Remembering a Good Man

A few days before my son had his senior prom, his grandfather fell suddenly ill and was rushed to the hospital in heart failure. My son made it in time to see him but there was nothing more the doctors could do. His grandfather passed away that evening.

Just like that, someone who had been in my son’s life for the entirety of it was just gone. He had been in my life for nearly as long. By relation, he was my former father-in-law. By relationship, he was someone I loved and respected and still thought of as ‘extended family’ even though we weren’t in touch.

When news of his sudden decline reached me, I was sitting in a diner writing. My son and I were supposed to go rent him a tux for the prom. When my phone beeped with a message from him, I thought he was texting me about that. Instead, it was about being on his way to the hospital. By the time my eggs arrived, I had already packed up my laptop. I didn’t open it again for weeks.

The news just punched me right in the stomach. For my son, his grandfather’s passing marked the first of his last goodbyes. For me, it marked the last of an entire set of them. It marked the very last loss from an entire life lost.

When my son’s mother and I were together, we were close with her parents and spent a lot of time with them. I had played a role in that being the case. I had liked them both from the start and had liked spending time with them, so we did. A lot. They lived down near the New Jersey shore year-round in a sleepy little town. We went down so often, our visits weren’t even visits per se. We had our own sets of keys and our own bedroom with dressers and drawers that were never empty. We left favorite sweatshirts there, favorite pants, comfortable clothes, because second to only our own home, there was no place we were more comfortable.

I adored my in-laws.

I adored them.

I loved having them in my life. I loved the life I had when they were in it. Some marriages come with a burden of an inherited family; some come with the blessing of one. With my in-laws, it was so very much the latter. They were a gift that came with another. I loved them both.

As individuals, they were about as different as two people could be. She was Welsh. He was Indian. They were seventeen years apart. They had wildly different personalities and temperaments. Yet they somehow just… fit together.

My father-in-law had a constant running undercurrent of anxiety which would sometimes crackle to the surface. My mother-in-law was like a human grounding rod. Her mere being calmed him like nothing else could. It was partly her manner but mostly it was a product of how much she loved him and how much he loved her back. He was at his best when with her. She wasn’t the same when he was away. They belonged together. I’ve never known two people for whom that was more the case.

When my in-laws first came into my life, I was already in my late 20’s. By the time I proposed to their daughter, I was already in my 30’s. I was a grown-ass man. I was running a business. Nonetheless, I asked for their permission first. It was mostly an act of respect - and mostly toward my future father-in-law. I wouldn’t have dreamed of doing otherwise. It mattered to him, so it mattered to me.

They had entirely known a proposal was coming, and were on to me the second I asked to come see them alone. My mother-in-law reacted exactly the way my mother-in-law would: she hugged me hard at the door and then told me she had made shepherd’s pie. Hers was my favorite mostly because it was hers. My father-in-law, on the other hand, arrived with pages of notes - and his doing so was the most ‘him’ thing ever.

I can’t recall much of what was in them other than his one ask of me: he wanted me to get a full cardiac workup complete with an EKG. I had no medical need for one, but he was a cardiologist and wanted me to ‘have a baseline’ just in case an issue should ever arise. I found the concern sweet and got the workup. I would have done it even if I hadn’t.

Two weeks from now, I will turn 56. Yet in my entire lived existence, there has only been one person who I have addressed by their formal name even after coming to know them well personally. It was him. Everyone else called him Pran. I called him Dr. Marrott. He never asked me to. I just did… and I knew he secretly liked the fact that I did.

In Indian culture, relationships across generations aren’t peer relationships. An elder is an elder. A junior is a junior. An elder and a junior are not equals in experience or station. He was my elder. Me nodding to that in how I addressed him was natural to me because I knew it was natural to him.

He was an easy man to respect.

He was highly accomplished. His achievements were entirely his alone. He had been the first in his family to go to university; the first to become a doctor; the first to leave India. He had begun his career practicing cardiology before moving into clinical research. He was wildly intelligent, high-achieving and highly successful.

Yet he took joy from the simplest things.

He loved restaurants that punched above their weight class and hated fancy ones no matter their quality. He liked simple, unfancy places that served simple, good food - and he truly delighted at discovering new ones. He’d find some new hole in the wall and then tell us all about it with this animated, excited joy as if he had just found a culinary gem… and then it would turn out to be the most ordinary of spots. It was cute, endearing, often funny, and sometimes downright hilarious.

One night, he had his two daughters and I laughing so hard, we were literally crying. He had just found a new place we simply had to try… a place where they made the most amazing sandwiches… a place where they toasted the bread and served the sandwich while it was still warm.

It was a Quizno’s.

He had been to a Quizno’s.

The man was the Director of Clinical Research for a biotech. He traveled. He stayed in nice hotels when he did. He was worldly. Yet, he’d come home from presenting at some conference in Berlin positively bubbling over about having discovered a Quizno’s or something. There was an innocence to it, a purity. He just delighted at simple joys.

They weren’t always restaurants.

One time, he came home from a trip to London absolutely gushing about having discovered… a musical. According to his telling, the show had aroused a ‘truly amazing’ response from the audience which he found utterly ‘enchanting.’ He insisted that we simply must see it when it comes to Broadway. When it finally did, he bought tickets for the whole family.

It was Mamma Mia.

The respected clinician with the Indian accent, the man I never called anything other than Dr. Marrott, he absolutely adored Mamma Mia because he just loved how happy everyone was seeing it.

He took all of us because he wanted us to be too.

He was a good man.

He was a good, decent, honest and honorable man.

He cared deeply about bettering human life. He had extremely strong character. When faced with a moral choice, he could be counted on to do the right thing because it was inconceivable that he wouldn’t. He cared about the right things for the right reasons and cared about very little else.

He adored his wife and loved his children. He was a patients’ doctor even when he was no longer at their bedside and was instead researching treatments. He was without guile or pretense. He told the truth and could be trusted. Lastly, he had a sense of humor and could laugh at himself - and often made the rest of us laugh both intentionally and not.

With all of that said, like all of us, he had facets - not all of which shined. He was a whole human being and was imperfect as we all are. I took him in as that whole person, and what I saw was a good man who loved his family, cared about bettering the world, and did his best.

If anything at all has read through in this remembrance, I hope it is both respect and affection. I had a deep reservoir of both for him. We didn’t need to be in contact for it to remain full. I was so incredibly lucky to have him in my life. I lost no affection for him when he wasn’t.

Rest well, Dr. Marrott, and thank you for the years. I carry them as a blessing.