Just John

Michael had been quiet since we returned from visiting John and Elaine in Maryland. I grew accustomed to listening to the water lap because he barely spoke for days. John died on a Thursday at 1:00 am, but it was still Wednesday night for us in French Polynesia. Elaine called. We cried, hugged, felt her absence, and eventually went to bed, but not to sleep. In the morning, Michael said this: “The only thing good about me being alive to see my Dad die is that he won’t be alive to see me die.” I expected many more water-lapping days ahead.

But Michael talked a lot. He told me he caught a fish from a mountain stream in Montana with John and ice skated on the biggest frozen lake he had ever seen in New York with John. He told me that he stopped by NIH to pick up car keys, and John’s secretary insisted that she interrupt a VERY important meeting so that John could say hello to his son. Why? John told his secretary, “If my kids show up, interrupt me so I can say, hello.” I hadn’t heard these tidbits about John before, which surprised me because I had heard many other stories. After all, I was lucky enough to have known him for twenty-nine years. 

I have an endless catalog of my own John stories. He taught Zachary to fish and Joshua to drive a speedboat. He went parasailing with my Dad on his 65th birthday. He kissed Elaine on the Ponte Vecchio and showed us his grandfather Louis Gallin’s magnificent brick-laid building in Brooklyn. Once, he smiled from ear to ear because I baked him an ugly and belated coconut cake for his birthday. I wonder if anybody besides me remembers that John embraced my crazy idea of bringing eighteen inner-city junior high school students to NIH for the day to learn about clinical research. That day was the highlight of my career.

I’m sure everyone who knew John has their favorite memory, and mine is the exact moment I met him. I can’t share it without a lead-up because, in 1995, Dr. John Gallin was more than my future father-in-law. According to my cousin, Dr. Wayne Weil—way before he was Dr. Wayne Weil—Dr. John Gallin was The Man. He literally wrote the book on clinical research. He was the Director of the Clinical Center at NIH, a renowned scientist and physician. Dr. John Gallin was famous, smart, and important. Dr. John Gallin was unsmudged, and I was, well, messy.

Still, I had fallen in love with his son. So I rang the doorbell at 7313 Brookstone Court, entered the foyer, and waited. Hoping to make a good impression on this decorated icon of a man, I’m sure I adjusted something—my scarf, a flyaway piece of hair. Then, I heard his footsteps and panicked. I didn’t know how to address The Man. Should I call him Doctor Gallin, Director Gallin, Admiral? Oh my god, my future husband, children, and life as I would know it were dependent on this introduction, and my 24-year-old self was going to screw it up! I didn’t even have enough time to hide under his dining room table before he stood before me, slipping one hand out from the front pocket of his jeans and raising his palm. “Hi, I’m John,” he said, smiling, and I smiled too. Because the esteemed Dr. John Gallin was Just John.

He was the dedicated, caring, brilliant Dr. Gallin to his patients and colleagues, Johnny to his bride Elaine, Papa John to his grandchildren, Dad to Alice and Michael, an Uncle, Brother, and Friend. Still, always and forever, he is Just John, a beacon of humble love and understanding to me.