 Happy
New Year! I wish you health, safety and the pursuit of your
passions in 2003! I wish you the blessing to choose to live
each day fully. I hope that each of us can express a bountiful
life and possess the internal courage and strength to endure
loss, pain and sadness.
Last month was particularly
challenging and emotionally difficult for our USC dental
community. December brought encroachments upon each of us with
profound loss and pain, and that deep sadness that comes with
age. We lost a young, bright and energetic junior dental
student, Tom Fakourfar, and we lost two highly gifted and
dedicated full-time faculty members, Dan Schaeffer and Barbara
Mills. These three profound losses and the associated pain are
balanced for each of us as the price of bountiful, meaningful
living.
These events of December
challenge each of us to ask, “When are we going to die?”
In sixty years, thirty years, ten years or even sooner? Most
of us do not know when we will die. Ironically, most of us
seem to act as if we will live forever. We often postpone the
things that, deep down, we know we want to do — telling the
people we love and care about how much we care, spending time
with friends and family, making time for personal reflection,
taking that beautiful hike, running, singing, writing a
heartfelt letter, learning, becoming a better listener, acting
on core values, and so much more. Profoundly, what we each can
address is how we live today, how we love and extend
friendship, how we project compassion and empathy and how we
ensure to give more than we receive. Each of us has control
over these daily moments and extensions of our lives.
I was blessed to know and
appreciate Tom, Dan and Barbara. Tom entered USC as I became
dean in August 2000. Tom was gregarious and was gracious to
me. He gave warmth, charm and smiles. He was an exceptionally
accomplished student. Dean John Ingle and I recruited Dan
Schaeffer from the University of Washington in Seattle in the
late 1960s as Dan completed his postdoctoral studies related
to carbohydrate metabolism and diabetes. Dan was a talented
research scientist, a dedicated educator, and an excellent
clinician. Dan gave of himself to his students and colleagues.
In 1967, when professor Lucien Bavetta recruited me to join
him as a postdoctoral fellow, Barbara Mills graciously
introduced me to their laboratory at USC. Barbara was an
international authority on Paget’s disease and bone
pathophysiology, and a remarkable facilitator in the PBL
pedagogy. Along with many other faculty, I am also blessed to
have known and worked with Dan and Barbara for more than three
decades. More recently, freshman and sophomore PBL students
shared with me their pleasure to learn with professors
Schaeffer and Mills.
In this first column of the
year 2003, I humbly suggest that you live each day as if it
were your last day on this earth. I suggest this not as a
prescription to be reckless or to abandon your
responsibilities, but to remind you of how precious life
really is. A friend of mine said to me almost twenty years
ago, “Life is too important to take too seriously.” Today,
I would modify this suggestion: “Life is too important not
to be ‘lived’ to its fullest.”
I invite you to read the
following poem by Jane Kenyon, who died of leukemia at the age
of forty-nine. Her poem is called “Otherwise.” I imagine
that she wrote this poem with her illness in mind. When I read
her poem, it seems appropriate for all of us.
I got out of bed
on two strong legs.
It might have been
otherwise. I ate
cereal, sweet
milk, ripe, flawless
peach. It might
have been otherwise.
I took a dog uphill
to the birch wood.
All morning I did
the work I love.
At noon I lay
down
with my mate. It might
have been otherwise.
We ate dinner together
at a table with silver
candlesticks. It might
have been otherwise.
I slept in a bed
in a room with paintings
on the walls, and
planned another day
just like this day. But one day, I know,
it will be otherwise.
May each of us enjoy a healthy
and safe new year with the joys of discovering ourselves and
those around us. We have shared the encroachments of loss,
pain and sadness that are a part of life. We come to discover
that these losses are the price of bountiful living. Today is
a beginning, a new year, and a special opportunity for each of
us to give full expression to being alive!
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