A SIMPLE HUMAN STORY CHARGED WITH EMOTION
V SUNDARAM I.A.S.
DR FREDERIC LOOMIS (1877-1949)
For more than 30 years Dr Frederic Loomis (1877-1949) had been a busy obstetrician and gynaecologist in California. He had patiently listened to worried young wives, allayed their fears, given them comfort and advice, and helped them during their deliveries.
A kind and understanding man, he had so completely dedicated himself to his patients and their problems that he had little time for a life of his own. His world, in his own words, 'revolved around sex as a pivot, with love as the motive power and with both happiness and fear as constant companions'.
In 1938, Dr Loomis took a landmark decision in his life. He felt that the time had come for him to retire, and to meditate on the many things he had learned during his long years of practice. He put aside his forceps and took up his pen.
And one of his first writings was “In a Chinese Garden”, the story of a letter from a woman living in China that completely changed his way of life, and which has since changed the lives of many others in all parts of the world.
And one of his first writings was “In a Chinese Garden”, the story of a letter from a woman living in China that completely changed his way of life, and which has since changed the lives of many others in all parts of the world.
A CHINESE GARDEN
Dr Loomis wrote about this letter from China as follows: 'I have told many times the story of a certain letter which I received years ago, because the impression it made on me was very deep. And I have told it to several people on ships in distant seas and to countless people by quiet firesides in thousands of homes round the world. This letter has never failed to evoke a reflective and thoughtful response from those around me. Here is the letter which I received from China:
Dear Doctor,
Please don’t be too surprised in getting a letter from me. I am signing only my first name. My surname is the same as yours.
You won’t even remember me. Two years ago I was in your hospital under the care of another doctor. I lost my baby the day it was born.
That same day my doctor came in to see me, and as he left he said, 'Oh, by the way, there is a doctor here with the same name as yours who noticed your name on the board and asked me about you. He said he would like to come in to see you, because you might be a relative. I told him you had lost your baby and I did not think you would want to see anybody, but it was alright with me'.
And then in a little while you came in. You put your hand on my arm and sat down for a moment beside my bed. You did not say much of anything but you eyes and your voice were kind and pretty soon I felt better. As you sat, there I noticed that you looked tired and that the lines in your face were very deep. I never saw you again, but the nurses told me that you were in the hospital practically night and day.
This afternoon I was a guest in a beautiful Chinese home here in Peking. The garden was enclosed by a high wall, and on one side, surrounded by twining red and white flowers, was a brass plate about two feet long. I asked someone to translate the Chinese characters for me. They said:
'ENJOY YOURSELF
IT IS LATER THAN YOU THINK'
I began to think about it for myself. I had not wanted another baby because I was still grieving for the one I had just lost. But I decided that moment that I should not wait any longer. Perhaps it may be later than I think, too.
And then, because I was thinking of my baby, I thought of you and the tired lines in your face, and the moment of sympathy you gave me when I so needed it. I don't know how old you are. But I am quite sure you are old enough to be my father; and I know that those few minutes you spent with me meant little or nothing to you of course, but they meant a great deal to a woman who was desperately unhappy.
SO I AM PRESUMPTUOUS AS TO THINK THAT IN TURN I CAN DO SOMETHING FOR YOU TOO. PERHAPS FOR YOU IT IS LATER THAN I THINK. PLEASE FORGIVE ME, BUT WHEN YOUR WORK IS OVER, ON THE DAY YOU GET MY LETTER, PLEASE SIT DOWN VERY QUIETLY, ALL BY YOURSELF, AND THINK ABOUT IT'.
Marguiride.
The above letter had a tremendous impact on Dr Loomis. He went to his clinic next morning and told his staff that he was going away on leave for three months. Till then he had believed that no one could replace him in his clinic. His sudden decision to go on a holiday for three months to Latin America shocked many of the members of his staff. About this experience he wrote: 'When I returned I found there were just as many patients as when I left, everyone had recovered just as fast or faster, and most of my patients did not even know that I had been away’.
It is humiliating to find how quickly and completely one's place is filled, but it is a very good lesson. Thus he learned the cardinal lesson that no one in the world in any position is irreplaceable. In the cut-throat world of professional competition, many of us have forgotten the fact that though several years have been added to the average expectation of life, yet each individual's fate is still an unknown and uncertain hazard. We have to remind ourselves that though we have still many more happier years to live, yet even to do good for others we too have to do something for ourselves; to go places and to do things which we have looked forward to for years.
WE HAVE TO LEARN TO REPLACE COMPETITION WITH A BIT OF CONTEMPLATION. THIS IS THE MESSAGE OF THE BRASS PLATE IN THE CHINESE GARDEN. THAT IS PERHAPS THE MESSAGE FOR EACH OF US .
The above story In a Chinese Garden is a true story. It is from a book called The Bond Between Us, a collection of human interest stories based on the experiences of Dr Loomis as a gynecologist and obstetrician.
