“I saw someone die today, Mom,” my daughter told me on the phone, her voice four octaves higher than normal, like she’d been sucking on helium.
“Where are you?” I heard street noise in the background.
“I’m on the 101. I’m driving home from the hospital.” Again, her voice was…off—too high, too cheery. “I saw her die, Mom. She was fine, then she flatlined and died.”
“You OK?”
“I am.” She was practically giggling. “Really. It was bizarre, for sure, but I’m fine.”
She didn’t sound fine. “Honey, I want you to get off the freeway at the next exit and pull over so we can talk about this.” I was in my office, a thousand miles away.
“I’m telling you, I’m fine. I can handle this, when I’m a doctor,” she insisted in that squeaky voice. “I was cleaning her room, and we were talking about her daughter at UCSD—” her voice cracked right then and she stopped talking.
“Jade, I want you to get off the freeway. Right now. How far to the next exit?”
“I’m taking it right now.”
“Pull over on a side street, and shut off your car, then talk to me.”
I raised our kids with an open forum, not the surface, pc-level shit most people spout. The ‘I’m fine! Biz is great! Everything’s dandy’ bullshit my parents and colleagues pushed down my throat daily wasn’t going to fly in the family I created (or my friendships that stick). “Talk to me,” is my personal mantra.
“OK. I pulled over,” my daughter said, her voice deeper now, though still not exactly normal.
“Good. Now turn off your car and tell me what happened.”
“She just had gallbladder surgery, just like you did last yea—year.” Her voice cracked, like a teen boy entering manhood. “She was fine…” Gasping breaths and I could hear, even feel her anxiety attack coming on. “Her daughter was in the hallway…When she flatlined a bunch of nurses came in and then doctors and they were shocking her and it didn’t work then they did it again and again and I just stood there, holding the trashcan I just emptied.” And I heard my beautiful daughter sobbing on the other end of the phone, and I was a thousand miles away from being able to hold her.
“Honey, I’m right here. You’re OK. Deep breaths. Breathe with me. Breathe in… Breathe out… It must have been really hard to witness that. I can’t imagine it. It’s why I never wanted to be a doctor,” I say deadpan to lighten the mood but could still hear her struggling to catch her breath. “OK. Let’s do some box breathing.” And we did, all four sides, in and out. In and out.
“Her daughter was my age,” she said, weeping as she spoke. “It could have been you, Mom. It could have been you and I can’t lose you yet.”
“I’m right here, baby. I’m healthy, and I’m active and I’m here for you.”
“Does this mean I’ll make a lousy doctor?”
Of course, I said it made her human—the best kind of doctor. Maybe too human, but I didn’t say that. I listened as she unraveled from giddy shock. She told me how one of the nurses asked her to get a sheet to cover the dead woman, then helped the nurse place it over the body. She saw the doctor talking to the daughter crying in the hallway.
“She kept asking the doctor, ‘What? What do you mean?’ like she didn’t believe him that her mom was dead. She wasn’t suppose to die, Mom. And now she’s dead. And I don’t want it to be you.”
“It isn’t me, Jade. I’m right here.”
“Now!” she almost yelled. “But what if you never get to know my kids, like that daughter today, or your mom?”
I listened, empathized, and helped quell her fears for another half hour before she was calm enough to get back on the road and go home to her shared apartment off-campus. She’d have roommates to talk to there, two young women also pursuing the medical pathway at UCSD. I told her to call or text me when she got home, just to check in she got home safely, and fifteen minutes later she texted she did.
Heavy sigh of relief, but in the distance, far beyond my grateful nod my daughter was safe to an almighty I don’t believe in, I felt…annoyed. I never wanted to be a doctor. Never played one as a kid. Didn’t like them because every time I had to see them either I, or someone I cared about was sick. And they’re so sure of themselves they don’t listen beyond test results, and half the time don’t know what they’re talking about even though they pretend they do. I don’t like doctors. And my daughter is on her way to becoming one.
I try to keep my personal disdain for her career choice to myself, but beyond my distaste for the medical community, I hate blood and gore. I can’t look at it on TV or in the movies. I have to look away because it literally makes me feel like I’m going to vomit. I won’t let her describe to me the process of guillotining rats for her spine research lab assistant position on campus, but on the phone I did remind her she got used to doing it after a few times.
My daughter’s wanted to become a doctor since she was child. At 10, when we allowed her an email account [under her choice of pseudonym], her first address was doctorscientistsoccer@. She got accolades when she told teachers to girl scout leaders she wanted to be a doctor, but that seemed to be the extent of her interest in medicine. She played soccer but I never saw her play doctor. People in wheelchairs or maimed or missing body parts scared her when she was young, and no matter what I said she would not engage with them. If a movie involved a child losing one or both parents, or parents losing their kid, she’d come undone—start crying that would sometimes escalate into a full-blown anxiety attack. She ran up to her room sobbing towards the end of Dances With Wolves when the wolf was killed.
Handling illness and loss didn’t exactly seem to be our daughter’s forte. Becoming a doctor requires compartmentalizing your feelings—locking yours away to deal with the patient or situation at hand. And maybe she could learn this skill over time, but I don’t want my daughter burying her emotions, denying her feelings, and becoming the automaton most doctors I’ve met seem to be. And let’s not forget, spending her career jumping through hoops of insurance companies to give patients the care they need without killing them financially. I wish for my daughter so much more than a lifetime of attending to others’ suffering.
