There are some people who make us happy simply by being themselves. My family doctor, Dr. Clyde Harriger, was one of them. Dr. Harriger hasn't provided medical care for me in over 10 years, but I still think of him as my family doctor. He saw me and my brother (and, for that matter, my parents) through many years of small illnesses and accidents, from when I was 11 until I was in my mid-20's. When I was prone to an infected toenail, he cut it off, over and over, in my teens. My ear canals are small and wax gets built up in them -- he irrigated them. He looked up my cold-ridden nose, and down my fever-plagued throat. He assured me I wasn't going to die from food poisoning, and once called me to tell me not to be cavalier about being allergic to sulfates, that if I took a medicine with them by mistake again, I could die. (I am still very deliberate about telling all medical personnel that I must not take an sulfate medications EVER).
I'm a person prone to little illnesses, but not big ones, thankfully, so far, and he endured these petty little travails of life with me and my family, always with the same mildly cranky disposition and a determination, perhaps beyond his best instincts and sense of self-preservation, to do what was right.
He was also my family's friend, giving my brother and I generous gifts, along with his wife, Kay, at pivotal life moments. He took my dad out to breakfast frequently, treated my mom like a lady, and never shirked from helping out at his church, where my dad was pastor for 20 years. My brother and I loved when Dr. Harriger was the reader at the Tenebrae (Good Friday) Service. His low, smokey, creaky voice was just right for the dark and spooky church after all the candles had been extinguished and we were thinking about Jesus being dead.
He told us lots of stories -- about playing in his band when he was a young man, and courting Kay. He was always surprised when I said something funny, and always delighted when I came back to Johnstown to visit. He never remembered Justin's name, almost always calling him Jason, or, my preference, Young Fella. And what I keep thinking of, when I think of him, is how happy he was the evening Dad and I came back from England along with his wife, Kay. We'd all been gone for two weeks, and he missed her. I have never seen a man so happy as Dr. Harriger was to see his wife get off the van that brought us from the airport. I don't really remember much of anything else about that day (except for the previously blogged about turbulence of doooom!) but I remember the joy on that man's face. Everything he had ever wanted was home. I may have decided, right in that moment, never to marry a man who was less happy than that to have me be his wife.
Dr. Harriger passed away Monday morning, after dictating what he did and did not want to have happen to him, and declining surgery on his broken hip. He was ready to go, I guess. I don't think we were ready to let him go. He was one of a passing generation of doctors -- he carried a big black Doctors' bag, made house calls, once gave Tom Cruise a shot in the butt (when he was in Johnstown, filming "All the Right Moves") and delivered babies. All I could think of, when I heard he had died, was "We will not see his like again."
Rest in peace, Dr. Harriger. I will miss you.
Just one last note. My mom emailed me to say that the Dutch Maid Bakery, a Johnstown/Richland, PA institution, changed their billboard to read "Johnstown Thanks Dr. Harriger" on Scalp Avenue (a major thorough-fare). This is just another testament to how much he was a beloved part of our community, and makes me both smile and weep.
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