My father likes to tell stories. His default setting is ‘taciturn’, a man of few words and stoic expression. But once unleashed, he is surprisingly gregarious. He likes to tell stories of his childhood during the war and the years before he moved to America. I have often thought, guiltily, that the deluge is because he has so few opportunities to talk about his feelings, his memories, his life. He waits for someone to set him free.

Today he told me a story of being a young doctor, an intern, at the Catholic hospital in Seoul, Korea. A hot, heavy day in August, 1967, during monsoon season. All the residents and supervising physicians were gone for the day so my father was the one who was there when a young couple, poor as so many were at that time in post-war Korea, brought in their infant daughter. Frantic, they held out the wisp of a child, a shadow of her former self, having been ravaged by an intense and long-wearing bout of diarrhea. She was gray and unconscious, her skin as dry as parchment. My father attempted to start an IV but couldn’t find a vein to pierce, so flat and ashen was her skin against her fragile bones.

‘Please,’ her parents pleaded with wide-open eyes, ‘please Doctor, you have to save her.’ They clung to my father’s white coat.

Like all doctors at that time in Korea, my father had very little practical first-hand knowledge of how to treat patients. This would come later when he immigrated to America. But at that time, his only knowledge was from the scant texts and information of Western medicine that were available in his impoverished homeland.

All he knew was that he needed to try to save this little baby.

Holding her as gently as he could, he wracked his brain for a solution. Finally, he found a small vein in the fine hairs of her scalp, above her forehead. He was able to start the IV. Her coloring improved but he was dismayed by the clear, frothing liquid that poured from her tiny mouth. He stayed by her side, siphoning out the fluid, terrified he was doing the wrong thing. Soon, it dawned on him that perhaps he had overwatered his little patient, like an overzealous gardener. He adjusted the IV’s drip and a moment later, her eyes opened. She grew pinker and her small limbs began to gently windmill in every direction.

It took him a moment to realize the sound of growling was coming from his own stomach. In his focus, my father had not eaten in ten hours, tending to his wee charge. Once he knew she was stable, he left briefly to have his simple meal of rice and soup. Fifteen minutes later, he would return and watch over the baby until the residents and doctors returned the next morning.

During this whole time, the nuns at the hospital, who tended to the doctors, were reporting to the senior doctors about my father’s diligent vigil.  He says, with a twinkle, ‘today this could not happen. I could not have been left alone to care for a dying baby. I would have been reprimanded and possibly barred from practicing medicine.’

Some years later, my father was playing Ping-Pong with his fellow doctors at the hospital. This was their pastime during the rare breaks from rounds and studying. He noticed a young mother roaming the halls, hand in hand with her toddler daughter who was new to walking and still uncertain on her feet. Seeing them pass by twice, he stopped them, offering to help.

‘I’m looking for Dr. Lee Kyung Sam,’ the mother said, ‘Do you know where I might find him?’

My father replied with furrowed brow, ‘I am Dr. Lee Kyung Sam.’

The woman’s eyes widened, glistening with tears.

‘Oh, Doctor,’ she said, ‘I’m here to thank you for saving my little girl. You may not remember but you saved her life several years ago. I came here to find you and to thank you.’ She picked up the toddler, now three and in pigtails. ‘Here she is. Her name is Hee-Sun.’

Hee-Sun looked at my father and after thinking it over, grinned, reaching for the lapel of his white coat.

My father took hold of the child and smiled at her. He told her mother, ‘I’m very glad she is well. But I was just doing my job and there is no need to thank me. I’m glad to see that Hee-Sun has grown up and is healthy.’

I don’t know what happened after that or how they parted ways. My father always stops talking at this point in the story. But it’s easy to imagine the scene because of the look in his damp eyes as he smiles and turns away.