Yesterday at Ethan's final (outdoor) soccer game of the fall season, I ran into someone and it filled me with joy.
I was sitting on the sidelines talking to Audrey about this and that, there was a grandpa type guy sitting a few feet down from her. He was wearing a fishing cap and sunglasses and over the course of Audrey's and my conversation, I noticed that Grandpa Guy kept looking over in my direction. After a little while I started wondering if he was looking at me or someone behind me. Right at half time, he got up and walked over to me and took off his sunglasses. My heart was so happy to see that it was our beloved Dr. Allred!! What?! No way!!
I jumped up and hugged him. Turns out his grandson is Isaac on Ethan's team! What a small world. It was so wonderful to see him and to finally meet his cute wife, June, after hearing all about her for years. She was exactly like I had pictured her! What made my day more than anything was that Dr. Allred picked ME out. He recognized ME, after not seeing me for about a year and a half. I have said before that we love him and have always thought of him as family, but I know he had a jillion patients and families to see after. So the fact that he knew who I was and gave me a hug made me feel like a million bucks, but miss him even more. It validated my belief that he really was and is the best pediatrician in the world. He doesn't just "say" he cares about his patients, he really means it. He was invested in them and that's what made him such an invaluable doctor and a wonderful advocate.
I will never forget how after each baby, he was as concerned with how Mom was doing as how the baby was doing. He would sit and talk and make sure that all was good at home and that I was getting the support and help and SLEEP that I needed. And when Garrett was born and cried twenty hours a day and Cody had a difficult time bonding with him, I sat in Allred's office at Garrett's two week check up and cried and confided my feelings of inadequacy and exhaustion and just plain fear to our good doctor. And he listened and told me that he would love to talk to Cody (or me) any time he needed to because he had been there and knew how hard it could be on dads too. I could go on and on with stories of how he helped get us through some tough times and how good he was to our kids.
Anyway, it was so good to see him and talk and catch up on life in these past twenty months, and the kids were thrilled to see him and didn't hesitate giving him huge hugs. He is still in remission from cancer and he and his wife bought some horses that they board just a few miles from our house. I said that Hailey just might need to come out there and "exercise" them some time and he said he'd love it. We talked about my "journey" in finding a new doctor for the kids and he asked me the name of the GP that we decided on. When I said it was Ray Ward, he and his wife laughed and said "Ray grew up in our ward! Tell him hello!" They both said how great he was and that we made a great choice in going with him. That made me feel even better in deciding on him as our new doctor.
I know I we are not the only patients of his that miss him and appreciate him so much. I'm sure he had that effect on all of them.
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