Little Voices

Working with doctors over the years I’ve run into several that are “yellers” – men and women who explode at a drop of a hat.  I always gave them a pass, however, for their interest in patient welfare over hospital bureacracy.  One morning at St. Petersburg General I’d barely got to my office when the OR called and said “Get down to the Surgeon’s lounge, Dr. Saskin is on a rampage.”  Gordan Saskin was also my personal ENT, but he was a yeller.  I walk in the Surgeon’s Lounge and there he is screaming at the OR Director while the other surgeons were hiding in the corner.  I reached over and turned the lights off in the room making it pitch black.  Saskin stopped screaming and blurted; “Lawson what the hell are you doing?”  I said, “I can’t hear anything you’re saying with all the lights on.”  Crickets.  Then he started laughing knowing how stupid I sounded along with his shouting.

In 1999 when we lived outside of Oklahoma City an F-5 tornado wiped out 2,000 homes along with power and telecommunications.  Diane’s parents were visiting, so we left the boys with them and went to the hospital to help where we could.  Although we didn’t have power, the hospital was up and running on a different grid.  Around 2:00 AM a bunch of us were sitting around my office talking about what’s next when CNN’s London Office called and wanted to talk with me about the tornado and it’s devastation.  I talked with these two British broadcasters for about 10 minutes calmly explaining how things were on the mend and didn’t give it much thought since it was broadcasting in Europe.  I didn’t know it was also simulcasting into the US, so at that point all of our friends and family who were up at 2:00 AM watching CNN worrying about us finally knew we were safe when they heard my voice.

One of the nicest people on earth is my Goodland neighbor, Lisa Cartwright.  Lisa is an Occupational Therapist by trade and talks to her patients with a whisper like voice accented by a little Toronto dialect.  My challenge with Lisa is I can’t hear much in my left ear and she uses an inside voice both inside and outside.  When we’re at a noisy place, like The Little Bar, I can’t hear anything she says.  It really doesn’t matter to me, though, since knowing her well I can easily say that whatever she is saying more than likely has something good and kind associated with it.  What we don’t realize is our voices are unique to ourselves just like DNA – they reflect who we are and where we’ve been.

My great grandfather John emigrated from Ireland at the turn of the century then was run over by a train in 1916.  I’ve found documents on his life, but no pictures and certainly no recordings.  My grandfather Jay, his son, died the year I was born, so my only memory of him is a few scattered pictures.  I envision his voice sounded like my father’s which was pretty quiet until you provoked him, like the time I threw a frisbee through the front door window.   That’s when the quiet tightly coiled spring unleashed itself with an explosion.  I still remember his voice, but I’m not sure my son’s do even though he spent some time telling them his World War II combat stories when they were little.

For different reasons I’ve started attaching audio versions of these blogs, the main one being my 2 year old grand daughter Quinn.  Devin told me decades from now Quinn will enjoy reading the blog stories I write, but she would understand me better knowing what my voice sounded like.  Adding the audio has generated a wave of comments and interest from readers which shows me many people listen to words rather than read them.  I reflect a lot these days on people I remember well who have given me good guidance, there are many but not the loud voices like Dr. Saskin.  Instead I gained the most wisdom from little voices including ones today who are too small to realize what wisdom even means.  Slainte.