Shivani Mahajan
Professor Maltman
ENGC 1101-09
5 February 2017
A
New Life
A
baby’s first cries lit up the room. After several hours of anticipating and
waiting, a new life was born. This tiny bundle of joy marked a change, not just
for the parents, but for the attending physician and his two medical students
as well. A baby is born when it decides to be born and the physician, realizing
this due to years of practice, displayed a calm, patient demeanor throughout
the process. The medical students on the other hand were basically jumping up
and down with apprehension. For the most part however, there was nothing for
them to do except wait. When the time finally came, one of the students, Joudat,
was the first to hold the baby and deliver it to the mother. “That was one of
the happiest moments in my life,” Joudat recalls. Seeing a new life being
brought into this world and seeing the love between the parents and the child
is so pure and heartwarming that it can leave a place in your heart forever.
When
growing up in Syria Joudat Yazigi was the youngest of six brothers. Though some
of the brothers went to college or had jobs, the family was very tight-knit.
They would all come together on the weekends for family, food and jokes.
Whenever you walked into the Yazigi household there would always be roaring
laughter filling up the place with it’s warmth.
Joudat recalls, “My mom used to call us the circus, because whenever the
gang is present someone is always telling jokes.” When you are surrounded by
laughter in your childhood, it is no wonder why you are always smiling and
laughing when you’re older. Joudat jokingly terms his family’s sense of humor
as “pathological euphoria.”
Though
they made their way through life laughing, this did not mean that the Yazigi’s
were slackers when it came to studies. Learning and education was their top
priority and it was emphasized that, “College and school is something that you
do, you need to breath, you need to study.” Study and work is something that
all of the family was required to do, so success in study was not exactly
regarded as success because you are expected to succeed and work hard in study.
Success for them was more like having a happy family and a close friend circle
that was well taken care of.
Their
high standards in education resulted in many of the six boys growing up to be
doctors or engineers, professions that require well educated students. Joudat
eventually ended up as a doctor, though he always knew that he wanted to go
into the medical field. His older brothers were already doctors when Joudat was
growing up and were his “ultimate heroes.” He wanted to be just like them,
though when he was little, “I enjoyed the idea of looking into stuff and
figuring it out and of course I used to carry the family stethoscopes around
the house so that they will never ever find them.” Another major factor that
pushed Joudat into the medical field was his mother. When he was around 12
years old, his mother had a heart failure. This was one of the strongest
motivations for him and it made him specifically want to be a cardiologist so
that he could help her.
When
Joudat was studying and when he became a doctor he learned a lot of important
life lessons that came along with the profession. “It makes you become very
realistic because medicine is an incomplete science. You always have the
feeling that you just can’t do your best. You learn about mortality, the fact
that we are all humans and life is short and you have to do your best to enjoy
life. You see illness everyday so you understand that death is part of life,
but it also makes you more wise, nothing surprises you. You learn to be more
humane because you can not be with people and not love people, you cannot do
this if you really don’t care, it is part of the job, and it is something that
I would love to do for as long as I can.”
While
he was forging his path in life, Joudat became the first of his family to leave
Syria and study in Russia. After completing medical school there, he arrived in
U.S. and was glad to see that his family moved there when he was in Russia. “The
first transition was the hardest because you are 17, you are a very very
stubborn young man, who questions everything and wants to know everything and
of course very brave because every person in my family didn’t think it was a
good idea. I insisted and they said “Ok, you wanna go, you have to be a man of
your own decisions”. I was the one that left, and I can tell you that the first
two months was probably the hardest ever, because first you can not look like
someone who is doubting your own decision and second because I missed my family
so much. Things that I took for granted were no longer there. The transition to
the U.S. was the easiest thing that I have ever done. Why? Because my parents
already lived in the U.S.” Home is where the family is. Family is so important,
though many of us fail to realize it.
Living
in three different countries makes for a person who is very accepting of
different cultures, languages and environments. “I did speak English before
coming to Russia, the problem was the Russians did not speak English, the
Russians spoke only Russian.” Russia was also very could, while Syria was very
hot and it is surprising to see how much weather does impact you when moving to
different places. “One time I was coming to Russia and I was wearing a very
light jacket. The airplane could not get close to the terminal so we had to go
down the stairs and get into a bus. And that 20 seconds when you are going and
getting into the bus, man I can tell you my bones were frozen.”
One thing is
consistent however, the people may act in accordance to different cultures but
they are essentially the same good people. “I consider myself a very lucky man,
I was so fortunate to run into so many kind people. People are essentially good
no matter where you are” When getting lost in Saint Petersburg, “I wanted
someone to point me towards the subway and I decided to ask an elderly lady and
she holds me by the hand and she walks with me, I’m like that’s such a kind
act. If you look at people, they are good and I am fortunate enough to be
surrounded by very kind people.” Though it may be difficult for us to think
that people are essentially good when there is so much tragedy, pain and
suffering in the world, Joudat retains this positive outlook on the world.
It was Saturday
night and I was walking up the Yazigi household for a dinner party. The house
is lighted up beautifully and when we enter we are greeted with kindness and
smiles. Whenever we meet with them, they are always so kind, and of course
incredibly funny! They are like people that I have never met before, so happy
and joyful and real. When I asked Joudat about this happiness that he and his
family has, he says, “Both my parents were known to be very sincere people, so
if you are sincere you are at ease. If I do not like someone, I will not talk
about them behind their back, I will wish them all the best and pray for them
every morning and pray that they will stay away, as far as possible.” With his friends,
however, he says, “My friends and I are like family. We look after one another
and when we get together it is a party!” I admire Joudat and his family so
much, not just because they work so hard, but because they genuinely enjoy what
they do and they spread joy and happiness wherever they go.
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