Dr. Maria

The beautiful picture of Dr. Huda Sayed-Johnny with my writing comes from artist Andrea Floren (quietlyfiery.com) in a project by Dr. Sarah Rowan, an infectious disease doctor at Denver Health and an artist.

Please read and listen to the story “Denver Doctor Starts A Portrait Series To Honor Black And Women Of Color Physicians” here from June 27, 2020 on Colorado Public Radios website.

You will hear and see beauty, genius and wonder.

¡Muchas gracias Ms. Floren, Dr. Sayed-Johnny, and Dr. Rowan!

https://www.cpr.org/2020/06/27/denver-doctor-starts-a-portrait-series-to-honor-black-and-women-f-color-physicians/

little salt

Dr. Maria came to Charleston from El Salvador. 

She practiced medicine at the Barrier Islands Free Medical Clinic on Johns Island. 

She was short and brown skinned, with black bobbed hair and earthy eyes. 

She was a good soccer player and didn’t look much like a doctor, even with her white lab coat on. 

Looks can be deceiving, though.

She was kind and brilliant, and that made her the best doctor for many, many miles around the lowcountry of South Carolina. 

She lived beside the clinic, and ate lunch with the peach and tomato pickers at noon each day under the shade of a giant angel oak tree.

“Ella es un angél ella misma, como el arból,” said the people.

She was an angel, but not because she was perfect.

Nope, she was an angel because she cared so deeply for the people and helped them so much.

And that is the best kind of angel of all.

Little Salt, his mamí and his abuelo were migrant workers in those peach orchards and tomato fields around the clinic. 

They were from El Salvador, too. 

Dr. Maria noticed that Little Salt’s hair was cut in a crooked line across his forehead. 

She noticed that his face was always serene. 

If she was a saint, she was the patron saint of noticers.

Of the many patients she saw at the clinic every day throughout the planting, growing and harvesting season, Little Salt was her favorite.

Little Salt liked Dr. Maria very much. 

He liked that her skin was the same color as his skin. 

He liked her patched jeans and her holey Converse Chuck Taylor tennis shoes. 

He liked her brown eyes and the way they looked deep inside of him when she was examining him and trying to help him.

(Dr. Huda Sayed-Johnny by Andrea Floren)