Parents' Thought

Today I went home from campus by bus. I spent my time in the bus reading my lecture note. On the half of my journey, a woman and her little son sat beside me. The woman noticed my reading and asked if I was going to have exam. Soon she discovered that I was (I still am, by the way) a medical student.

She asked me how much it costed to enter medical school and how much I had to pay each semester. I told her how much and I also said that the cost rised every year. She also told me that she wanted her son to be a doctor and she had been saving money for that.

“We have no idea what Indonesia would be like in the future and what profession will be needed much in this country,” she said. “However, doctors are always needed. That’s why I want my son to be a doctor,” she continued.

During conversation, I mostly listened. So many things happened in my mind while listening. I saw how parents concerned a lot about their children’s future even before the children  thought about it. I said parents because I remembered my parents while that woman talked about her son. I also realised that doctor was still considered a profession with future certainty while in fact I’m sometimes still uncertain about my future as a doctor.

That conversation also reminded me how I had really wanted to be a doctor when I was in high school and how my mother had convinced me a lot of time to change my decision. My mother thought that medical school was not a “happy place” and now I’m a medical student, I find out that medical school can be both happy and sad place at the same time. However, as my mother said, “It is your choice. Now study.”

It’s still a long journey ahead for me to be a doctor and a long time ahead for that woman’s son to make decision. I wish them a good present and future.