Imagining A Diagnose with the Mother Nature
“As mothers, the greatest gift we can pass on to
our children is a healthy planet.”
- From the movie,
To the Arctic (2012)
I am sitting
in my office and looking down on the chaotic downtown traffic from the fiftieth
floor in a deluxe apartment in downtown Manhattan. My eyes are dazzled by the
blinking car rear red-lights, the flashing commercials of blue beach vacation
on the TV screens, the yellow mad taxis blocking the intersections, the
constant collisions of the pedestrians, wearing various colored
fashion-clothing and passing each other with icy-cold despises. Yet, I am still
searching for one more color that has been missing in this “colorful” city, which
is the green of nature, since the year I moved to the city I gained my high
reputation on television and newspaper in a health consultant career.
When I am indulging in the urban fantasy, a
sequence of anxious phone rings bough me onto my glass office desk. I
confidently picked up the phone and answered, “Good morning, this is Dr.Chen,
how can I solve your problems today?”
She requested, “I need some professional
consultation for my family’s health.” Her voice is so gentle that is making me
feel like a warm breeze in the frosty wintertime. I tapped to open my calendar
on the mini iPad, and then typed her name, Mrs. Nature.
On the next
day, I decided to travel on my feet to meet with Mrs. Nature in a small
countryside town for her diagnose appointment. Along the roadsides, I am
looking at the deciduous Norway maple in this town with its paired winged
samaras seeds were ready to disperse and impact the diversity as an invasive
tree. Beyond the Norway maple territory, it is the simple and alternate leafed,
Japanese knotweed that was unfriendly occupying in the understory. It is not
like what I expected for a countryside view. Instead, I expected to enjoy the
compound leafed white ash has the light brown and diamond shaped bark grids in
the summer, or the golden to reddish color of the lobed sugar maple leaves in
the fall. I did not expect to see the overloaded trash bin with a nauseated
smell is disgusting my sense of smell. However, that nauseated smell works well
with the two black gasoline dashes from the car exhausters behind. My GPS is indicating
that it would take me another 30 minutes to arrive at Mrs. Nature. After 20
minutes, I finally arrived by speeding up my pace and struggling through the
unpleasing landscape.
When I arrived,
I saw a smiling and elegant lady wandering on the porch.
“Come on in. I
was afraid that you’ve gotten lost”, Mrs. Nature said while she was rushing to
step down the porch stair. She grabbed my hands and continued, “I am glad to
have you come and help my family”. Based on her begging tone and an old-looking
hunchback, I noticed that some problems have been consuming her life for
decades. It is going to be a difficult case that I never have consulted before,
I thought as she was leading me into the house.
It is a modern
and conceptual house.
“Your house is futuristic, Mrs. Nature”, I
complemented, but in fact I was condescending.
Mrs. Nature is
pointing straight ahead and complaining, “The advanced electronics are belong
to my sons and daughter for a home, which they believed would lead to a better
future”. I followed her direction as my vision is brightening up by the permeating
heart-warming sunlight through the closing down white window curtains. It is a
small room but I am appreciating for everything, from the elongating lime vines
from the ceiling, the fully blooming dark violet orchids with buzzing bees in
the left corner, the naturalistic waterfall that is nourishing the light green
and dark green mosses on the oval gravels. A breeze of jasmine tea is settling
us on the bamboo chairs facing the floor windows, where I am wondering to peak
behind the curtains. I am feeling back home.
She placed
down the flowery teacup on the knee-high marble table and stares at the beige
wall on the right with her soft eyes, where two neat and long rows of photos
that are framed with waxing tree twigs.
“They are my
family. They need your professional help and treatments”, she said and slowly
holds my hands tightly. I turned to her and saw a face of a kind mother, who has
worries and concerns for her family throughout her entire life. Her welcoming
smile is shining at me. However, I notice that the sorrow in her eyes is
overcoming her firmness into rolling tears. “The first photo on the top row is
taken of my oldest daughter. She has a beautiful name, the United States, which
is given by a friend of mine. She has two lovely sons. California is the older
one and he has been struggling with autism since 1990 and gets worse in 2001”,
she said while placing her left hand on her chest. He looks handsome in gold, because he is
pinching golden fedora that has a grizzly bear walking on a patch of forest
green grass and a red star in the upper left corner. “There’s genetics and
there’s environment, Hertz-Picciotto. He is my colleague and currently a great
researcher at UV Davis’s M.I.N.D. Institute, he suggested the mystery of
increasing autism cannot be explained by changes in doctors’ diagnoses1”,
she said with sobbing.
“Has Mrs.
United States encountered any environmental impacts during pregnancy, including
pesticides, viruses and chemical in household products1? Theoretically,
any pregnant woman exposures to chemicals could a big trigger to autism, such
as flame retardants used in furniture and electronics, and pyrethroid
insecticides, even the phthalates in cosmetics1”, I continued after
she nodded in silence.
