A few days ago the morning news mentioned that there were 74 days left until Christmas. Doing some simple math, I determined that meant there were 80 days left until my retirement.

The nearness of Retirement Day to Christmas Day got me thinking–if I had an Advent Retirement Calendar (ARC), what would it look like? What would be behind each of the 80 doors that I would open before I turn off my Olympus BX43 microscope for the last time?

I am sure the first few doors would open up to my education. Doors for an undergraduate curriculum balancing STEM courses I survived (physics, quadratic equations, quantum mechanics) with literature courses I loved (Russian Lit, Female Writers of the 20th Century, The British Novel.)

Flip open some doors for the four years of medical school. The first year when all I learned in those tough undergrad science courses put me at the top of the class; the next three years when I discovered that patient care wasn’t for me, but that I might find my way as a pathologist.

Night school gets its own door as I left Barb with two young kids, two nights a week, so I could study for my MBA. I came away with a diploma, an award, and some finance and management concepts to help guide me. Barb survived as well.

So many doors to open for my 22 years at a community hospital, climbing the ladder until the floor underneath disappeared and the whole thing toppled. A door for my mentor from whom I learned what to do and how to not behave while doing it. A door for my associate there, whose T-shirt read “Though Shalt Not Hassle.” A door or two for the “academic” pathology group that first embraced me and then discarded me while assuring me it was nothing personal.

Many more doors for my next step, the lab that I built from nothing more than a notion in some urologist’s minds, modeling it after all I had known before. Doors for the business consultants and the early believers who got the engine running, and more doors for all who climbed aboard the train as we chugged along to excellence. The riders on that locomotive knew my real door, the door to my office, was always open.

Doors for all the inspections I endured at my lab, and all the inspections I inflicted on other labs. Hopefully, things were learned by all parties along the way.

Doors for my lab companions who passed away during our shared careers and have never left my mind: Earl, Ramji, and Al at my first stop, Cindy and Paul at my second. You have all been missed.

Doors for the cherished automobiles I powered down the tollway — perhaps a quarter of a million miles since 2005.

And of course doors for my family and friends who were always with me and supportive, through busy days and sleepless nights.

I trust I have filled up my ARC. And I trust whatever lies ahead will be just as amazing.