Work Text:
The little girl stood in front of the whole class room, wearing her yellow striped overall and the light up sneaker Jack had bought her for her birthday. Samira had braided her curly hair in two braids and she had picked little flower claw clips to put in the end of each one. By her side in the teacher's table was Samira, since this was her first public speaking activity they both wanted to be there, so of course, Jack was standing next to Rupi.
“You can start Rupi,” the teacher said from the side of the room.
“Hello everyone, my name is Rupi Farah Abbot and today i’m gonna talk about my hero” Samira passed the page to show a picture of Jack in his 20’s, wearing his green beret and his multiple badges over his uniform, that showed his special forces trainings
The whole classroom murmured in awe and Jack smiled, remembering the many times from the last week in which both of them stayed hours rehearsing the presentation, since Rupi was an overachiever and didn’t want to do bad, especially in front of her mom and dad.
“This is Jack Abbot, a former U.S Army Special Forces Medical Sergeant, who is currently an emergency medicine attending at PTMC and also, my dad”
Jack said Hi to everyone in the room, holding his PTMC card that read ‘DOCTOR’ big enough for everyone to read. The kids looked interested enough to make him know that Rupi had them with the introduction.
“He is 54 years old, a veteran, a volunteer in the amputees rehab center and a very good cook” pictures of the army appeared in the board, showing various place but a big arrow indicates Iraq in the map, helping Rupi to keep talking “My dad served in Iraq and Afghanistan during his time in the army, in this place he learned about trauma medicine, anatomy, procedures in the field and prolonged field care, which they used when evacuation would take a lot of time”
“He also learned about love, family and friends, he told me he has very fond memories about this time of his life”
Jack nodded proudly as he heard his daughter speak about his time serving, something he didn’t think would happen ever in his life. There was a point he thought he would be alone for the rest of his life, but life proved wrong, as he was here now, with his daughter and wife, who was currently expecting their second daughter.
Jack was so proud that he could probably cry, hearing his daughter speak like that about his time serving was so endearing. It wasn’t the best time of his life but it landed him here, with a wife, a daughter and another daughter on the way.
“He saved many, many people during all his years, both enemies and allies, and also helped birth many babies, one of those babies was named after him” Rupi showed a picture of her birth, Samira holding her and Jack holding both of them in the bed. “He also helped my mom with my birth, even cut the cord, although my mom is the one who did the hard work”
“During his last deployment to Afghanistan, an explosive went off right next to his camp and my dad lost a third of his leg, which is not uncommon to hear about the war. Right now he wears a prosthetic most of the time, and it hasn’t made him any worse at playing ball” she looked at Jack, who showed his prosthetic to the kids “I know, you would never know”
“This has motivated him to help other veterans, as it is very common to have PTSD and injuries associated with the time they serve and talking with other people who went through the same helps them, he does this by volunteering in the VA at least once a week”
Samira changed the page, expecting to find the very silly picture they had found to put at the end of the presentation, but instead found a picture of herself, in last year's public health conference where she had presented her newest study. “But I’m lucky enough to not have only one hero, I also have a heroine, this is my mother Doctor Samira Mohan, a senior attending at PTMC emergency room”
Samira looked at Jack, who gestured for her to get up, as she did Rupi walked to her side.
“She’s not only my hero because she’s my mom, although she is the best mom ever, but she also has focused her whole career to study injustices in the health system, helping in the making of protocol to treat patients with..” Jack knew she had a hard time remembering the diagnosis so he waited no time to help her “sickle cell disease, which is a very mistreated and misunderstood illness”
“She also created a new way of treating the patients in the ER where she works with my dad, focusing on the patient needs and not on using less time, making sure the diagnosis are well done to make sure they don’t need to come back” Samira, who was currently just a couple months pregnant, was at the verge of tears by now.
“My dad, my hero, taught me about bravery and hard work and my mom, my heroine, taught me about empathy, and doing your job with love. I think they are the best people anyone can meet and now all of you can say you have. And that’s the end!”
Claps were heard in the whole room and kids started getting up to talk to Jack, mainly to see his prosthetic of course.
“That was such a beautiful work baby, you surprised me!” Samira wiped the tears rolling down her face as she held Rupi in her arms “I love you so much Ru”
“I love you more Momma”
“I love you three” Jack appeared to hug all of his girls.
He never knew how amazing it would be to be the hero and get to live a life next to a heroine.