It started with a frisbee: reflections from Dr. Gorelick’s wife and kids on his 40+ years in pediatrics.

We married, pursued our careers, raised two marvelous sons and shared homes in five states. If you’ve worked with Marc, or had a child he cared for, you know the nuts and bolts of this man — smart, caring, deep thinker, ethical, funny and genuinely passionate about kids. But maybe I can share pieces of him you don’t know.

I long ago lost track of the number of times someone asked Marc, “How did you decide to be a doctor,” but I knew that there was only one answer: “My mother made it clear that this was expected of me.” He’d then quickly add, “Fortunately, I love it.” Though emergency pediatrics wasn’t what she imagined for her only son — surgery was more her speed —Marc was made for the role. His ability to quickly sort through information, size up a situation and calmly execute a plan made him a sought-after physician and mentor. He couldn’t foresee it in his early years, but I’ve heard him say many times that working in the ER was great preparation for being a CEO.

During his 25 years in various pediatric emergency departments, he took on all manner of shifts, including a disproportionate number of Christmases. There were many nights when he wasn’t home to read a bedtime story, but he always had a tale for our sons the next day when, without fail, they’d ask, “Dad, what was the weirdest thing you saw last night?” Eye wounds were always an engrossing topic.

Of course, our boys didn’t hear about the darker side of the ER. The undeserving gunshot wounds, many of which were fatal, and the unspeakable injuries that sometimes happen at the hands of adults who are supposed to love and protect. These images, these children, Marc kept to himself.

But it was seeing their dad with other kids that left the most lasting impressions on our sons. When Girard was 14, he and Marc spent a week in a Nicaraguan village building homes.

One evening, well after dark, local kids were playing soccer on a concrete basketball court — not the best of conditions, but it was what they had. A kid fell, resulting in a huge gash on his scalp. Even if they could have gotten him to the hospital, an hour away, it was out of the question — too expensive. But Marc was prepared.

As Girard tells the story, “Dad grabbed his headlamp and sewed the kid up, talking with the kid in Spanish, calm as could be. That made a big impression on me — that he could step in during a crisis and fix this kid’s problem.” The Nicaraguan adults were especially grateful — not only for the sutures, but for the local anesthetic. Poor children, Marc learned, would not have been afforded such luxuries at the hospital.

Having a dad who worked in the ER, our older son Evan reflected, “We learned what to take seriously, like bicycle helmets and fireworks, and what to walk off.” It wasn’t until he got older, however, that he saw the deeper motivation that drove his father. “I’d see him talk to kids, asking them where they hurt, putting them at ease with his silly jokes, all in the name of making things better. That’s when I realized just how much he loved helping people, especially kids.”

That same drive to “make things better” for kids is what eventually shifted Marc’s career path. Though he hated to leave the hands-on practice of medicine, he felt that he could help more kids, more families if he could put his skills to work on policies and programs that had broad impact. When the Minnesota opportunity came along, he embraced it for exactly those reasons.

We arrived in our new state a little over eight years ago and immediately felt welcomed. By the hospitals, and by the community. Falling in love with Minnesota and its people, and in return being embraced and cared for by so many of you, kept Marc going through difficult times. Anyone working in health care during the intensity of COVID has their own stories. Much of my experience came through watching Marc who, for the first months at least, suddenly became my officemate at home. I witnessed endless strategy calls, Saturday night briefings with the governor and commissioner of health, and so much more.

And then, when we thought it couldn’t get any worse, George Floyd was murdered just blocks from the Minneapolis hospital, bringing a whole new wave of challenges and complications for employees, patients and families, for hospital operations and for the community as a whole. In 2020, “making things better” became astronomically more challenging.

Though the impact of Marc’s retirement will be most acutely felt by him, it’s a big change for me as well. I’ve loved being an “in-law” member of the Children’s [Minnesota] family, being a part of things indirectly. We’re both curious to see where the river of life takes us, what lies around the next bend. But even after Marc closes his office door for the last time, Children’s Minnesota will always be part of us — both of us. Thank you for embracing us during Marc’s tenure, and for carrying the torch into what we know will be an even stronger future for Children’s.