For the graduates

I have counseled many students in my young career – from elementary school kids who want to be a doctor when they grow up to recent medical school graduates embarking on the final leg of their training.

The following letter is one I wrote to my parents when I turned 22, in my first year of medical school. It is a reflection on my journey and theirs. It is the true story of parents molding a life for their children, so that each generation builds upon the hard work of the previous generation.

I share this letter with you, the Class of 2013, as a reminder that it is incumbent upon you to clear the path so that others behind you may walk with ease. Work hard, as your families did before you and as a model for your children-to-be. Always know where you are going and never forget from where you came.

The cycle is coming full circle.

I opened my new, used 1979 Edition of Stedman’s Medical Dictionary with a list of words in need of definition. Medicine is like a foreign language.

But instead of finding the meaning I sought, I found the meaning of my efforts, my struggles, my pains, and my tears in the inscription in the front cover. Dated two months after my birth it said:

Dear Daddy, I’m in this endeavor too, so here’s my contribution to “our” goal. When you need strength and courage, Daddy, look at me because I am your hope for our future. I don’t care about the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. I care about the rainbow itself ~ the rainbow of Daddy, Mommy, and me, Alexis. Our happiness lies in each other and in our goals. Good luck to you, to us all, our family!!! I love, love, love you… ~Alexis #1

The book was a gift to my father, my hero and role model. It was from my mother, my strength and inspiration. She signed it for me, a two-month-old infant who knew not of her parents’ struggle to get him through medical school. I didn’t know either that their great effort to survive and succeed would become mine just 20 years later.

Mama spoke of our family which to this day remains strong. She mentioned his dream, their dream, which today has become mine – to follow in his godly footsteps and make as grand an impression on the world he has – to become the epitome of her: strong, supportive, and selfless, with endless devotion to her family and the greatest desire to make others better off than they before they knew her.

None of us knew then that 22 years later that two-month-old baby girl would be on her way to becoming just like them.

I’m in my first year of medical school. My good days come and go. My tears flow often and hard. My heart is in limbo between the easy life I once led – where nothing was hard – and the life I live now which is no longer my own, but instead has made me a slave to my goal.

My courage wanes, my strength fades, and my loneliness overwhelms me. But when I need strength and courage I look to my rainbows – my strength of my family, the laughter and support of my love, the words of my dictionary. These reinforcements emphasize how necessary it is for me to persevere – to overcome this challenge – to become as beautiful in profession and parenthood as my role models.

Now, at the age they were when this gift was given, I am following my rainbow. I too have the love they shared that I believe carried them through the harsh life of a foreign country, the difficulty of learning a profession in another language, the daily grind of a dirty and dishonest environment. And while I believe our experiences are similar, they do not compare. The road before me was not made of dirt or filled with knee-deep puddles, literally or figuratively. The walkway of my rainbow may be stippled with tears, but feels like silk under my feet compared to the hard and rocky path they ran. That was their purpose – to keep me safe from struggle, and allow me to live my dreams with ease.

Stedman says strength is “the quality of being strong or powerful; the property of materials by which they endure the application of forces without yielding or breaking.” The forces pound on me daily, nightly, with every breath I take. I may bend and stretch, but my fortifications will not allow me to yield or break. I believe it is the physical property of my bones, the strength of my spirit and the nature of my upbringing for me to welcome the forces and prove that they are no match for me. They did it, and so will I.

So, the cycle continues with goodness and greatness; for their struggles became my successes. And someday mine will pave the smooth silky pathway for anyone who wishes to follow in my steps or make tracks all their own.

Alexis Hugelmeyer, D.O. is the wife of Michael, mother of Isabella, 5, and Lance, 3, and a family physician whose passion is hands-on manipulation for treatment and healing of any and every type of medical problem. She is the director of community outreach education at Peconic Bay Medical Center and also a private practitioner in Riverhead, where she has founded The Suah Center for Natural Healthcare. A graduate of Villanova University and New York College of Osteopathic Medicine, she lives in Baiting Hollow.