to the silent mentors
They left your rings on. Did you know that? I don't know how long you've been here, but however long it's been, they've left your fingers alone. I saw it. Don't worry. I didn't touch them.
Today we did the anterior upper limb, so all of you were face up, with your muscles and your blood vessels and your nerves all bared for future living bodies I'll hold in my hands and you'll never get to see. I saw your brachial plexus. Your nerves I traced up until the cords because anything further up was still undissected, a secret you keep, until the next pair of scissors touches your flesh. They cut open your palms, and they left your fingers alone with the rings still on. It was the first time I ever felt sick in front of you. Thank you. I'm sorry.
I always wonder what you were like in life. Perhaps it's a weakness, or a strength. I wonder how young you were. I wonder if you wanted to be here, if the formalin and the first year students was the fate you chose for yourself. I wonder if I would do the same.
Would I want that? Would I have the selflessness it takes to give my body away? To be of use even after death, in the name of education, for however many generations of future doctors will bend over me and stick their probes into the gaps between my muscles? Grasp my nerves between their forceps?
I wonder how they would talk about me. Maybe my arms would be too stiff, stuck in positions to hard to work with. Maybe my back would be good. Maybe they would find the place where the lateral and medial cords join to form the median nerve on my body, and then they would never forget it. Never forget me. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to be remembered that way. I wonder how you would feel about being remembered that way.