Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 25, 1995 TAG: 9506270019
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CODY LOWE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
There I was last week lying in the doctor's office, clutching a big fuzzy bunny while Clarke Andrews was cutting on my toe.
A little minor outpatient surgery really didn't scare me. Honest. I'm tough. I've run extra windsprints at the end of football drills because I was too slow for the coach.
I've even survived a heart attack. Now that was painful. Maybe not as bad as windsprints, but something to remember.
And this was actually the second time I'd been through this toe surgery in 10 days. I knew I could take it.
But I wasn't exactly eager for it.
Everybody at Dr. Andrews' office was sympathetic. ``Poor baby,'' they said. ``Ouch,'' they grimaced.
Then office manager Peggy Compton brought in the fuzzy bunny with the floppy ears and the squishy belly.
The bunny, she explained, was really for the clinic's somewhat less grizzled patients, but she was making an exception in my case. Just squeeze him tight if you need him, she said.
I'm fairly certain Clarke Andrews never met anybody he couldn't make laugh with a story from his seemingly bottomless well of jokes.
Somewhere between the quip about the possibility of Methodists being Christians (we're both Methodists) and the tale about the lost toupee on the tour bus (which can't be repeated in a family newspaper), Clarke had done his work while I howled not in pain but in laughter.
As my toe was being lovingly wrapped in gauze, I realized I was still holding my bunny pal. OK, so I was squeezing him. Hadn't even realized it, actually.
As I hobbled out of the office, I returned him to Peggy with my thanks.
It occurred to me later than the bunny was symbolic of the care I receive from everyone at the Fincastle Family Practice Clinic. It started 15 years ago when our family first saw Dr. William Crow, who recently departed for a teaching post in Lynchburg.
Over the years, Bill became a friend as well as the family doctor, a trusted advisor who knew us and always put us first. After Dr. Andrews joined the practice, we quickly came to trust and respect him as well. Now we're glad he'll be our primary physician, carrying on that tradition of care and support.
Whenever we've needed them, Drs. Crow and Andrews have been there. In the middle of the night with feverish babies, on Sunday mornings with strep throats, late on a Monday night with a blocked coronary artery.
I was reminded that all of us have to count on others.
There are those who think of religion - any religion - as no more consequential than the fuzzy bunny I was holding onto to distract me from the painful reality of life. For those of us who have some religious conviction it's more than that, of course.
But I think we shouldn't be ashamed to admit that religious faith can be something to cling to in times of distress. The "crutch of the masses" is just that sometimes, but it doesn't seem such a bad thing when one is walking with a limp.
We also shouldn't be ashamed to realize that the best crutch is another human being. Sympathetic company can make almost anything bearable. I need you.
What a great thing it is that we can offer each other fuzzy bunnies to make this Operation Earth more bearable.
by CNB