BLOG: Dr. Duick’s ties, part 2
This January marks 1 year since the death of my friend Dr. Daniel Duick, making January a very sad month for me.
When we associate a month with sad events, it does not mean that we hate that month, although we often do. We all realize that there is no fault in the months and days of our sorrows. At the end of the day, the months are nothing but the result of a natural phenomenon, the rotation of our earth around our sun.
The month of January over the years has witnessed some sad personal events, and I would like to share some of them with you.
In late January of 2020, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, my classmates and I lost one of our classmates, which was a big shock for all of us.
Then in January 2022, we lost Dan. This was a huge shock to me. I wrote about that in a blog post from last July.
Dan was not only my first associate/employer after finishing my fellowship in the mid-1990s in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, but he was also a mentor and a friend. When Dan’s daughter, Jennifer, called me with the news, I got so sad. It had been many years that I had not seen Dan. We would usually meet at American Association of Clinical Endocrinology meetings. AACE and Dan go decades back, since the early days of the organization.
I took time off to travel to Phoenix to attend Dan’s funeral and celebration of his life. I had the opportunity to say goodbye to him, and I had the pleasure to see his family and friends. Dan and his family were family friends for us since the Cape Girardeau days.
Jennifer gave me three of Dan’s ties, and she did the same with others of Dan’s friends who attended the funeral. She asked if we try to wear the ties now and then as a memory of her father. I promised her I would, and I have been wearing the ties now and then.
The other day, I wore this tie shown in figure 1.
I was so touched when I watched the video presentation of Dan’s celebration at the funeral ceremony. There were pictures of Dan and me from different events. I have included one of these pictures that I screenshot from the video presentation (figure 2). The picture is from the time when Dan was in Cape Girardeau (1993-1999), during which I had the honor and pleasure of working as his associate.
It was my first job, and my best job. To have Dan as an associate remains an honor I will always cherish. Writing about working with Dan those early days in my career will need hundreds of pages, and I hope I will write about that in the future.
January will always be a sad month for me, but again, I don’t hate January as a month.
Rest in peace my teacher and friend, Dan.
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