House Calls

As kids, we were lucky. When we were sick or cranky, our moms were there with cool cloths and warm soup. And sometimes, the family doctor came to the house. That phrase—“house call”—feels like a relic now, but it wasn’t back then. My father was that kind of doctor.

He carried a black leather bag and a quiet, steady presence. If my mother had a conflict, he’d take me along. We’d show up at someone’s home, and he’d sit—always at the kitchen table—open his bag, and listen. To hearts, lungs, and stories. He didn’t rush. He didn’t fix. He simply showed up, fully present. And often left with a slice of pie.

I was just a kid, but I noticed. His presence calmed the room. He didn’t chase after answers or explanations. He simply stayed—with grief, with pain, with uncertainty. And somehow, that was healing.

Maybe that’s why I’ve never been drawn to the “why” questions: Why did this happen? Why do good people suffer? Life just is. And when my brother Ed died of pancreatic cancer, that truth struck hard. No reasons, no tidy answers—just the ache of absence.

What matters more to me now is the “what now?”
What will be born of this grief?
What can love still do?

Watching my father taught me: love sits at the kitchen table. It listens. It stays. It shows up without needing to fix the unfixable. And there, in those quiet visits, I began to believe that whatever God is, it must be personal—found not in theories, but in presence.

Looking back, it’s clear: my life was shaped in those sacred, ordinary moments—my dad tending to the hurting, me nibbling on pie crust, both of us unknowingly seated at the altar of what really matters.