surgery.Asforthespinaloperation,hestillfearedhe’d
lose more than he’d gain.
After his retirement party that June, I braced for the
worst.Surgeryhad beenhiscalling.Ithad definedhis
purposeandmeaninginlife—hisloyalties.He’dwanted
to be a doctor sincetheage of ten,when he sawhis
youngmotherdiefrommalaria.Sonowwhatwasthis
man going to do with himself?
Wewitnessed an altogetherunexpectedtransformation.
He threw himself into his work as Rotary district
governor, whose term of office had just started. He
absorbed himselfso totallythathe changed hise-mail
signaturefrom“AtmaramGawande,M.D.”to“Atmaram
Gawande,D.G.”Somehow,insteadofholdingontothe
lifelong identity that was slippingaway from him, he
managedto redefineit.Hemovedhislineinthesand.
Thisiswhatitmeanstohaveautonomy—youmaynot
controllife’scircumstances,butgettingtobetheauthor
ofyourlifemeansgetting tocontrolwhatyoudowith
them.
The job of district governor meant spending theyear
developingthecommunityserviceworkofalltheRotary
Clubsintheregion.Somyfathersetagoalofspeakingat
the meetings of each of his district’s fifty-nine
clubs—twice—and took to the road with my mother.
Overthenextseveralmonths,theycrisscrossedadistrict
ten thousand square miles in size. He always did the
driving—hecouldstilldothatwithouttrouble.Theyliked
tostopatWendy’sforthechickensandwiches.Andhe
tried to meet as many of the district’s thirty-seven
hundred Rotarians as he could.