Category Global health and disparities
FMM 4 17 2020 Like a Rock
“Sometimes you can find peace of mind by transferring yourself to different situations. They’re just reminders to stay… calm.” ~ Yves Behar. My father always claimed to be a late developer, not in the physical sense, but in the academic sense. He did not do well in his ‘common entrance’ an exam given to 11 […]
FMM 4 10 2020 A Social Conundrum
“There’s a difference between solitude and loneliness.” ~ Maggie Smith. My father was an eclectic music lover. Brought up in a Welsh chapel, he had an abiding love of hymns, especially as he grew up to be a minister of religion. In his collection of LPs (long-playing records, from the olden days!), and then later […]
FMM 4 3 2020 Challenge!
“Not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng, but in ourselves, are triumph and defeat.” ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. My father and my father-in-law were two very different men. My father descended from the mountain people of Wales, my father-in-law from the tribes of Africa. My father, although the son of a truck-driver was […]
FMM 3 27 2020 No Time for Platitudes
“A man without ethics is a wild beast loosed upon this world.” ~ Albert Camus. This week I saw a headline that said that New York women were going to have to give birth alone. It was not as stark as it sounded. It wasn’t that the poor women were going to have to squat […]
FMM 3 20 2020 These Bipolar Times
“I often think the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day.” ~ Vincent Van Gogh. One of the amazing things about the human body (and there are many) is its ability to develop immunity, over time. We have these cells who, pacman-like, chomp up invaders and then display pieces of them […]
FMM 3 13 20 Virus Ignoramus
“Vows made in storms are forgotten in calm.” ~ Thomas Fuller. I have one very clear memory of nursing during the early days of the AIDS epidemic. A young man had developed a collapsed lung, which required the insertion of a tube into his chest wall to suck the air out of the pleural space […]
FMM 2 28 20 Perfect Balance
“To him who is in fear everything rustles.” ~ Sophocles. I have always been fascinated by my dreams. I still have a clear memory of a dream I had as a child. I was in a forest where all of the trees were ghostly white. There may have been animals like statues, also white. The […]
FMM 2 14 20 Sing me a Song
“My music had roots which I’d dug up from my own childhood, musical roots buried in the darkest soil.” ~ Ray Charles. The road trips of my early childhood included many a song. My family had a repertoire of songs which distracted and entertained on the long journey which would take us from the city […]
FMM 2 7 2020 An Age-old dilemma
“None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.” ~ Henry David Thoreau. My father Pearce was a picky eater. I don’t know when it began, but definitely by the time I was a teen I was aware of it. In restaurants he would stick to what he knew. The most adventurous he would […]
FMM 1 31 2020 Color your Perspective
“There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.” ~ Elie Wiesel. This is my story, condensed, abridged, minimized, retold. Picture an almost eight-year-old white girl (blonde hair, blue eyes) transplanted from grey rainy Manchester along with her entire family and […]
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