A Dad Story: Memories Lost (Jeanne)

It has been two years since my dad died. (Today is 1.22.2018. He died on 1.21.2016.)

In getting rid of scraps of paper in my life (de-cluttering; I'm not yet ready for Swedish Death Cleaning!), I found an old receipt with some notes on it.

"broken hand"
"Dr. Dumont"
"St. Joseph nuns"
"Campbellton"

Google brought me here: St. Joseph Hospital -
http://www.rhsj.org/en/former-apostolic-sites_382_-21.php
Religieuses Hospitalieres de Saint-Joseph

I can't find information on Dr. Dumont (not that I tried that hard . . . ) but here's what I remember of that conversation with my dad over two years ago (I don't have the best memory!).

He was talking about bequests after my mom died. He wanted to send money to places that were meaningful to him - the convent where his sister, Sister Beatrice, served, for example. He also mentioned Dr. Dumont, who had fixed his "broken hand" when he was a kid. He said they couldn't afford to pay for the treatment, but he was treated well by the nuns and by the doctor. He wanted to track down how much money he owed for that service over 75 years earlier.

It was easy to be critical of my dad. He was pretty challenging to be around most of the time. But he had good qualities, too. (True of all of us, right? Strengths and weaknesses.)

He wanted to be honorable and do the right thing. He wanted to pay anything owed. He wanted to thank those who had blessed him.

I'm not sure how old he was when he had the injury. I'm pretty confident the doctor and the nuns are long gone. I tried my best to respect his end of life concerns, but I didn't follow through on this one. Except that now this blog entry records a piece of his life's history, however imperfectly.

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