21st
MY DAD MEMORIES
My Dad, Merrill B. Scott, MD., was a wonderful man. He was a brilliant man, earning degrees in Business (Accounting) with high honors; Engineering; Physics; Biology (as a Premed requisite); he earned a Medical Degree with honors, specialties in Radiology and Diagnosis. Those are not the things that make him a great man to me, however, and they are not the memories that I hold of him now, 15 years since his unexpected passing.
There are things that I remember fondly about my Dad, things that are not monumental things, like Saturday mornings, walking down the hallway in our Wilson Avenue home, in Fresno, California, to find him at his desk in the Library hideaway he commandeered to do his ‘figuring’. I didn’t know that was what it was at the time, because I was only four and couldn’t understand what his columns of numbers on page after page could possibly mean. I couldn’t understand at that tender age that he comprehended the complex Commodities Markets, or that he had his own need to compute mathematics, just because it made sense to him. That he wanted to write the computer code to schedule out the occurrence of Easter Sunday for the rest of the millennia, which he did, just as soon as the home computer became available to him at a reasonable price.
I remember thinking many times that I was glad that my Dad had four girls, instead of boys, because of his gifts in the ‘brains‘ department, rather than the ‘brawn‘ one. My Mom could barely get him to come out and play tennis on one or two occasions and I can’t even picture him as the coach at Little League!
When I began playing the piano and having semiannual recitals that were a big production, including the fact that my poor Mom would even do the laborious chore of coiffing my thick, long hair with an old-fashioned curling iron. I was thrilled that he would eagerly come and listen to me perform. He seemed so excited. After the successful execution of my musical talents, my parents would take us to Baskin & Robbins Ice Cream store for a rare treat. It took me probably six years before I accidentally found out that the real cause of my father’s enthusiasm was the Jamoca Almond Fudge ice cream, not my musical prowess.
In fifth grade, my Mom picked me up from Power’s Elementary because I doubled over in pain and the school nurse didn’t know what to do. By the time we drove to Valley Children’s Hospital, my Dad was in the Radiology department, although I think he was relieved that he was not the Radiologist on duty that day, because I needed to have a diagnostic procedure before they could figure out what to do about my condition. At the time, I was just comforted that he was there. I didn’t have a clue how he must have felt about having his little girl in a precarious medical situation. Until my own daughter came along.
Sarah was two and woke up one morning covered in bruises. She was a fair skinned child with freckles and auburn hair, and that morning it appeared that she had been pummeled by someone. There were purpura even on the tops of her feet and the surface of her tongue. I was understandably concerned, though not yet hysterical, because I was waiting to see my father’s reaction when he saw her with his own eyes.
When we arrived from our home in Oakhurst to my parent’s home in Fresno, my Dad was waiting. In his signature calming demeanor, that I had come to recognize through years of watching him, he gently took Sarah into his Library office and asked her if he could ‘count‘ all of her ‘boo-boos’. Even though she was only a toddler, she remembers this episode with her Superdad vividly, and I recall it, as one of the most genius maneuvers of any health professional I have ever heard of. There are many ways that my Dad was a genius, but I think that day meant the most to me as a mother.
I miss you, Dad.
Love,
Susan Ardith
