gone beautifully, thought my inability to sleep was perhaps due to that altho I was not at all worried about her. Something was wrong somewhere, but just where or what I couldn’t say. Now I know the reason! Even being halfway around the world couldn’t prevent my being conscious of something that was not as it had been.

  I have tried to imagine what may have happened. I know Daddy was ready and for him I can feel only a deep joy for he has entered into the reward that he has won, and his race has been run victoriously and triumphantly. His going is another link with eternity and another proof of Life Eternal. Such a spirit as Dad had—the firmness of character, the integrity of it, the personality—can’t be just snuffed out like a candle. There must be and is a Life Eternal. I’m surer than ever of it. I can be gloriously happy for Dad—glad that he could go without being ill a long time and perhaps helpless, glad that he could go perhaps in harness—know he would have wanted it that way, and glad that he was ready and had had such a full rich life in so many ways.

  I know that letting him go on ahead was bitterly hard for you, Mother mine, and would so love to be able to help lift the load and share it more than I can at this distance. I can appreciate how hard it was better now than I could have six months ago. My thinking has raced backwards and forwards in the last two days. Have thought how much you had helped Dad to make possible his success—of the sacrifice that you both made in being away from each other so much in order that he might do the work he did. That too, I can appreciate now as never before. Oh Mother Darling, hard as the experience is and has been, I know that you are capable of meeting it in a very wonderful and beautiful way, and a way that will be worthy of Dad, and worthy of our faith. If only I could be there to help and to be near you.

  Last night I lay awake from about two to three-thirty. Had been rather restless before, but just couldn’t sleep. Was thinking about you all, loving you so much, and longing to be with you so, trying to know just where you were, etc.

  Fred joins me in sending much, much love and the hope that the support of the everlasting arms may be very real. We love you so much, and shall be thinking of you so often. Our love, our thoughts, and our prayers will be with the girls as well as with you, Mother darling.

  As ever your daughter—

  Dorothy Joy

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  ALL’S RIGHT WITH THE WORLD

  December 21, 1936 — Jorhat, Assam

  At last the long six months are over and we are together in our own home and such a gorgeously happy time as we are having. Dinner tonight in front of the fireplace, tall red candles on the mantel and above them the copy of The Presence that the Guild at Calvary gave me. We both love it.

  The little Christmas tree is all set up.

  Dorothy dozed in the crook of Fred’s arm as the tall red candles on the mantel dripped uneven trails along the bases of the candlesticks. Each exhaling breath carried with it a small sigh, without a doubt marking the single most peaceful moment of her lifetime. Knowing she wouldn’t have to leave in a few days kept the lazy smile planted on Dorothy’s face as she relaxed into her husband’s side.

  She was home.

  She’d never have to be separated from Fred again.

  “You’re purring.”

  “Wha...hmm?”

  “I said, you’re purring.” Fred tipped her chin up and kissed her forehead. “Like a little kitten.”

  . . . If life could be any fuller than it is now, I can’t conceive how it is possible. Certainly God is gracious to grant so much happiness and I only hope that somehow I can be of some use in bringing a measure of some such happiness into others’ lives. Wish we could share our happiness with you at home, for we feel as if we have more than our share and plenty to spare.

  “Well I just feel like purring, darling. Everything is so...so...”

  Dorothy stopped to search her contentedly muzzy head for a word.

  “Say it, my dear,” Fred grinned.

  “Say what?”

  “The word you want to say but you think it’s too utterly silly.”

  “Why, Fred Chambers, I don’t know what word you could possibly be thinking of. In fact, I don’t believe there’s a single silly word in my entire— and might I add vast—vocabulary.”

  Fred laughed. “Not a one, I’m sure. So I shall say it for you. You are purring because things here are utterly purrfect. Hmmm? Am I right?”

  “Oh Fred, it sounds so ridiculous.” She poked him in the ribs.
“And so utterly true.”

  Fred sighed and stretched. “Golly, if I could just get along with the Swedes half as well as I get along with you, my life would be simply too easy to bear.”

  Dorothy sat up, untucked her knees and straightened her skirt. Just mentioning the austere community of Swedish missionaries sobered her. They were the most divisive group anyone could expect to encounter in the field.

  “Oh dear. What have they done now? Outlawed rugby?”

  “Hmph. That I could probably deal with. It’s worse.”

  “I guess you’d better tell me what it is or I might just have to stomp over there and throttle it out of them.”

  “Throttle them, you say?”

  “Yes! Throttle! They have positively no sense at all when it comes to working with these good Assamese, and their main goal in life seems to be to make your life miserable. So out with it, Fred. What have they done?”

  Fred shifted and ran a hand through his hair, a signal that had Dorothy holding her breath. He was really upset. She laid a hand on his shoulder prompting him to speak.

  “They’re against me, Dor. All twelve of them. Only the Tuttles, Hardings, Merrills and Huttons are in my camp. The other twelve are telling the boys they’re being taught wrong.”

  “Wrong! That’s preposterous! Fred, you know the boys won’t believe it if they think about it for a second. They’re doing so well in their exams. They have to know it’s because of you.”

  February 1937 — Dorothy to her mother

  ...you were asking about Fred’s degrees, etc. He got his B.A. from Franklin in 1923. Has studied at Yale and Harvard, and got his degree (M.A. from U. of C. in 1926 - History). Had two years at Yale in Religious Ed. He was ordained just shortly before coming out to Assam, but doesn’t use the Rev. much as he is primarily a teacher.

  Fred got a tremendous thrill out of what Dad had said about being proud of him if he was in the list whose theology was being investigated by the Swedes.