Don Quixote in Newark

If despondency over gun violence and the direction of America is going is bringing you down, let me suggest a two-hour respite--a PBS documentary called Don Quixote in Newark.  

Jim Oleske, a dyslexic trouble-making kid expelled from Catholic school at the age of 7, was driven by his love of children.  When the AIDS epidemic broke in the early 80s, he was a young doctor who treated babies and children with the new virus.  His research, in spite of many obstacles for funding, has made in utero transmission of AIDS to children almost a thing of the past. 

What a tireless, generous, windmill-smashing doctor he is!  A mensch of a man, he uses the word, love, a lot.  He loves his little patients and their parents and often follows those who survive into adulthood. He's humble.  "I wanted to be a pediatrician," he said. "I didn't know at first that you had to become a doctor to become a pediatrician."  Rejected from 29 medical schools, he was finally accepted ("an accident," he says) into the 30th.  

His favorite book of all time was Don Quixote--a book that implanted in him a desire to follow his dreams no matter what. Now a white-haired doctor who laughs and cries with his patients, Dr. Oleske  has, over the years, taken every little patient a purple stuffed rabbit in memory of a child who died.  At his retirement party, he gives his medical students purple rabbits. 

Watching this beautifully made documentary, I couldn't help but wonder: what must go so wrong in a child's life that he grows up to become a killer in his late teens?  We have an epidemic of young men who are fascinated with murder, who live on online communication forums with other aspiring mass killers, and who have few if any friends in real life. 

Watching a truly good man devote his life to doing good, working overtime, and remembering the names of his patients--what a contrast, what an inspiration! 

Thanks to Freda for recommending this excellent life story of a mensch of a man!