Reunion at a Blind Date?

I haven't had many blind dates in my life. I can only remember three, actually. The last one was when I met my wife, so I can recommend them. This story is about the first blind date I had. I think the story can recommend blind dates, too, but for a different reason.

When I was in high school in Ann Arbor (before moving to California), my good friend Chuck (see the previous blog post!) called me on a Thursday with a big problem. He planned to spend the following Saturday evening with a friend named Wendy, but suddenly had an opportunity to go out with a girl he'd been trying to get a date with for some time. He was stuck with two dates.

Chuck asked me to pinch hit for him with Wendy. Wendy and I had never met, so it was a blind date for us. Wendy was, and I imagine still is, a wonderful person with a great sense of humor and a simply honest way about her that makes her one of the most memorable people from my high school years. She was charming, funny, and fun to be with.

So! it sounds as though we had a great "blind date," doesn't it? Well, read on, because I don't remember meeting her that night, even though that became one of the most memorable nights in my life.

Chuck made the arrangements. I was to go to Wendy's house, meet her, and then she and I would go out. At least, I think that's what we were to do. I know I went to her house. I arrived on time, as that was my usual way. I dislike being late, worry about being early, and work hard at being on time.

I found the house, although it was hidden in an alcove backing up to the Arboretum. The house was large, modern, and beautiful. Being a lower-class kid from the near west side of Ann Arbor, I was easily impressed by the wealth of some of the other kids I knew.

I was let in to the large main hallway by Wendy's father, a man who was a tad shorter than I, with incredibly caring eyes that I remember to this day.  I introduced myself and he told me Wendy would be ready soon. He led me to an area where he was reading a newspaper with a television playing a game show. We both sat on the couch together and he returned wordlessly to his reading.

Waiting for a girl to be ready was not new to me, and apparently, it was not new to Wendy's father, either. We both relaxed as I waited. Well, he relaxed. I was nervous. I was always nervous around girls' fathers. I worried what they must be thinking of me, what they thought I was doing there anticipating being with their daughters. I worried they believed I had "R" thoughts about their "G" child. I had my notions about what I wanted to do, although I didn't think the dads would believe in my innocence, "PG" at most. I didn't think they would approve of my long hair, my cheap clothes, or my borrowed cars.

So we waited for Wendy. He read. I pretended to watch the game show, nervous about meeting Wendy, nervous about being in this wonderful house, nervous about sitting quietly next to Wendy's father.

Suddenly I was startled by Wendy's father crumpling the newspaper and looking at me. He held his fingers about 12 inches apart and said, "Say, do you have a scar on your belly about this long." he held his hands higher so I would see the distance.

"Y...Yes," I replied, utterly out of other words. It was an unbelievable question. I had a scar there from a surgery I received 14 years earlier when I was 2 years old.

He smiled at me for a few seconds. Then he said, "I'm the guy who put that scar there."

I was incapable of speech. I sat there just staring. He asked me, "Would you like to hear the story about that scar?"

"Y...Yes! Yes I would!" I knew I had my appendix removed in 1956. I knew I was pretty ill and spent some time in the hospital, but I didn't know much else.

Dr. Winkler told me the tale: How he and another surgeon, named Dr. Camel, were so perplexed by a  young toddler with a stomach ache and high fever. The X-rays were negative for appendicitis as the appendix was normal in size rather than enlarged as it should be if it were inflamed. They kept the boy in the hospital after his third bout with this high fever that seemed to have no cause. After a week in a private room, sleeping in my cowboy boots, and insisting on using a toilet rather than a diaper, my young, very verbal self had a sudden rise from a low-grade fever to a life threatening temperature of 106 degrees with white blood cell counts off the chart. The decision was made to open me up for an exploratory surgery to find what was causing the pain and the fever. The doctors created that 12 inch scar by cutting me navel to back.

Dr. Winkler looked far past me as he explained that my appendix was abscessed, held to regular size despite being horribly inflamed. The appendix actually ruptured on the operating table just before the incision was made. At one point, my parents were told I had not survived. Dr. Winkler and his partner saved me that day. He told me the nuns who ran children's wing at St. Joe's hospital put me in a room where no one had ever died. They felt the good luck of the room would pull me through.

Dr. Winkler told me the case was written up in medical journals as abscessed appendix was a new phenomena, at least as far as saving the patient was concerned. Dr. Winkler was pretty proud of his work then. He remembered many details of a patient from so many years previous. He said it he figured it had to be me sitting on his couch. Same name, same age, same town.

At some point Wendy finally came down. She and I became friends. I was invited to her home many times, occasionally greeting her father with a smile and having the smile returned. He may have seen the often-morose, unsure demeanor of my teenage self. I only remember speaking with him once more but I remember so well what he said.

During that visit, he said to me, "You were really given a gift in August of 1956, the gift of life beyond what maybe could have happened. So many people worked very hard to make sure you had every chance to have a normal life. You take all those people's efforts with you everywhere you go and in everything you do. Please remember one thing: You are worth all we did. We knew it then. We were proud to help you. Be proud to be you."

I hear his voice sometimes still. It's easy to forget the potential of lost children, to think that bad things happen for a reason when a child dies. In this story, Dr. Winkler and his team made something good happen, and I get to make this life a good one. I'd like to think he'd be happy with the life they saved me to live.