Haitian Doctor Demonstrates True Human Strength
When last Tuesday’s earthquake shattered the lives of millions in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, people ran helter-skelter for their own safety. At the time, individual safety was supreme in their minds.
Dr. Claude Surena, a neighborhood doctor, was not one of them; people came to him in droves and he took them under his wing. At a time when shops were closed, food was scarce, supplies ran low, and everybody was concerned with their own survival, Dr. Surena started running a trauma center for over 100 patients on his own patio without proper supplies.
This is a recurring human story that has been told many times. There are always a few individuals who separate themselves from the crowd and take the burden of others. The indomitable will of man to conquer all his adversaries and rise above mediocrity, fighting against the severest of odds, however small the number of persons who reach this height may be, shows the way to the rest of the mankind.
Viktor Frankl survived the World War II Nazi death camps to write in Man’s Search for Meaning: “We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: The last of the human freedoms to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
Acting responsibly on our choices determines our success or failure. How Dr. Surena acted during an unthinkable tragedy demonstrated that sacrificing the last bread for others is the work of the gods, but at times man scales heights to fulfill the destiny that is duly his.
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