From Tormentor to Mentor: How My Father Shaped My Life, Medicine, and Mission
Delicious Ripe Guava If you’ve followed my writing for a while, you already know my greatest passions: learning, writing, and sharing_good_vibes. They may seem like separate pursuits, but over the years I’ve discovered they are woven together by a single thread — each one is a way of serving others and making life just a little better.
Retirement from emergency medicine has given me the greatest gift of all: time. After nearly five decades in emergency rooms, I now have the luxury of reading more, writing more, and hopefully encouraging others to live healthier, happier, and more meaningful lives. It’s a chapter I never imagined during those countless night shifts.
People often ask me, “Where did your love of learning come from?”
The answer is simple.
It started at home.
My First and Greatest Mentor
The greatest influence on my life was my father, whom we affectionately called Papa Tatoy.
Interestingly, he did not begin as my favorite person.
For the first four years of my life, he was away finishing college while my mother taught elementary school. When he graduated, we joined him after he accepted a position teaching Bible and Horticulture in high school.
Papa Tatoy believed children needed discipline — and plenty of it.
Our family spoke only English at home. Snacking between meals was forbidden. Talking back was unacceptable. Rules were not suggestions.
And when those rules were broken… well, let’s just say his leather belt was far more active than today’s parenting books would recommend.
I can still remember the fear in my young heart when I saw the anger in his eyes. I became very familiar with the phrase, “This will hurt me more than it hurts you.” Even now, I’m not entirely convinced that was true.
The Day Everything Changed
One summer day, while I was in first grade, he caught me perched high in a guava tree, happily enjoying a ripe guava between meals.
I knew what was coming.
At least, I thought I did.
Instead of reaching for his belt, he gently called me down. He led me into the living room and calmly explained why he didn’t want me eating between meals.
“Your stomach needs time to rest,” he said. “If you snack now, you won’t enjoy your meal later.”
No shouting. No anger. No punishment.
Then he asked me to kneel with him in prayer and ask God to forgive my disobedience.
That simple conversation changed everything.
For the first time, I realized my father wasn’t merely enforcing rules — he wanted me to understand why they existed.
Fear gave way to respect. Respect became admiration. Admiration grew into love.
A Living Sermon
As I grew older, I noticed something else: my father practiced what he preached.
Every morning and evening, our family gathered for worship. He spent about thirty minutes reading Scripture and discussing spiritual and moral lessons with us. Those conversations planted seeds that have stayed with me for more than seventy years.
I eventually inherited his Bible — worn pages, underlined verses, and margins filled with notes. That Bible told a story all by itself.
My father was far from perfect. None of us are. But his life was a living sermon.
Children recognize hypocrisy. They also recognize authenticity.
His consistency gave his words credibility.
Curiosity: A Gift That Lasted a Lifetime
Papa Tatoy also gave me another priceless gift: curiosity.
One summer during elementary school, I wandered into the engineering department of Mountain View College, where mechanics repaired trucks and tractors. Fascinated, I borrowed books from the library on internal combustion engines.
Soon I understood pistons, crankshafts, valves, carburetors, and ignition systems well enough to ask intelligent questions. The mechanics were stunned.
“How does a little boy know all this?”
Years before I ever drove a car, I already understood how one worked.
That experience taught me a lesson that shaped my entire life:
Learning makes conversations richer. The more you learn, the better questions you ask. The better questions you ask, the more you learn.
That cycle has served me well — as a physician, a teacher, a writer, and now a retiree still eager to discover something new every day.
From Tormentor to Mentor
Looking back, I sometimes joke that my father began his parenting career as what today might be called a tormentor.
Thankfully, he didn’t stay there.
By God’s grace, he became an extraordinary mentor.
A tormentor uses fear. A mentor builds confidence. A tormentor controls. A mentor guides. A tormentor leaves emotional scars. A mentor leaves lasting wisdom.
His transformation transformed me.
His goal was never to create a copy of himself — it was to help me become the person God intended me to be.
Parenting Without an Instruction Manual
Someone once said parenting is one of life’s greatest responsibilities — and the only profession for which no one receives formal training.
There’s truth in that.
Most parents simply repeat what they experienced growing up — for better or worse.
During my years in emergency medicine, I cared for countless patients struggling with addiction, emotional illness, violence, and incarceration. Not everyone from a difficult home ends up this way, and not everyone with these struggles came from one. Human lives are complex.
Still, one pattern appeared too often to ignore: many carried deep wounds from chaotic, neglectful, or abusive childhoods.
The influence of parents and mentors reaches farther than we imagine.
Becoming the Mentor Someone Needs
Whether you are raising children, teaching students, leading employees, coaching athletes, or encouraging a friend, mentorship matters.
Good mentors do not create followers. They develop independent thinkers.
They listen before they lecture. They correct without humiliating. They encourage without controlling.
Most importantly, they help others discover their own unique path instead of expecting them to become a “mini‑me.”
Success is not measured by how many people admire you — but by how many people you help succeed.
Career Reflection
Looking back now, I realize that whatever success I enjoyed as a physician was, in many ways, an extension of the mentoring I received from my father.
Every patient encounter became an opportunity not just to diagnose and prescribe, but to teach, encourage, and guide. I found myself mentoring patients, reassuring caregivers, and helping younger healthcare professionals grow in confidence and skill.
Medicine, at its best, is more than treating disease — it is helping people understand their health so they can make better decisions.
And now, a confession.
I encouraged my patients to eat well, exercise, manage stress, and get enough sleep. I did reasonably well on the first three.
The fourth? Well… not so much.
Night shifts and emergencies pushed sleep to the bottom of my priority list. I was preaching one of the pillars of good health while quietly neglecting it myself.
Retirement has given me a second chance to practice what I preached.
Mentors aren’t perfect. They’re fellow travelers who keep learning, keep growing, and occasionally laugh at themselves.
And yes… they never said I had to be perfect. LOL.
A Final Thought
When I look back over eighty years, I realize that one gentle conversation beneath a guava tree changed the trajectory of my life.
My father taught me that real authority is built not on fear, but on love. That knowledge becomes more valuable when shared. And that the greatest lessons are not preached from a pulpit — they are lived every day.
If you are a parent, grandparent, teacher, or mentor, remember this:
People may forget many of your words. They will rarely forget your example.
May we all strive to become the kind of mentor whose life is a sermon worth reading.
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