The Teacher I Miss Most
／Clement Yeung
"What do the new graduates like these days?"
"Is that your son graduating from the university?"
"You can say that."
"How many children do you have?" I was curious. Just the week before, he already took time off to attend the closing ceremony at one of the universities in town.
"Well, we started with five and ended up with thirteen."
I was stunned, staring at him for an explanation. He smiled back.
'The first five were our own. We later adopted eight more."
"Really?" I could not believe my ears.
"Really. My wife just loves kids."
From his grin, I could tell it was not just his wife. They both had overflowing love that they were eager to share it with others.
"That would explain why you are going to graduations one after another."
"They sure keep me busy with things like that. So what should I get for them?"
I was going to suggest possibly a laptop computer. On second thought, I felt it probably would not be a good suggestion when you had thirteen children that were about the same age.
Since then, I started to pay more attention to this psychiatry professor assigned to me. One day, he asked if I would be interested to go to a nearby town to visit some elderly people. I wasn't too keen but I thought I'd better go with him since he was my supervisor. We drove for about an hour and a half before we got to a nearby town of about five hundred people. There was a lodge for seniors. It turned out that it had a special wing for psychiatric patients from a rather large referral area which included most of the southern Manitoba. It was run under the auspices of a Christian church of the Mennonite denomination. My professor had volunteered to be their consultant and traveled to the lodge once a month. I knew there was no financial reason why he should take a trip like that. The government would not pay enough to cover the transportation cost. The trip could be tricky in the cold winter months when the roads were covered with snow. Once there, he was totally at home, speaking in German with some of the patients. He made it a point to touch the hands of the elderly patients, showing them that he cared for them. I saw another side of him－a university professor travelling to a small town at his own expense, caring for some elderly psychiatric patients. I did not see him praying for the patients individually but he would openly say grace before lunch for all of them.
The more contacts I had with my professor, the more fascinated I became. So much so, I seriously thought of going into psychiatry myself. For various reasons, that did not materialize. I got interested in pharmacology instead and tried to learn more about drugs and therapeutics.
Some years later, I read about his retirement from a university newsletter. There for the first time, I realized that this professor whom I deeply admired had a very interesting background. He was a graduate from the local medical school and he was the gold medalist of this class. After internship, he specialized in surgery. Yes, surgery was his first love. By the time he was finishing his postgraduate training in surgery, he suddenly developed weakness of his arms and intermittent blurred vision. He was soon diagnosed as having multiple sclerosis, which is still a potentially crippling disease. It was not possible for him to work as a surgeon, after four years of vigorous training. He did not become bitter at all. Instead he switched to psychiatry and did several more years of study. When he finally became a qualified psychiatrist, he was in his late thirties.
Fortunately, he did not have too many serious attacks of his multiple sclerosis. The amazing thing is that I never sensed any bitterness in him. Knowing of his background mad me more impressed with his having thirteen kids at home. He was just full of life and eager to share his abundant love with others.
I do not know what has become of Dr. H. Guenther since his retirement. My life was deeply enriched by teachers like him. He certainly is one of the teachers that I will miss for a long time.