“What will be
the cost for a treatment?” She asked.
“The studies
are still in progress and a higher cost will be expected to fund the ongoing studies1”,
I said while I am away from her eyes.
The shinning sunlight
began to heat up this green room. My eyes are tracing the elongating tree
shadow on the floor, and feeling the energy that is driven by one single tree,
even a falling leaf or the energy from the osmotic mechanism of roots. Mrs.
Nature knobbed after I confirmed the potential costs, then she pointed at the
man next to California.
“Washington is
her second son. He is now a rich man, but in malnutrition health condition. It
is because that he has been suffering in his consequences”, she is talking and
looking deprecated with an elbow on the chair handle. “Over years, he turned
what was once grew in the mountains into his own wealth. The monopolistic
murder, he is now named by those who had their families buried in the mud from
the unstable terrain landslides2”, she whispered with regrets. “Doctor,
he needs salvations for his soul and actions”, said Mrs. Nature between the two
wrinkled and freckled palms on her face.
“What is done
is done. Mr. Washington’s salvations are in his hands. A destroyer can be the
creator.” I paused and continued, “It is not too late to realize the mistakes. The
importance is to carry on with reproaches and do the right things will be the
solution.” After our discussions, I finally saw a hopeful look of her face.
However, she is losing her hope with other merging concerns from her two
younger sons, China and Britain, one wears a red shirt with yellow stars and
another wears a blue shirt with red stripes in the photo. However, the photo is
too blurry to see any details.
“Airpocalypse
is China’s nickname by a negatively impacting friend in his rapid development
stage”, said Mrs. Nature.
“How is he or
she changing China?” I asked curiously.
She closed her
eyes and said, “She first walked into China’s life like a dense morning fog with
her coal-black eyes. And now, China is trapping in a city of ghost that has no business
and lacks of blue sky3. However, China is obsessing about her that
he always tells this, ‘I love her coal-black eyes, and they are my main energy
source to move on’. Instead, everyone knows that China really needs blue-sky
days3.”
“China must be
aware of his own changes and identify the source of problems”, I suggested.
“What about
Britain? He is younger than China and has been fighting for the same ‘misty’
girl with China, but worsen with some triggering health problems”, she is
taking down the photo from the wall as she continued, “The Southern European
Sahara dust and continent light-wind, but more important is that he lives in an
industrialized city with heavy car emission4. That combination is
causing him to suffer with lung problems when he was a young man and now it is
developing into a heart problem as he grows older4.” I am in
touching by an endlessly concerning mother, like Mrs. Nature for her family
from days to nights, as I am walking toward her.
Right before I
came to a final diagnosis for her family health; I am distracting by a hopeless
view via a narrow open space between the curtains. There is a tree that is not
like what I have seen before. It has some peeled branches are appearing the
deadly grayish and white barks, while some various shaped leaves are struggling
to hold on on the yellowing twigs, they are in piping plovers, blue whales,
snow leopards shape.
“It is the
tree of life”, Mrs. Nature whispered to me.
After that, I turned to gaze at the beyond sea
level, where has millions of small islands appearing above the sea surface.
Mrs. Nature seems to notice my confusion, so she said, “those were used to be
large lands, and where had green trees that rooted into rich soil for the large
canopies and song birds are nesting and feeding. One of the islands is named
Bangladesh, Dakope, is going to be another undersea civilization5.” There,
I see vegetables are struggling to grow in the salt-water poisoned soil or mug
while other massive lands are releasing heats.
“Mrs. Nature,
according to my experiences in health consulting firm over years, I have come
to a conclusion for your family health problems. It is to develop a harmonical
relationship with other human beings. In order to do so, they have to confront
those unflavored truths with a strong willing and belief to solve the problems,
alter any existing and achieve profound goals for a long term, some of them may
not indicate any time attainable signs. However, with your great motherhood, I
believe they will be recover from any consequences”, I said out into her eyes
with determination of my diagnose for her.
References
Castle, S.
(2014, Apr. 2) Pollution and Dust in Britain Bring Health Warnings. The New
York Times. Retrieved from
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/03/world/europe/britain-pollution.html?ref=science&_r=0
Cone, M.
(2009, Jan. 9). New Study: Autism Linked to Environment. Scientific American.
Retrieved from http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/autism-rise-driven-by-environment/
Harris, G. (20014, Mar. 28) Borrowed Time
on Disappearing Land. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/29/world/asia/facing-rising-seas-bangladesh-confronts-the-consequences-of-climate-change.html?hp
Knickerbocker,
B. (2014, Mar. 28) Washington mudslide: logging eyed as contributing cause. The
Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved from
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2014/0328/Washington-mudslide-logging-eyed-as-contributing-cause
Wong, E.
(2013, Oct. 24) Response to a City’s Smog Points to a Change in Chinese
Attitude. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/world/asia/smoggy-days-in-harbin-prompt-quick-reaction.html
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