You are still my son, even at the Hospital

Dear Son,

I am writing you to let you know that you are still my son. My handwriting is legible, my ideas concise, and the blood that courses through your veins is also my blood. Isn't it ironic, my son, that I first met you in a hospital yet while here -- at work -- you and I hardly speak?

I am sure that it must pain you sometimes that our eyes meet when I pass you in the corridors, that I am pushing along a cart of cleaning supplies, a mop, or linen, while you carry in your hands important paperwork, files, or the orders that might save someone's life. You avert your eyes when you are with your staff (I am not part of your staff), a patient, or another doctor. When you are alone and we pass each other, you give me a secret smile that no one else knows about. And while that should make me smile, too, it does not. So as a custom I look downwards towards the shiny, smooth hospital floors. S-H-I-N-Y.

Not long ago my gaze towards the sterilized floors included you. Perfectly clean tiles and my son, sitting there. I made them both what they were. Clean, happy to be attended by me, and part of my job. It was during those times you would wait for me to finish my shift that your curiosity and the allure of being a doctor lead you to become one.

In those days, you wanted to know everything about each patient whose open door allowed that spark of questions to travel all around your head -- like a small fire running along a track -- between and among the folds of your magnificent and clean brain. I could only tell you so much. "She has trouble breathing, so she has to stay here so we can help them live," or "He has a disease in his blood, so he needs our help"

And you would declare, "And how do you help them? What do you do for them?"

Your personality began to show signs of arrogance, self-righteousness, and ambition. Even then. Did not my gentle ways show you how to be? Was not my love a model for you to follow? Did you reserve all of that compassion for your patients? It is an awful, luckless feeling to have scorn towards one's child, but you are my only child, and I love you even when you hide behind your white coat, your glasses, your title. Doctor.

Today I feel tired and weary. I miss something. Is it back home? Am I nostalgic for your father, who long ago passed? Do I wish I had more to give you? Answers to your questions? I cannot breathe.

Here I go again: I am looking downwards because I hear your voice around the corner. I get happy and sad all at the same time.

Do you love me?