Here is another inspiring story from his professional life. Dr Frederic Loomis almost permitted a deformed baby to die during birth. The little girl only had one leg. It was a breech birth. He would be preventing much suffering and inconvenience by allowing the girl to die, he began to rationalise. At the last moment, in a flash, he found that he could not do that.
Seventeen years later he attended a Christmas party. A beautiful young lady played the harp skilfully. He noticed that she had an artificial leg. Her mother approached the obstetrician and reminded him that he was the doctor who helped her in the delivery. The talented young lady had been the same baby girl, whom Dr Frederic Loomis, 17 years earlier, had initially almost allowed to die and whom he finally saved. THAT WAS A GREAT MOMENT OF ECSTASY AND REVELATION FOR Dr Loomis.
FRONT COVER OF BOOK ‘CONSULTING ROOM’
When Dr Loomis recorded his experiences in his famous books like ‘The Bond Between us’, ‘Consultating Room’ and ‘In a Chinese Garden’, there was instant and widespread response to his stories. Apparently there were many who felt the need for such a timely, provocative and meaningful messages. Letters came from all over the world telling of lives suddenly reappraised and redirected, of worries and tensions relaxed, of vacations and holidays taken for the first time in years. Requests came in a flood from clubs and Societies for Dr Loomis to present his experiences in person to the people.
Many of them were reprinted in the Readers' Digest and many other publications and continued to give evidence of its enormous appeal to the reader. Finally the global demand became so great that it was published as a separate book and foreign editions conveyed its vital message to all parts of the world: 'Enjoy yourself, It is later than you think'.
The story of the unexpected letter from Marguiride from China, how it altered Dr Frederic Loomis's life and reached out to influence the lives of those about him, has become an inspirational classic. A simple, human story, charged with emotion, it has made countless men and women to look to the future with suddenly altered vision, encouraging them to put aside their burdens for a while and enjoy themselves before it is too late.
When I surveyed the stormy and inspiring life of Dr.Fredric Loomis from 1877 to 1949, I was reminded of the beautiful Poem ‘Ode to a Skylark’ by Shelley (1792-1832). Here is the poem
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY (1792-1832).
Ode to a Skylark
Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!
Bird thou never wert -
That from Heaven or near it
Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.
Higher still and higher
From the earth thou springest,
Like a cloud of fire;
The blue deep thou wingest,
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.
In the golden lightning
Of the sunken sun,
O'er which clouds are bright'ning,
Thou dost float and run,
Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.
The pale purple even
Melts around thy flight;
Like a star of Heaven,
In the broad daylight
Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight -
Keen as are the arrows
Of that silver sphere
Whose intense lamp narrows
In the white dawn clear,
Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.
All the earth and air
With thy voice is loud,
As, when night is bare,
From one lonely cloud
The moon rains out her beams, and Heaven is overflowed.
What thou art we know not;
What is most like thee?
From rainbow clouds there flow not
Drops so bright to see,
As from thy presence showers a rain of melody: -
Like a Poet hidden
In the light of thought,
Singing hymns unbidden,
Till the world is wrought
To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not:
Like a high-born maiden
In a palace-tower,
Soothing her love-laden
Soul in secret hour
With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower:
Like a glow-worm golden
In a dell of dew,
Scattering unbeholden
Its aërial hue
Among the flowers and grass which screen it from the view:
Like a rose embowered
In its own green leaves,
By warm winds deflowered,
Till the scent it gives
Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy-wingéd thieves:
Sound of vernal showers
On the twinkling grass,
Rain-awakened flowers -
All that ever was
Joyous and clear and fresh - thy music doth surpass.
Teach us, Sprite or Bird,
What sweet thoughts are thine:
I have never heard
Praise of love or wine
That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.
Chorus hymeneal,
Or triumphal chant,
Matched with thine would be all
but an empty vaunt -
A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want.
What objects are the fountains
Of thy happy strain?
What fields, or waves, or mountains?
What shapes of sky or plain?
What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain?
With thy clear keen joyance
Languor cannot be:
Shadow of annoyance
Never came near thee:
Thou lovest, but ne'er knew love's sad satiety.
Waking or asleep,
Thou of death must deem
Things more true and deep
Than we mortals dream,
Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream?
We look before and after,
And pine for what is not:
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught;
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.
Yet, if we could scorn
Hate and pride and fear,
If we were things born
Not to shed a tear,
I know not how thy joy we ever should come near.
Better than all measures
Of delightful sound,
Better than all treasures
That in books are found,
Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground!
Teach me half the gladness
That thy brain must know;
Such harmonious madness
From my lips would flow,
The world should listen then, as I am listening now.
William Henry Davies (1871- 1940)
What is the glorious message that the inspiring saga of splendid life of Dr.Fredric Loomis, marked by selfless service laced with carefully chosen moments of noble relaxation, can give to us? My answer will be the following great poem of William Henry Davies:
‘What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare. No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.
No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.
No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.’
