Reminiscing on the Family

Roughly two years ago I began my life-long dream of becoming a medical practitioner. Thrown into a tiny, windowless classroom for nearly one straight year was enough to test anyone's nerves. But, as so often happens when one spends a lot of time with another human being...in close proximity...either love, hate or sometimes even hurt is the outcome. My father tells me he experienced something similar while he was in the Navy. He became friends with men over such a short amount of time, friends he would always have, because the rules of a normal friendship don't apply. A common goal can bring even the most diversely opposite among us together in an extraordinarily quick amount of time.

I write to and about my classmates today because I realize how close I got to many of them. Now, during the hectic blur of our clinical year, when we are scattered all over the states of Washington, Alaska, Wyoming, Idaho and Montana, there is a thread that remains. Because we have all been here before. My class consists of paramedics, international doctors, military, outward bound instructors, neuroscience researchers, high altitude climbers, cowgirls. We come from different schools, with different schooling, from other programs. We have families, and bits of ourselves, scattered all across this globe. We've been forced to recognize and somewhat accept personalities and people far different from ourselves - because we have been challenged before. Thats why we are the "cream of the crop", the elite, the ones specifically chosen for a field that encompasses the ultimate reward: Helping others.

But, we forget birthdays, anniversaries, important dates. We sacrifice family time and much of a social life. But this is the choice we have made and because of it we are, to borrow the title of a well written essay on this phenomenon, "in grave danger of growing." The irony is giving so much of oneself in order to be in a position to help others. The choice is a personal one for all of us. But I am comforted by the thread that remains, that has trickled throughout, the knowledge that what we are doing is worth it and in the process, we have slowly become family.

Wishing all of my brothers and sisters well today.