I didn’t mean to see it.
A daughter’s email, signed by a professor, not, “sent from my iPhone,” but rather a quote from influential essayist James Baldwin. The words, arrhythmically repeating in my head, like an AM-radio song. Why won’t it stop?
“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”
Imagine the possibilities. Close your eyes and face the magnitude of facing heart disease. And cancer.
But now ponder how?
Not singular, like in my world:
When a heart doctor opens a blockage,
a heart muscle keeps squeezing.
When an electrophysiologist burns an aberration,
a heart is steadied.
When a surgeon cuts away a tumor,
an organ functions on.
When a primary care doctor listens, and treats,
disease slows.
All these beautiful acts,
singular,
chill in the shadow,
of educating;
of changing the mindset,
of many.
Plural!
There must be a way.
Plural. Not one at a time.
And before! Not after.
We are smart. Motivated. Generous. Right-minded. We know big words–pulmonary vein potentials, stoichiometry, and pathophysiology. We can listen, diagnose, cut, sew, burn, squish and slow the bad cells.
But yet, we continue to cut the weed rather than pull its roots.
No real impact yet,
on health, on wellness, on the plan.
—
Imagine if we could?
I do.
Oh. The hope of it all.
JMM