Was paid 50 years ago with a cup of milk and 4 cookies
Professor Arthur Mills a heart specialist who owns a big private hospital in the USA
He is telling the following story
My mother brought me up in Crown Heights in the late 1940’s early 1950’s my father died
I went to the local public school looking clean and neat
Some days I went without breakfast
I was in grade 4 ten years old when all my mother can give me was one sugar cube
I never missed school but that day I just could not go on any more.
Nobody was allowed to know that we were poor.
I was about to start looking in the rubbish bins.
I got an idea to know on a door in one of the big buildings where no one knows who I am. Ask for a piece of bread and go b back to school.
I walked in to a big building and I find two doors the one on the right has a picture of a lapart, which got me scared
I looked on the door on the left and it said Morris Jackson family.
I knocked on the door expecting a middle-aged women opening the door I will ask her for a slice of bread and run back to school.
A girl my age opened the door
I asked her for a glass of water
She smiled and said, “We drink milk, do you mind if I give you milk instead of water?
She came back with a cup of milk in one hand and four cookies in the other
My name is Rosslyn, what is your name she asked?
Instead of answering, I asked her if I could have a second cookie.
Why are you home today I asked her?
I get sick quite often, she said and I can’t go to school
I thanked her without giving her my name
Many years went by
I graduated got married to an hart specialist and I have 3 children and started my own hospital
Every new patient is examined by my team and then they bring me the file to discuss what to do.
In 2003, I get a file with the name Rosalyn Jackson
She was very sick and was in ICU
What your name etc. I asked her
She told me her name and her father’s name and that she came from Crown Heights
She was 60 years old
At time of discharge, they use to bring me the file for the final bill after the insurance paid their part
52,300 Her final bill was $
When the file was broth to me for signing I wrote on it was paid 50 years ago with a cup of milk and four cookies
She lived on for another five years and died in 2008.
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