We take things for granted except the factor of time. I understood this deeply yesterday.

 

25 years later, my medical school classmates met up from all over New England at a little market place in Hartford CT. Each of us had not seen the others since graduation, more or less. It was a joyous fun time with lots of hugs, laughs and conversations about the past and the present.

 

We have all aged and changed. Once friends that became strangers now returned as friends again. It was great to see how each of us have found our own niches in medicine, yet even more how each of us have grown as adult learners.

 

We all created families, travelled far, and taken care of thousands of patients. One thing I noted was not just each of our aging but how our faces have changed along these journeys. All life’s adventures and challenges could be seen through our own evolutions that the faces easily revealed.

 

We opened up our year book and checked out our own pages but also looked up all our other friends that we had lost touch with. We tried piecing together old stories and fun times from school days, teacher and classroom interactions, but also hearing stories of other friends that we may have heard about and where they have been. It was the puzzle of bringing the class together 25 years later.

 

It was the intuition of one classmate, Ann S. Riley that began this invitation to bring us together. We all asked the same question. Why did we not do this before? Why did we wait so long? No good answer but this will be rectified for the future with hopefully more staying connectivity.

 

What was really wild and cosmically divined was at the table next to us were a young woman who happened to see our year book on the table and inquired about our conversations. She was an upcoming student for our medical school !! Some of us came over and inspired her to continue studying, applying and getting through medical school. We tried to motivate her that there is a silver lining even if it is 25 years later.

 

One of my colleagues asked me a question? How would you summarize the last 25 years in medicine? My answer was “blessed”. Looking back, I do not recall a single day that I have not jumped out of bed and gone to work without reservation. Yes the nature of health care is a sore subject and is a much longer discussion, but I have never not wanted to go take care of patients, or shy way from the opportunity to educate students, patients, clients or the public. Teacher, Healer, Author. That is who I am.

 

I love what I do, and do what I love. How I do it is transforming in its own ways and I am excited to see how it will evolve over the next 25 years. Yet one thing is certain. One cannot take anything for granted. In a blink of an eye we all grew up. I certainly did. I realized this. If you meet a friend after 25 years and then try to explain to them everything that you have done over these last decades and try to explain to them about this new version of you years later, it is not easy.

 

So grateful to have caught up with my past, and seen the new versions of my fellow colleagues. In our class video just prior to graduation I put in a line that still holds true today. “ The class of 2000, coming to a hospital near you.” We did.

 

………….

 

I love you