There were so many things I wanted to do. I wanted to raise money for charity through running, and I wanted to save money up to take care of my mother when the time came. Dreams swept through my mind of working for Doctors Without Borders. I yearned to open a free clinic that would give quality care – not just care – to patients. I wanted to couple that clinic to treating victims of domestic abuse, and to getting the salvageable homeless off the streets and back into a job. I wanted to make a difference to someone, I guess.

I looked my account balances over up and down. The list was displayed on my computer while a pathologist spoke about various lymphomas. At the top of the list was my checking account, a yoyo that reflected stipend deposits and outgoing bills. I had a savings account set aside for my fiancée, who had been benefiting from my foresight in this period when he couldn’t get a job. There was a CD earning interest towards our wedding. A new, meager account sat at the bottom of the list with the hopeful nickname “Mom’s Security.”

Who to take care of first and foremost? Tom would get a job eventually; at some point, his repeated application efforts would pan out. At some point, I knew Mom’s health problems would get the better of her and she would be absolutely dependent on my sister and me. I knew someday one or both of us would have to keep her in our house with us, whether permanently or as part of “joint Mommy custody.” The alternative was splitting the cost of an apartment for her. On some level, I preferred the former, despite the problems I foresaw arising between her, my future husband and myself.

Would it have been better for Mom to live with my sister Stefanya? In my absence for school, they had grown very close. They now shared handcrafts as a bond, as well as a propensity for adopting a new animal every time I returned to school. Stefanya drove Mom batty and vice versa, but at the end of the day, there they’d be, each with a project in hand and a dog in their lap or at their feet. By now, they had two dogs each. In addition, there seemed no guarantee that this six-year relationship with Stefanya’s lover would ever lead to marriage: the lovers had issues that had been plaguing them from the beginning. He had never held down a job, she had worked since she was fifteen. He was a yuppy from the nicer neighborhoods of Virginia, she had grown up next to a highway in very urban Philadelphia. His first car had been a Mercedes-Benz, her first car (at 24) had been a Ford Focus.

And yet, on some level, they were the only people who could put up with each other for that long…

But would it have been better for Mom to live with her? Or would it be a novel (and positive) switch for me to take her in when it finally became possible? At present it wasn’t; as a medical student, I was supporting myself *and* my out-of-work fiancée. Taking care of Mom was a distant dream I couldn’t grab hold of yet. Not to mention, Tom and I were just starting out; we needed our time to settle in together and live our lives together.

Perhaps one year soon, in a decade or so (“soon” by medical training standards, I suppose), I could “adopt” my mother. Give her a floor of the house, if possible, or find a house with a guest house in back that would be hers alone.

The benefit of her living with us would be (ashamedly, I admitted this silently) built-in childcare. The shame of admitting it was balanced by what I considered a bashful, idolizing complement: if I had to hand over my children, I would want them raised by my mother. Perhaps Tom would have crumpled inside at the prospect of my mother interfering in his parenting style, but there was no one better, in my opinion, to raise children than my own mother.

Her living with us would have presented more than the person-styles problem. Even now in medical school, I had a contract with the Army. I would be an Army physician for at least twenty years. There would undoubtedly be relocations. What would we do with Mom when we moved? Would she come with us? Would we hand her off to Stefanya at that point? Would we give Mom the house?

I closed down the webpage and tried to switch my attention to class. Those questions were far in the future; they had no place in the here and now.

And yet, my mind would not make the switch. Instead, it switched to another dream: working with Doctors Without Borders. When would I find time for that? How would my family and I handle a six- to twelve-month deployment on a non-military mission once I’d finally gotten *out* of the military? Would they object? Would they support me? Would my children hate me or admire me for it? Would I be guilt-tripped into sacrificing that particular adventure for them, so I could be a more “typical” mom, wife and daughter? Mom would undoubtedly support me, but children tend to be selfish. Even as an independent adult, I was still selfish. Children were incredibly so, however, and with good reason: they needed someone to take care of them. My daughters in particular would need a female role model for what and who to be. How would they turn out if I were constantly in military and paramilitary positions, constantly dreaming of going out to make a difference? Would they be inspired to make a difference in their own lifetime or would they see me only as a woman who didn’t want to be home with her children, a bad mother?

What if I worked for the World Health Organization? Same thing. Only this time, would my children want to move so that I could work internationally? I did not require my children’s permission or forgiveness; I had my own life, particularly after they reached a more mature age. What if they fought me, though? What to do until they reached an age of maturity?

I knew Tom wasn’t thinking of such things. Only I was. Mom wasn’t thinking of what would happen to her in a few years; or maybe she was, I didn’t know. All I had to wonder was: why was all this coming down on me?

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