It's not fair

     Today I saw an eight-year-old girl for her first visit to our clinic.  She was a bright, healthy girl, and her mother seemed very nicely attuned attuned to her.  The girl was a good student.  I asked her mother if the family ever got to eat together--amongst Pediatricians, this is felt to be a good thing for families: drugs and other risky behaviors occur a lot less when families are able to have dinner and other kinds of quality time together.  I assumed that this must be the case because the girl seemed so together.
      I learned that in fact, dad spends a lot of time in Mexico helping his family, and this mother cares for her three children AND works two jobs--one from 8:30 to 4:00 and the 5:00 to 10:30PM.  She kind of joked that her chldren are raising themselves--but clearly she is doing a great job because this girl just shined--and wanted to be a teacher when she grew up--but there has to be some cost.  
      Mom had four siblings, and felt she was so short because they had been malnourished.  Like many immigrant parents, she had left school and gone to work at an early age, eleven, in her case, taking care of other children.  I can only picture her own mother being a skilled manager of scarce resources, and who taught this mother well.  
     I would give anything for her to have a chance to finish high school someday and have a chance to go back to school and  enjoy learning, run a day care or become a teacher--to have a chance to do something for herself.   It's unfair that it is so hard for working people, that immigrants are scapegoated.  And I know a many more immigrant parents as worthy as she is.   We need a better world for that to happen.

Bowls of Light

The great Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet wrote the line "I'm pouring bowls of light over my head" in a poem entitled "The Last Bus."   He wrote it in celebration of life even as he was facing death.   Hikmet was a Turkish revolutionary who spent much of his life in prison or exile, and many of his poems are bittersweet, asserting hope and love in the face of imprisonment and living in foreign lands.   "The Cucumber" is about a fresh, green cucumber resting on a table in frigid mid-winter in Moscow--a simple symbol of summertime and optimism.  I turn to Hikmet's poems when I feel disheartened, to draw on his courage and indefatigable hope--not the least his belief in humankind.   There are some excellent collections of his poems in libraries, if not in print.   You won't regret reading them.