MY Dr. Randy

Where do I start with this post? Jackson has never liked going to the doctor. He would cry the second we walked in the office and usually wouldn’t stop until I was buckling him into his car seat for the ride home. As he got older, the tears subsided, but he never warmed up to the idea. Last Halloween Jackson had been sick, and of course it was the weekend. He had already been through a couple antibiotics, and they weren’t working. Our neighborhood has a big Halloween bash and that morning we were all pitching in to set up the Haunted House. Dr. Randy and his family were there helping and he heard about Jackson and offered to take a look. He immediately knew why the antibiotic wasn’t working, changed his medicine and Jackson finally started getting better. There were a few more Saturday sicknesses that landed Jackson on Randy’s doorstep over the last year. Every time he would get sick when it wasn’t a weekend he would beg to go to see his Dr. Randy instead of his pediatrician. Occasionally when Jackson would pass his house he’d announce to everyone, “There’s my favorite doctor!” A couple of weeks ago our neighbor and friend, Jackson’s Dr. Randy, was in an accident and passed away. I still can’t wrap my brain around it. Scott and I just couldn’t break the news to Jackson. On the day of the funeral, we finally told him. He asked a few questions, then just kept saying, “Darn it!!! Why did that have to happen?!” A few days later he got in the car with Ms. Laura on the way to school thinking he was the only one who knew and asked everyone if they heard about his Dr. Randy. From what I was told, the kids all told stories on the way to school about Dr. Randy and how he had helped them all in some way. Tuesday Jackson brought home his community helper project. He had to choose a community helper, write a report, create a helper, then dress as that helper today. It was an easy choice, he wanted to be an ER Doctor like his Dr. Randy. I know a million reasons why Randy was such a great man, but the fact that my six year old that warms up to few loved him, says volumes about who he was to me. He was loved and will be missed, and will always be Jackson’s Dr. Randy.