Hello

 

Medical students participate in a Gross Anatomy Laboratory as part of their first-year training towards becoming future physicians. Many view this as a “rite of passage,” as these willed-body donors are often our first and most intimate patients.

In the beginning weeks of this course, I’d often looked into the white cotton-covered (to maintain respect) face of my donor and wondered who he was. In the concluding weeks of this course, I’d also begun to wonder who I had been before I met him.

 

Hello.

 

Who was I?

I didn’t comprehend whether I was anxious to meet you

or meet parts of myself yet unknown.

Who am I?

 

Day 1:

Who are you?

I waited with bated breath as your blue door opened,

as the white curtains over your eyes parted.

Who were you?

 

Day 4:

I couldn’t help thinking that you must’ve had such a large heart

to allow strangers so intimately into your resting place.

And the thought was confirmed as

I held your heavy chambers in my hand.

 

Day 16:

I thought how much strength it must’ve taken to bid your loved ones goodbye

and travel into arms of the unknown.

And the thought was reinforced as

I witnessed your sinewy muscles that must have been so strong in years past.

 

Day 20:

I felt how much warmth you must’ve given to the world

to trust in the kindness of those you had never met.

And the feeling intensified as

I felt the strength of your grasp.

 

Day 25:

I believed how much good you trusted was in the world

to give others the ability to see inside your thoughts and feelings.

And the belief reverberated as

I held the hemispheres of your being in my hands.

 

Day 32:

I trust in the kindness and knowledge you’ve imparted

to allow myself, a well-meaning stranger, to become a better version of myself.

And these days will stay with me in the coming years as

I pass on your strength and faith.

 

It was so humbling to meet you:

the intimate details of who you are,

who you were,

and the memories of you within who I am now.

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Maggie Xiong is a medical student in The University of Arizona College of Medicine – Phoenix, Class of 2021. She graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, with a degree in Asian studies before taking a winding road to medical school. Maggie tries too many new restaurants (and subsequently Yelps about them), often cleans when she should be studying, and has a hopeless habit of opening too many tubes of mascara at once.