Doctor’s Diary: Living without fear
I grew up in Los Angeles and attended Burnside Avenue Elementary School, now known as Saturn Street School.
I walked a mile to and from school every day and knew the area along the route well because some of my schoolmates lived in those homes.
Little did I know that one day, one of the older residents would become my patient after I opened my medical practice in Santa Clarita.
When I learned that my patient, Octa, had lived on Burnside Avenue, she expressed how happy she was to know that one of the students who passed by her home every day would eventually become her doctor. My parents always loved this coincidence, which highlighted the full circle of life.
For the forty years I’ve lived in Santa Clarita, I’ve seen possibly thousands of students walk by my home and have always wondered if one of them might someday become my doctor.
Today, as I write this, it is Tuesday. Sitting in front of our home, I watch the usual everyday happenings with parents heading off to work, kids going to school, and I notice the daily activity of those who pick up our garbage and care for our streets and lawns.
But on this day, there was a difference when a gardener down the street, whom I don’t know, brought along his young adult daughter and son, who had never accompanied him before. It was clear he was teaching them how to care for my neighbor’s yard. Why?
Fear.
People are being arrested, and families are being torn apart. Children worry that their parents might not be there when they arrive home. My dreams in my youth felt distant, unaware that I would one day become a doctor caring for Octa. However, for my parents and brothers, things weren’t like they are now, facing the immediate nightmare of separation.
My parents had already faced this in 1954 as a mixed-race couple traveling from New York to California, fearing they might be arrested in certain states due to archaic laws. I know they used the Green Book to prepare and avoid the possibility of arrest.
I realized that this gardener was teaching his children how to continue their business while assuring them he would somehow still be there to care for them.
Why should parents and children have to worry about this fear? Even worse, why should the government instill this fear into families in this country?
My family avoided these problems, but to put supportive members of every community in our country in fear is reprehensible.
If my family or I were subjected to this kind of fear, would I have become a doctor to care for Octa in Santa Clarita?
Like my parents, this gardener was doing everything he could to reassure his children that no matter what happened to him, they would be okay. This is what we do as parents.
But as a nation, we need to reevaluate the motivations and threats displayed by our government against those who have supported our communities, states, and nation to ensure that all families can thrive.
Let’s stand up against those who spread this fear, as it will undermine everything America stands for.
Gene Dorio, M.D.
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