Dear Friends is a collection of diverse short stories, set in different locations with an array of interesting characters. Despite the diversity, author and retired pediatric intensivist Greg Stidham ties these stories together with a common thread. They all involve well-developed characters, most of whom are not perfect, but who persist in striving to be better. In the process, they discover through mostly chance encounters the redemption possible by even short-lived (or sometimes longer) relationships.
For example:
- A middle-aged man with a slowly progressive neurologic disorder embarks on a long, overland bus ride to a small town in North Dakota. On the way, he befriends a quirky, young woman with problems of her own.
- A young mother loses her young toddler son in a tragic drowning incident and struggles to recover. She undergoes grief therapy, but mostly begins to heal by persistently pursuing her own way.
- A young, intellectually challenged man volunteers to collect donations for the Salvation Army at Christmas time. While he jingles his belt of bells, he also astutely observes the customers entering and leaving the liquor store before which he sits.
- An older man is awakened by bizarre sensations he does not understand, only to discover that when he awakens in a hospital, he has had a seizure. While hospitalized, he meets a kindly Irish Catholic priest, which leads to an improbable bond.
- A teenaged boy is suddenly orphaned and goes to live with relatives in a small, Colorado mountain town. There, he begins a job helping to care for a man who is dying from cancer. The two develop a quietly growing relationship, and the boy discovers that the man is a well-known poet.
These stories are poignant, provocative, sometimes humorous. But they all address, directly or obliquely, the magic that can happen when two people, even strangers, connect on a deeper level than is usually the case.
An accomplished writer, Dr. Stidham has published a memoir, numerous pieces of short fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry. His books include the memoir, Blessings and Sudden Intimacies: Musings of a Pediatric Intensivist (PathBinder Publishing 2021), and a poetry chapbook, Doctoring in Nicaragua (Finishing Line Press 2021).
Stidham, Greg: - Greg Stidham is a pediatric intensivist (intensive care unit physician) who retired in 2012 after a 32-year career in academic medicine. In retirement, he has resurrected his passion for literature and creative writing. He has published a memoir, numerous pieces of short fiction, and creative nonfiction. But his real passion has been and is poetry. Dr. Stidham grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, and attended the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana. He graduated with a degree in English while completing prerequisite courses to attend medical school. He received his MD and pediatrics training at the University of Toledo College of Medicine in Toledo, Ohio, before continuing his training in pediatric critical care medicine at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.Following his training, Dr. Stidham joined the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Tennessee Health Sciences Center and LeBonheur Children's Medical Center in Memphis. He started the Critical Care Program at LeBonheur and was Chief of the Division of Critical Care. Later in his tenure in Memphis, he started the hospital's Pediatric Palliative Care Program and chaired the Biomedical Ethics Committee for more than a decade.After twenty-eight years at the children's hospital in Memphis, Dr. Stidham moved to Kingston, Ontario, where he assumed the position of Professor of Pediatrics at Queen's University and Kingston Health Sciences Center. He currently serves as a volunteer grief counselor for bereaved parents through Bereaved Families of Ontario. He continues to live and write in Kingston with his wife, Pam, and Dexter, the last survivor of their ever-evolving pack of rescue dogs. An accomplished writer, Dr. Stidham has published a memoir, numerous pieces of short fiction, and creative nonfiction. But his real passion is writing poetry.
