Our Dad

For as long as I can remember, our dad, Zbigniew Sujczyński, a doctor, worked a lot. In an ugly industrial small town called Żychlin in central Poland, where we lived between 1957 and 1964, he was seeing patients at the local health center and, in the afternoons and evenings, at home. Dad, only thirty years old at that time, was a very popular physician, and as such he did not have much time for family life or a social life. As part of their private practice, provincial doctors in addition to their clinic hours had to pay home visits to bedridden and disabled clients in the surrounding villages. Since cars were scarce and the doctors also did not own them, horse-drawn fiacres,  or droshky, or - in winter -  sleighs would be provided for them by clients’ families. Dad usually took me for a ride in these exciting vehicles, even at night, and while he was treating a patient in the warm khata, I toddled around the farmyard, if the weather permitted, or sat quietly in a corner, from where I watched him doing whatever a doctor usually does: taking the person’s temperature, pressing into their belly, tapping their back, looking into the ears, nose and throat, and listening to the heartbeat and lungs. Those visits were usually long ones, as Dad did not limit himself to performing the physical examination; he also talked a lot with his patients, mostly elderly people, who, more than medicine, needed a cordial chat with someone kind and friendly, craving words of comfort, and emotional support. And Dad gave them what they needed. He had a lot of warmth and empathy, and loved people. He was also a doctor endowed with extraordinary medical intuition, and was reputed to be an excellent diagnostician. He saw his profession as a mission, and he treated the poor free. He was a doctor by vocation.

            In Otwock, a charming small town where we moved in 1964, with characteristic wooden houses with verandas and porches, Dad initially worked as a radiologist (rather than as a doctor per se) at one of the tuberculosis sanatoriums, while preparing for the diagnostic radiology exam. He no longer had his private practice, therefore he could devote more time to his studies and his family. We all tremendously enjoyed long walks with him in the “healing” pine forests, reputed to provide protection against all sorts of pulmonary illnesses.  While we were walking, he would instruct us on how we should live our lives. He would stress the value of education, because it conferred a person  self-esteem and independence, and ensured the respect of other people. He also told us about his childhood in Choceń and Kiernozia, where his father, Theodor, was a school director, and about his participation in the Polish Boy Scouts movement which, during the Second World War, turned into an underground resistance organization called The Gray Ranks.

            Soon Dad became very busy again: he began working at a prestigious hospital which work often required him to stay for the night shift and weekends. Afraid of losing contact with us, he decided that we would spend Sunday afternoons with him at the hospital. While he was busy seeing patients, we were doing our homework, and Mom was reading or knitting. Dad would come to us whenever he had a break, to talk, make jokes, drink tea and eat the cake that Mum would bake especially for these occasions. Family was just as important to him as was his work.

            Then came the time of the long-dreamed-of travels: Dad received a medicine scholarship from the French Government, and spent a year in Paris as an intern at the Curie Oncology Center. Later, he went to Morocco, where he lived and worked for five years. He was a radiologist specializing in diagnostic radiology, but a doctor in a Moroccan hospital in those days needed to be a generalist. The experience and skills gained during the years of his medical practice in Żychlin proved to be invaluable to Dad, as was the ease of interacting with uneducated people, also acquired there. He enjoyed a great sympathy among the Moroccan patients and also with his co-workers, who invited him to their homes, and even to their  weddings. 

            When he retired, he walked his dogs, making the acquaintance of his neighbors and of passers-by. He would gladly exchange a few words with everyone. There was something special about him that made people confide their troubles to him, health-related or not. He listened to people, comforted them, gave advice. He also helped those less fortunate in life with small amounts of money. He was generous. 

            His death did not only pain his family and friends: a few days after his passing, a mailman brought his retirement payment as usual to “pan (Mister) Zbyszek”. When he heard that Dad had died, this man, always so cheerful, hugged Mom and wept. And an old friend from Żychlin, after reading the obituary in the newspaper, wrote to tell me that her mother, who was 86, had never forgotten the kindness of our Dad who had greatly helped her once.

            “Goodness deserves love.” (Józef Tischner)