Random Thoughts from a Restless Mind

1. Root. As in Square Root Day. May 5th was Square Root day, when the date represents the square root of the last two digits of the year. 5 x 5 = 25.

I dunno. Just thought you should know that.

2. Gloaming. $0.50 word for “dusk”. Perfect for describing the scene last week as the 151st Kentucky Derby came to a close. Brought to you courtesy of one Tim Layden, sportswriter for NBC after a 25 year career with the nearly late, nevertheless much mourned Sports Illustrated.

A perfect word as the mud-caked winner, Sovereignity, faded into the mist after his conquest.

3. Parvenu. A person of obscure origin who has gained wealth, influence, or celebrity.

I have occasionally come across “parvenu” over a lifetime of voracious consumption of words of all types in every manner possible, and yet I just recently decided to discover what it means. It would have been fun to toss it around over the years, if for no other reason than a descriptor for the destination for a life’s quest, if you will.

You know, like “Sorry, but I can’t be your huckleberry. Too busy trying to be a parvenu.” Or something like that.

4. Success. Two weeks ago I enjoyed what was likely the most successful large conference experience in my professional career. I got to do some stuff I never dreamed I’d get to do (interview a Hollywood celebrity!), and provide support for colleagues as they worked to see their creations come to life. Accolades for past contributions were sent my way so often it seemed liked it happened hourly, and I was mentioned in the same sentence as folks I’ve always looked at as being generational leaders. It was all heady stuff, all the more so because it was so unexpected. It was very nice, and I am very grateful.

But the thing that made the conference a true success is something much quieter and much more personal. Some 30 years ago, during a time when I pretty much just went to work and did the job of tending to patients in the office and the OR, I noticed that the decision makers in the world of eyecare didn’t see me or the other eye doctors who just went to work. Policy was made based mostly on the lived experience of academicians who were often little more than clinical hobbyists. Decisions made in the C-Suites of industry were likewise informed by “experts” who did not really represent, let alone understand the experiences of doctors who spent 95% of their time simply taking care of patients.

It was readily apparent to me that no one in my role as a “working doctor” would ever have any influence in academic medicine, even though training programs were working to create my future colleagues. We “country doctors practicing in the villages” were thought of as potential referral sources (pre ACA, that is) if we were thought of at all. What bugged me about industry was the sense that the denizens of the C-suites were failing their products and their companies by not seeking the insights and counsel of the thousands of doctors “in the villages.” We were prescribing medicines and implanting lenses at a level that was several orders of magnitude greater than the academicians.

Why wouldn’t they want to know what we thought about their products and their place in our practices?

So began a decades long quest to lead an invasion of the C-suites of companies large and small in the eye care industry by “regular” doctors. I started with regional executives and slowly moved up the ladder. Over and over I said that it didn’t have to be me, but they should be asking somebody LIKE me how their stuff was, or wasn’t working in the real world. What we wished they would add to our quivers. Slowly, over almost 3 decades, we came to what I saw two weeks ago in LA: roughly half of the doctors on the teaching podiums and seated around the tables advising those senior executives were doctors who have spent the overwhelming majority of their time taking care of patients in the clinic and the OR.

It is and was a very personal quest, one that was likely being carried out by others unbeknownst to one another, but one that has made my professional world better at the core task before it: save vision, make vision better. It’s a story that won’t be told, but it’s real and it happened, and I got to see it in Los Angeles during the best convention of my professional life.

You don’t get stuff like that very often, and I am very grateful that I got to see it.

5. Mom. It’s Mother’s Day in America. That one single day when we pretend that it’s all about Mom. At the moment I am sitting at the counter of our daughter’s house in Bluffton, in town for a big family wedding. It’s another first for our family, the first Mother’s Day without my Mom here for us to celebrate. Like my niece’s wedding in September we will all have a big hole in our hearts today. A big open time slot that each of us set aside on Mother’s Day to call her, to retell favorite stories, to tell her how much she means/meant to us and that we loved her.

We still have a whole bunch of Moms to celebrate today, though. My own darling Beth, the woman who made me a father, is here with me chez Megan and Ryan. We’ve circulated through the five moms in our generation via texts that reached as far as Mexico to the south and Connecticut to the north, and as near as down the street here in Bluffton. Closer to home I will do precisely what I have tried to do for almost 36 years of Mother’s Days in my own house: find a way for Beth to do pretty much whatever it is that SHE wants to do today! Unlike Father’s Day, a day on which I believe each father should totally give himself over to being Dad for every minute his kids will have him, Mother’s Day should be one where Mom gets to choose how she will spend each moment.

And if she chooses “being Mom” for some of those, we should let her have that, too!

Mother’s Day and Father’s Day seem to line up differently for me. In homes manned by both a father and a mother it seems as if fathers mostly get a pass; any dadly stuff we do gets Oscar-level praise. On the other hand, Mothers, at least the ones I’ve known and loved, are entirely engaged in being a Mom pretty much every waking hour of every day. On the long drive to South Carolina from Cleveburg Beth and I were listening to Smartless, a very funny podcast series in which Jason Bateman, Will Arnett, and Sean Hayes surprise each other with a mystery guest each week. Amy Poehler was the guest on this particular episode (aside: I was Friday years old when I learned that she and Will are married), and she had some pretty cool things to say about her journey as a Mom.

Amy and Will have kids who are about to fledge. Not surprisingly, she described the process of parenting them in show business terms. When they are young you function much as a producer on a movie or TV show set would, organizing and facilitating for the actors and directors. Once your kids become teenagers this is no longer how it works. Now you are more like a consultant invited onto the set by the actors, your kids, available to give advice on demand but expected to simply dwell quietly and unobtrusively on the sidelines until your counsel might be requested. It’s a jarring transition, and in Amy’s telling one that comes without warning and on someone else’s schedule.

The other description shared by Ms. Poehler was also really spot on. She describes the life of a Mom as being inside a series of short stories that begin and end without any rhyme or reason. You find yourself a part of a new story arc after a couple of chapters have gone by. If you are lucky it’s a nice story, one in which you would be happy to spend a very long time. And then, just when you’ve got the hang of it, when you have figured out how your part interacts with the other characters, it’s over. Amy describes the sadness: ” I don’t want this one to be over. I’m good at this one.”

Until one day all of the other actors are gone, and you sit in repose with your memories and hope for an occasional cameo in a chapter here and there.

That’s what I always tried to give my Mom on Mother’s Day each year. A few memories of how wonderful it was being her son. Those calls were really quite lovely. Like watching a re-run of a favorite episode from your favorite TV show, only edited to take out any of the scary or tense or sad parts. We had lots of those calls all year long, actually. It just seemed like they were, I dunno, happier or something on Mother’s Day. I’ve probably reached for my phone a dozen times today to remember a story, or 10, with my Mom.

So Happy Mother’s Day to each and every Mom I know, especially my darling Beth, our sisters and sisters-in-law, and the mothers of our growing collection of grandchildren. I hope each and every one of you gets to do exactly what you want to do today. Tears and only the happiest of memories for the orphans among us, like me, for whom only the memories remain. We all had a mother; Happy Mother’s Day to all of you fortunate to still have a Mom. Time flies by until one day your Mom is no longer there, not even for a cameo appearance.

It’s Mother’s Day. Pick up the phone. Call your Mom.

I’ll see you next week…

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 11th, 2025 at 4:21 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.