When I Grow Up

When I was seven It was less mountains and more mole hills. Life was contracted and small. Confined to a few walls. Two brothers. My parents. My father was my hero. And one day I told him....when I grow up, I will be a doctor.

When I was seventeen my father had already died. Finishing high school I was on the cusp of starting college. And climbing was more about ladders. Moving up. Fulfilling my father's destiny which had been cut short prematurely. When I finish college I will start medical school.

When I was twenty seven I looked outside the hospital windows and watched the construction. Each year of residency measured by a new ward, a new wing, a new building taking form above our entrenched front. And I saw my future. Rising on the horizon vaulting above the concrete, inching towards the sky. When I graduate from residency I will become an attending physician.

And now I am finishing my thirty seventh year. Again my life has become contracted. Mountains have been replaced by birthdays and weekends at the park. My hopes and dreams for my children have replaced my own. And for the first time in my life I no longer know what to strive for.

But sometimes. In the waning moments before sleep washes over my seven year old sons fatigued body...he looks up at me as I tuck him into bed. His eye half closed his lips part and his voice is almost a whisper...

Daddy...daddy...when I grow up, I will be a doctor.