The worst diagnosis

Tue, 01 Feb 2000 17:00:00 +0000

The absentminded professor. That's how Ann Davidson often thought of her husband, Julian. A handsome, quick-witted man with roots in Scotland, Julian spent virtually his entire career as a professor of physiology at Stanford University. He looked the part of the academic, with rumpled casual clothes, wire-rimmed glasses, an ambling gait, a graying beard, receding curly gray hair, a deep love of classical music, and an air of perpetual preoccupation as he pedaled his bike daily from their large, comfortable ranch home on the prestigious campus to his office and back.

During their 37 years of marriage, Ann and Julian raised three children. Ann trained as a speech pathologist and worked part-time while their children were growing up. The children went off to college, and later their daughter produced three grandchildren.

Over the decades, Ann adjusted to her husband's workaholic preoccupation with his career, admiring his intellect and fretting with him over his lectures, grant applications, journal articles, committee responsibilities, and the vagaries of academic politics. Of course, she got annoyed when she realized, too frequently, that Julian was not giving her his undivided attention. She did not like to repeat herself or say, "Julian, listen," because he was off in some physiological reverie instead of focusing on her. He was the classic absent-minded professor. Ann was forever reminding him not to forget his briefcase, or his keys, or his brothers' birthdays, or the dinner or concert date they had in the evening.

Salon.com > Dolores Gallagher-Thompson

The worst diagnosis