Traveling Pharmacist

I am a traveling pharmacist, more specifically, I am called "Floater." I float within eighty miles of my home each day and I encounter life so interesting that I don't know if I want to find a job which is in one location with same people.

In the technicians (support staff) I encounter the vastness of human difference, in socio-economic limitations or boundaries. I grieve at today's youth and their freedom which ends up into a trap; bearing of children out of wedlock. Even in that situation I am happy when the couple is committed and working towards their marriage and healthy future.

Then there are technicians who are students. They are full of ambition, how and when they will finish school and what they will do with life.

Sometimes there is mix of both.

Yesterday I met K, a nice young man. During quiet moments we have conversations. He has worked at this store for several years and working at pharmacy has caused a desire in him to go into health care field... maybe a male nurse. He is a father of eleven month old child and the child has his last name. Both his girlfriend and he wanted it that way.

He told me that his baby was quarter Korean. My attention span went up ten fold. His girlfriend T has Korean mom and dad is German descent. Here is a couple who could be my own children. Yet as he continues his stories I am held in disbelief. T has suffered or rather tortured by her mom during her years at home. During the pregnancy with T, the mom intended to abort the child. T's dad begged his wife to give him his baby. So T was born. Her mother had older daughter and T. It was T that was picked on and beat up all her childhood. Often dad would scoop up two little girls from the anguish of the mom and he would get bruised.

T found K when she was 18 (now she is 22). Last year T had a baby and now she is graduating from college with straight A average. Her plan is to be a neonatal nurse.

T's mom and dad are divorced now. Dad is in depth of depression. K tries to encourage him to let him know that both of his girls are making something of themselves and now he has a grandchild and he needs to look to the future. K tries to awaken T's mom's conscience that she needs to see what wounds she has embedded in her girls. T has forgiven her mom and for the last eleven months, T's mom has been cordial around her grandchild.

I invited K and his girlfriend T over for dinner... with the baby of course.