Earlier this year, my beloved family practice doctor retired. Over many years, I had had ample opportunity to appreciate his diagnostic skill, his professionalism and his kindness. Moreover, I felt I could always trust that he would respect my wishes. I had a real partner in my health care.

Ma lived a blessed life: more than six decades of marriage, two professionally successful children (a physician and a teacher), and three wonderful grandchildren. Yet, these gifts mattered less to her than her forty years working in a baby/children’s store. When health issues forced her to retire at age eighty-two, she lost her heart and her spirit. Ma spent the days in her old recliner, wearing only a tattered white T-shirt and equally torn white underwear. She only got up to use the bathroom and wander the halls of her apartment building at night.

Dear Pulse readers:

When I was about twenty years old and living in New York, I wandered into a men’s clothing store on Canal Street. There, an army jacket caught my eye. I liked it right away. It was stylish–in a counterculture-rebel sort of way–and I decided to try it on.

It fit perfectly.

The only problem was, it cost more than I wanted to spend.