The Two Isabels
This past week, my best friend Mario came to visit us in Albuquerque. He brought along his infant daughter, Isabel, who had just turned six months old the weekend before. Isabel was also the name of Mario’s grandmother. And for a brief but important season of my life, she was someone very special to me. A Summer in Houston In the summer of 2006, Mario’s grandmother had recently undergone hip replacement surgery and needed someone to live with her for the summer to help with daily tasks while she recovered. Around the same time, I had just moved to Houston to participate in a summer research program at UT McGovern Medical School — the same school where, years later, I would enroll as an MD–PhD student. The timing worked perfectly. I moved in with Grandma Isabel for the summer. That summer, I had a lot of fun getting to know her. She was a Cuban immigrant to the United States, and that experience shaped her worldview in countless ways. She had a warmth and perspective that made spending ...