Just Like Her

by Chika, Leadership Scholars

“I want to be a pharmacist in the future.”

That’s what I say when the busybodies ask (per usual).

However, it wasn’t a trick to satisfy their hunger for business.

It’s truly what I wanted—

even with the setbacks I’ve faced.

In chemistry class,

on our first test I scored a 60.

The lowest grade I’d ever gotten,

ever in my high school career.

Suffering,

but learning.

And then, there’s this memory

from childhood.

This slender older woman who used to babysit me.

I didn’t know her name but i knew

She was a pharmacist.

Owned her own little shop

right outside the compound where I lived.

We’d walk over,

and she’d give me vitamin C tablets

that tasted just like candy.

She treated people in the neighborhood

quietly,

gently,

like it was nothing

but it was everything (at least to me).

This year,

as a junior stuck between choosing careers,

college majors,

and future dreams,

my mom told me a story.

She said that woman,

the same one who gave out candy vitamins,

saved my life.

She said I was sick

burning up with a fever.

We couldn’t get to the hospital right away.

So she stepped in,

gave me an injection

that paused the danger

just long enough.

My mom still says,

“She saved you.”

And now,

I want to do the same.

Make an impact

maybe not in big, loud ways,

but in the quiet ones.

Helping.

Communicating.

Connecting.

Just like she, my hero, did