I’ve never ever wanted to journey down the path of practicing medicine, yet I feel like I’ve been unwittingly roped into it. Along with her undergrad degree in Biology, volunteering at Palomar hospital was resume building for medical school. Before the death of this mom, she called me often to unload—overwhelmed by the coursework, or the illness she saw at the dermatology clinic she worked for, or torn over the moral quandary of ‘murdering rats’ in the lab.
Becoming a doctor requires more education than becoming a rocket scientist. I never considered endeavoring down such a very long, hard, expensive career path, self-doubt assuring me I’d fail if I attempted it. Since she’s ventured down the medical road, I’ve been our daughter’s emotional and financial support system through her undergrad degree; four, nail-biting waiting for scores, MCATs; spent months helping her edit countless essays for various med school applications. And right when I think maybe I can get a break from all this, she’ll be on pins and needles for the next 6 to 8 months waiting to hear where, if, she’s been accepted to study for four more years before another four to seven years of residency. And even when, if, she gets in, it’ll cost her $300k in student loans on top of the $100k we’ll give her. Becoming a doctor is very expensive!
When she was little, she used to build these incredible structures—towers 8 ft high out of Magnatiles. She has a great sense of physics and I used to imagine she’d get over saying she wanted to be a doctor when she realized what it takes to get there, and the hardship of constantly dealing with people in pain and corporate corruption. She’d become a civil engineer or architect, create structures of beauty and utility, and still live well.
I set up an open forum of communication for the family I created because I never had it in my own growing up. My ‘turn that frown upside down,’ or ‘make lemonade out of lemons’ mother denied every negative feeling of mine, of hers, until her deathbed when she spewed hate at her husband, my narcissist of a father, for two straight weeks before the cancer silenced her.
The next 2 to 3 months are going to be tense at home. We’re all waiting to hear from medical schools my daughter applied to that are interested enough to ask for ‘secondaries’—school‑specific applications requiring their own essays and fees. Assuming she gets requests for secondaries, I’ll have to work with her for another 2 months helping her edit more essays for each school. Then we have to wait another 3 to 5 months to hear if she’s been accepted anywhere.
My daughter is going to be a doctor. Oh joy!
Not so much…
Assuming she gets into a med school, I’m going to have to hear about gruesome details of human anatomy, disease, diagnosis, pain, death, and many of her experiences through residency. Except I never wanted to be a doctor, or walk the path of becoming one. And I still don’t. Just the thought of blood, cutting someone open in surgery, makes me ill. But a part of me, the adult part with a broader view than my personal gratification, understands my daughter is honoring my vision by choosing to devote her life to the welfare of others, and I’ll do whatever I can to support her achieving this goal.
I can hear the chorus of non-breeders and parents more devoted to their work than the kids they create dissing me for helicopter parenting. But the road to becoming a doctor, or even a rocket scientist isn’t like becoming a soldier or real estate broker where the barrier to entry is extremely low. “Emotional support from family is one of the strongest predictors of admissions and persistence in medical school,” AAMC, AMA, and tons of medical education studies have found.
We play God giving life, having kids. My sister had three. The first two she pursued her own bliss, playing tennis for hours daily, taking two week vacations 3 to 5 times a year leaving her kids with our mother, or a nanny. Her husband, their father, found his value devoting his life to his career. Both their kids struggled academically regardless that they had the financial means for expensive tutors. Both dropped out of college and have no discernible careers. At 46 and 44, they both are always hustling to make ends meet, pay the bills—get by.
My sister had her third child seven years after her daughter. This boy loved the violin from the first time he heard the instrument. My sister gave him one at 5 yrs old and signed him up for lessons. The instructor told her son the proper posture for holding and playing the violin, and for the next decade my sister worked with her son most every day, for an hour or more, coaching him to: “Lift your elbow. Drop your shoulder. Center your chin.” She took him to his lessons, attended his recitals and proudly invited friends and family. A guitarist herself, they played music together often—a bizarrely bonding experience (if you’ve not done it and don’t know). My sister formed a connection with her last child she’d neglected to establish with her first two. She gave her baby her most precious gift—her TIME.
Her son, at 37, is a successful ARTIST—likely the hardest career to attain. He got into the prestigious Berklee School of Music with my sister’s emotional and financial support from applying through attending. He now co-owns a gallery in the posh Wilshire district of L.A. where he showcases famous and up-and-coming artists. He shows and sells his work globally. Financially stable. Happily married with kids. A resounding success by every measure.
Tell me parental support doesn’t really matter and you’re lying to you.
I always wanted kids, not only to raise them better than my parents did, but to create human beings that were better than me—kinder, more receptive, perceptive, smarter choices and actions for themselves and the lives they touch. I had this notion that if each gen raised their children better than the last, people could rise above our petty prejudices and squabbles and learn from each other, work together and reach our true creative, compassionate potential. Our children’s children’s children wouldn’t know poverty, inequity, blind faith or hate. Imagine what we could create…
Thing is, most don’t share my vision, so absorbed in their day-to-day they can’t see the forests [we’re killing] through the trees [on their block]. And that’s a shame, really. Contrary to popular perception, our individual lives don’t really matter in the long run. Regardless of how famous you become, or the amount of money you make, or even your memories from life experiences, it all goes when you die. You may be remembered by family, friends or fans for a while, but even your memory will fade for most everyone in short order. The greatest contribution we can make in our lifetime is in service to others. Raising kids, supporting parents, friends, colleagues, strangers, we create a better world when we invest our time, energy, and heart into each other.
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