STELLA

My mother was three years old when she first met Mrs. Kagawa. Twenty years would pass before she met her again. My father was with her then. Mrs. Kagawa played this instrument, the Shamisen, and sang them a song. When she finished, my father asked her, “Mrs. Kagawa…That song you played…what do the words mean?”  She told them:

Time flies like an arrow young people, so be careful what you do with your time.    

Six decades have passed since my mother first met this sage Lady, but her wisdom has remained with my parents and with me. I reflected on her words one fall morning with my mother and father just before returning to medical school after a short break. I was filled with gratitude for the generosity my dad showed in waking to see me off. We hugged goodbye, I remember, and he slowly walked back to his room to rest.

Mrs. Kagawa’s words returned to me a few weeks later as I shared the following dedication during the annual ceremony to honor our anatomical donors at the UVA School of Medicine:

Standing here, together, on this hallowed ground, we honor the good women and men who gave their physical bodies for our education. They gave this gift, their final gift to us and our future patients, people they never met.

In this cynical time in which we live, it is essential to pause, to find silence to reflect on this generosity. If some say true altruism does not exist, we must ask, does their gift not prove that it does?        

The donors we honor taught us anatomy, they remind us of our own vulnerability and mortality, they show us what selflessness is.  

With a flicker we come into this world, for a time we are strong, and then we grow old and we pass just as quickly and mysteriously as our arrival. 

As we reflect on what these great women and men gave during their lives and offered us with their last gift—we must ask, what will we do with our lives, what will we give to society. How will we pay forward what we have been given?  As Mrs. Kagawa told my mother when she was most strong and able,

“Time flies like an arrow young people, so be careful what you do with your time.”

—Thomas Ball, 2013

Thomas Ball is a University of Virginia medical student. This reflection honors his father, who died six months after the morning described, one year ago today.

—LC