In the past and present, poverty, famine, war, crime, greed, addiction and depression have been there the whole time. As a result, I have questions: Is this too much? Is this really the end? Is this all that I see around me?

Every day millions of people starve while food is being thrown away. Billions and billions of dollars wasted on useless, idiotic things. I can’t stand this nonsense anymore.

I have been taught in my family to be nice, respectful and passionate, but what I see in the world is nothing but arbitrary and it is different to the lessons I’ve learned. For that sole reason, I want to be someone, who is nice, diligent and above all a symbol of hope to the people around him, I want to become a doctor.

Why a doctor? Well, because they are the living image of hard work and passion. Literally, to become one you must study for at least 6 years. But that is the whole point! Being a doctor is not supposed to be a walk in the park, they must work hard through their own determination and love for that subject.

Do you remember when you were little, having a boo-boo and your mom taking you to the doctor? I remember that experience as strongly as learning how to tie my shoes. I can still see the doctor’s smile, hear his warm, bass voice, the taste of my salty tears, the feel of his rugged hands holding my wounded arm and the sharp pain of the burning alcohol. The man was so nice and caring. Not to mention, when I cried from the tremendous pain, my Mother and the doctor continuously gave praise and encouragement to keep my quiet. The doctor told me: “It won’t be a small pain, but you have the power and courage to make through it, as a matter of fact, through anything in life.”

After the checkup, the message the doctor gave me kept on repeating and repeating through my ears; echoing in my skull. It made me realize that I do have the power within me and showed me no matter what, I can reach the top.

Do you know who Emil ‘Jay’ Freireich is? What he has done? Born in 1926 in New York, he was one of three sons of a woman who fled to America with just $5 in her pocket. During the mid-1940s and mid-1950s, leukemia was on the most serious of cancers. It affected millions of people, mostly children aged 4 to 12 years old, making them bleed uncontrollably until their veins were empty. At the time, 29-year old Emil Freireich, was working at the National Cancer Institution on the Leukemia Ward. Day and night, all he could hear was the screams of little children, the rattles and clanking of the metal beds and the running, grunting, yelling, crying doctors and nurses battling to help the children escape that dire moment.

“It still haunts me to this very day. But my job wasn’t to mourn, to cry for the parents of the deceased children, no. My job was to cure them.” Dr. Freireich said. For the next decade, Emil fought hard to find the answer to that priceless question. Every step he took, every tear he shed, every prayer prayed, took him a little closer to the final jigsaw piece. Not everyone was on the doctor’s side. Senior doctors and parents were against him because they thought that what he was doing was pointless and a waste of time. But finally, in 1955, Dr. Emil Frei, found the breakthrough, the key to ultimately open the door and windows for those dying children to live a normal life. They were the knights in shining armor, the ray of light in the mists of darkness.

So why can’t I be the knight with the mighty shield, the ray of light in the dark? Why can’t we all be rays of light?  A man who is courageous, diligent and a symbol of hope to humankind, is who I want to be in the future. I can be a policeman, a scientist or a teacher. I’m ready to heal the world. Are you?

————————-

Vương Cung Chính Dân

Class 10S2, VAS Sunrise campus