Life Stories that Shape Hope: A Photo-Auto-Bio Memoir
About this book
Life stories shape our viewpoints of hope or despair for our personal and societal well-being and survival. This Memoir is a personal Photo-Auto-Biography of the events and history that have shaped the lives and perspectives of an infectious diseases and global health physician-teacher-researcher and his wife of 58 years who have lived and worked in impoverished communities in the Congo, Bangladesh and Brazil. Through political arrests, a historic revolution and cyclone, and getting to know great friends and collaborators across African, Asian and South American cultures, our stories suggest a viewpoint of hope. The commonality of our genes and humanity crosses cultures, races and continents. Who we are is far more shared than different. This shared human kinship has profound meaning for each of us as persons, families, nations and civilizations; it is the recognition of that shared kinship that holds our best hope for survival.This book is based on recollections, diaries, calendars and over 26 thousand iPhotos that were selected to save or copy from family albums of two 80-year lifetimes. It includes relevant digressions about family, rural birthing clinics, pyramids, Colorado River rafting, world’s tallest trees, country graveyards, intercontinental canals and pandemics. It is complementary to the author’s more profession-oriented “Notes from a Diarrhea Doc,” but is focused much more on personal life and family experiences.