I asked my secretary to show me pictures and, a week after the inauguration, she brought a CD to the clinic for viewing. On the computer in the office, we watched as her group with their Obama regalia boarded buses in the dark, disembarked at a parking lot at RFK Stadium, and then walked together to the Mall. In the photos, everyone was bundled up but they all looked ready to pop out of their coats from sheer exhilaration.
The best pictures showed the scene on the Mall. Unlike the satellite photos that blurred people beyond recognition, Simmons’ pictures magnified the people and captured, in the bright sun of Washington, the radiance on their faces. These people were not ants. These people were pieces of confetti, decorating the grass in the midst of momentous celebration.
I do not know what the future in healthcare will hold, but the expressions on those faces shouted change that we can believe in and change that we can agree upon.
And, to people of all generations, this is change we have to afford.
Dr. Pisetsky is physician editor of The Rheumatologist and professor of medicine and immunology at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C.
