Dear Santa

You know that song, 'My Grown Up Christmas List'? Yea, yea, I know, I make all kinds of greedy requests to Santa every Christmas. That's just the childish, selfish and imaginary yearnings. But listening to that song the other night got me thinking. Reading the news, both on CNN, and even the Malaysian media, looking at the global occurences, just gets a person down. If there were truly things I could ask for, no matter how miraculous it may seem, it would be:

• Peace and kindness amongst mankind. No more of that petty, racist nonsense in Malaysia. None of that political rubbish, there or here in the US. No more that that suicide bombing in mosques in Pakistan. No more wars. Just for people of all walks of life, to live together.
• For people to be able to afford what they need. For my patients to not have to pay so much for their medications, or health insurance. For the homeless to be able to afford shelter. For the hungry to buy food.
• No more global warming. Deforestation. Pollution. Just come up with some renewable, non-polluting, cheap and freely available energy.
• To be here, and yet only a few minutes away from my family and dear friends. From my parents. To be able to say at a moment's notice, "Hey mom, dad, let us take you out for dinner!". To be able to be there when they're sick. To share in their lives, and to be able to share ours with them. To bea able to reap their wisdom on life, now that I'm older but none the wiser.
• To have no more sickness in the world. To be able to tell ALL my patients, yup we can cure that 100%, and it won't even require a shot. To have my buddy get well again soon.
• For everyone to be loved. Loved. A word we sometimes take for granted. But I'm reminded of the elderly patients I've admitted on Christmases and Thanksgivings of years past, because their families dumped them in the ERs before they left for their trips. Or patient who plain didn't have families left. Or that patient I saw just last week who said this would be his first Christmas without his mother (who died recently) and wife (who left him).

Dear God, or Santa, if that's who you have entrusted to give out Christmas gifts, this is my grown-up Christmas list.

What's yours?