For OG

You did not know me
Yet
You gave of yourself
Nay, you gave yourself
To me.
You did not know me
My first, my best teacher
You reared me
My medical father
Oh the sheer honor
I beheld your lungs
Held your heart
Cupped between trembling palms
You did not know me
My first, my best teacher
Yet you gave yourself
To me.
And years from now
You will not even know
the runny-nosed eight-year-old
Who comes in with an earache
My eyes will peer through light
While the imprint of your ear
That first ear to teach me
Will still remain
Etched in my brain.
You will not know
the seventy-five-year-old Grandmother
Who presents with arthritis in her knee
Yet your knee
That first joint I study
Will still remain
Etched in my brain.
No, you will not know
any of my patients
Yet you gave even to them
Through me.
No, you did not know me
And yet
Yet
I feel I know you
Sweet Soul
Who gives from the hereafter
You did not know me
Yet I feel I know you
Sweet Soul
Who gives the greatest gift
For ones
You do not know

Dipti Barot, Chicago, Class of 2006

Originally published in Vol. XX: 2004

Editor’s Note: The following poem was written for the Gross Anatomy cadaver memorial service held in Spring, 2003. “OG” is the name given to a male cadaver, an acronym for “Our Guy.”