2 posts tagged “book”

I can't remember how I stumbled across this title, but a few months ago I read some rave reviews, and put Heart in the Right Place by Carolyn Jourdan on my Amazon wishlist.  My brother was nice enough to give it to me for my birthday (along with a few other things-- he's a generous guy!) 

This is the most heartwarming book I've read in a long time.  It's the memoir of a woman who gets called home to rural Tennessee from her high-powered Capitol Hill job when her mom has a heart attack.  Her father is the only doctor for miles, and her mom is receptionist/office manager/cleaner-of-bodily-fluid-spills.  Because so many of their patients can't afford to pay, the clinic is run on a shoestring, and there's no money to hire a replacement for her mother.  At first thinking it will only be for a few days, the author takes a leave of absence from her "real" job, and pulls up a stool in her Dad's storefront medical practice.

The book is filled with stories about the sometimes quirky patients they see, and what it's like to witness people's most poignant moments (and then have to decide what to bill them for, say, telling them they're dying).  It could have been a book where the sophisticated author mocks the rednecks around her, but while she does tell some funny stories, her  affection and respect for her neighbors always comes through.  But it is mainly about the author coming to terms with having traded a glamorous job as an expert for the Senate for something much less prestigious, and spending her days get phone calls from drug-seeking addicts while being hacked on by a waiting room full of people who seem to be unaware of the concept of germs.  And figuring out which job is actually more important.

I never had a job as impressive as the author's former position, but I have been struggling a bit lately with my choice to be a SAHM, and this book is encouraging, since it supports the idea that a life isn't necessarily best measured by how far you've risen.