White coat

Eliza and I were Kurt's guests this morning at his White Coat Ceremony, marking the beginning of four years of medical school training. He is officially a student doctor, class of 2022, with a patch on the sleeve of his jacket that identifies him as a member of the community at Loyola University's Stritch School of Medicine.

The program took place in the atrium of the medical school building. Students and much of the audience sat in the open area on the first floor. Eliza and I found seats behind the rail on the second level. We stood up at the rail when it was Kurt's turn to be "coated" and even at that distance could see his warm smile, beaming under his mop of summer-bleached blonde hair. We've got photos. Eliza will have them on Facebook shortly, and we're so proud.

That second-level thing, above the main crowd--it felt like the right place to be. Not at ground level, hemmed in by rows and rows of parents and friends, but looking out instead into a great vertical space. I could see the speakers if I sat just the right way but could also follow my thoughts wherever they led (or wherever Eliza led them). I was sitting on a white chair, somewhere between earth and heaven. I looked into the future, I held the past in my heart.

With Eliza's memories and mine, we gathered our family. We remembered Lon, who died 12 years ago, and of course, thought of Kris. If he had lived to see this day, he'd have been strutting around that atrium (even if it had been in a power wheelchair), so proud, so fond of his younger brother.

Loyola's marketing motto these days is "We also treat the human spirit." It takes full-fledged humans to do that, and I hold deep admiration in my heart for Kurt as he devotes his life to caring for others. He's powered in part by Kris's example of compassion, courage, and care, but even more so by his own thoughtfulness, self-knowledge, determination and spirituality.

God is good.