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I’ve always been in the culinary arts, and yes, I’m allowed to call it that,
even though I don’t own a world-class fine dining establishment. As soon as I
turned fourteen, I started working at a diner. I actually applied two weeks
prior to that when I was still too young, and my future boss worked the delay
into the scheduling. I started at the bottom, just washing dishes, but I
worked my way up, and eventually practically ran the place. Unfortunately, the
town we lived in was shrinking at the same time. There wasn’t room for two
restaurants, so ours got shut down. I probably could have moved over to the
other, but it’s not like the shrinking was going to stop there. I could see
the writing on the wall. My younger brother, he was going into premed about
two and a half hours away from home. (He eventually entered medical school at
the same institution). Our mother didn’t like him being that far away on his
own, and the timing worked out anyway, so I went out there with him. He didn’t
need taken care of, mind you, but we all need a support system. It saved us
all money. Whenever he needed help studying, or just to talk out his problems,
I was only ten minutes away. I took a job at the university hospital where he
would eventually work, and I did that for many years, working my way up the
seniority ladder yet again. I don’t have an interesting story about how I
landed this position here. I hear people talk about how they knew someone who
knew someone, or they had some special family member who was healed. It was
about as basic as it gets for me. I applied, they interviewed me, they offered
me the job, and I took it. I’m not saying that this is just like any other
job, but I’ve been in the medical field—tangentially, at least—for decades at
this point. I watched healing heroes every day. I fed them their food so they
could have the energy to get back out there and perform miracles. They didn’t
have superpowers, but they did the best they could. It’s a rewarding
experience, and I’m quite proud of my job, but I’ve always been able to say
that. Even at the diner, we weren’t saving lives, but we were the only place
in a hundred miles with pancakes that made you see God. That’s pretty magical
too.
