Remembering Dr. Baker

            Will happy haunting suffice for this week? “The Promise and the Lawsuit, Part One” demands at least two follow-up installments. The same thing goes for “The Dialogues of Solly and TAT.” However, today I hope to go short and light. In view of the recent attacks on Israel by Hamas, and the greater misery yet to come in the Middle East, I want to think about happier things. Perhaps you do, too. I don’t feel like staring into some abyss of misery—even if there’s healing to be found at the bottom—not if I don’t have to.
            My second reason for staying short and light is more mundane: I must become quicker with producing this regular correspondence. If ever I hope to plunk my revised fantasy novels into the hands of agents, I must devote most of my efforts elsewhere. So thank you for adapting with me as I shorten these missives. Your encouragement is ever appreciated. Please continue to comment as often as possible, every week if you like, and refer like-minded friends. The growth of this platform with readers who enjoy my style and content is critical to my gaining the attention of literary agents.

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            Can you name one person, now deceased, who left a monumental impact on you? Maybe there were several. Do you remember their laughing, or the way they moved? Are they still with you, haunting you in their own pleasant way? Perhaps you went to their funeral service, and you still remember specific details. They died, as sure as you visited their gravesite, and yet they live on inside of you.
            When I moved back from Oklahoma to Michigan in 1998, to begin practicing medicine, Dr. Ron Baker was younger than I am now. He was in his early 50’s, and amazingly fit. He could bench press 250 pounds; he often ran half-marathons.
            Dr. Baker told jokes to me and to all the office staff—terrible jokes—but we knew why he did it. It was never to draw attention to himself, but always to cheer up everyone else.
            He cared enough to speak the truth to me, in a loving way. At least twice, when I was harsh and demanding toward my nurse, he pulled me aside, and exhorted me to consider my words and be kinder. Then he put his hand on my shoulder and prayed for me; he essentially knocked me on the helmet, swatted me on the butt, and sent me back into the game.
            In those days I was a distance runner, with a voracious appetite. One day I forgot my lunch, and I still had a gigantic workday ahead. There was no time to go somewhere for food. Dr. Baker figured out my dilemma. “That’s no problem,” he said instantly. “You can have half of my sandwich!” Then he rummaged through the refrigerator, pulled out several strange African dishes, and split every portion of his one-person lunch with me.
            That’s what you do when a friend has no meal.
            Dr. Baker was an avid outdoorsman. He grew up as a missionary kid in Sierra Leone, speaking flawless Mendi and hunting everything that moved—whether by hook, or by spear, or by sling, or by bow. He could identify the type of monkey in the forest half a mile ahead by its smell alone.
            “How can you do that?” I asked him.
            “It’s not that difficult. They stink!”
            Dr. Baker took his kids and grandkids on deep excursions into nature to teach them all how to hunt and fish. “There’s only two kinds of fishing,” he said. “Good fishing, and excellent fishing! Just like hunting.”
            Prior to his death, Dr. Baker made a videorecording for his loved ones, especially those from Sierra Leone. He spoke in perfect Mendi as he described what he was seeing, looking back from the other side of the Great Water of death. He was not just speaking in another tongue, but he was thinking in it—for he struggled to translate his own words back into English. He described for us all his lifelong heavenly hope, of a wonderful, glorious land, free of sorrow, free of pain.
            Many Africans from Sierra Leone attended Dr. Baker’s funeral. They testified about his life, his medical help, his character. Then they filled the church sanctuary with their singing, all in Mendi.

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            I often remember Dr. Baker when I sit down at my computer to peck away at some new composition. Many writers say, “Every composition begins as a s****y first draft, so don’t worry about it. Just write.”
            If Dr. Baker had been a writer, he would have said it this way: “There’s only two kinds of writing. Good writing, and excellent writing! Just like hunting and fishing. Let’s go fish!”

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