“We are prone to judge success by the index of our salaries or the size of our automobile rather than by the quality of our service and relationship to mankind.” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
In the United States of America a little boy died long before his time, not because he had some dreaded incurable disease, but because he was “poor”. What should have been a normal routine trip to the dentist to take out a nagging tooth festered into a deadly abscess whose poison went to the child’s brain. The child asked his mother to say her prayers before she slept on what would be the last night of her little boy’s life. How sad, how tragic, how uncommunity for the obituaries to contain the name of this child marking an untimely and unnecessary death. Now the Congress and the President will use the tragedy of this little boy to enact legislation that will expand dental care to poor children. Will it ease this mother’s pain and will it give explanation to a younger brother who can’t quite understand why his older brother by 2 years will not be coming home again? This little boy’s life was not honored because his mother’s salary and the size of her vehicle, or the lack there of, did not measure up to “Who Shall Live, but to Who Shall Die”. Our nation and health care providers failed to render a service to an innocent, poor child from the wrong side of the tracks. Our nation showed a disjointed connection to one of its own. He was a part of the relationship building that should live in the hearts, minds and service to all mankind.
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