My first grade teacher,Mr Gunderson,once told my class a sto

My first grade teacher,Mr Gunderson,once told my class a story……求这篇文章的完整篇

My first-grade teacher,Mr.Gunderson,once told my class a story:A father and son are driving and get into a terrible car accident.The man is killed and the boy is seriously hurt.But when the boy arrives in the emergency room,the doctor on duty says,"I can't perform surgery on this patient.This is my son!" Mr.Gunderson asked us,"Who is the doctor?" Hands went up and my classmates shouted out guesses and theories,each more far-fetched than the last:The dead man was a stepfather; the dead man was a priest known as "father"; the dead man was revived by paramedics and returned to his job as a surgeon.
When I raised my hand,Mr.Gunderson said,"No,Will,I'm not going to let you answer." He knew it would be too easy for me to figure out that the surgeon was the boy's mother.He knew that because my mother is a doctor.
I suppose Mr.Gunderson's puzzle would be a lot easier for today's first-graders,now that female doctors can be seen any night of the week on reruns of "E.R.," but when I was at San Francisco's Commodore Sloat Elementary in the late 1970s,I didn't know many kids whose mothers worked at such a high-pressure job.I don't think I had ever really thought about it until that day in class.My father is a doctor too,so it didn't seem all that out of the ordinary to me.
But by any other standard,my mother's story is extraordinary.She was one of a handful of women in her medical school class at the University of Kentucky and she went on to become a prominent physician at UCSF,to be elected to the board of the American Academy of Pediatrics and to spend decades as an advocate for children with disabilities and other special needs.She went into semi-retirement a few years ago,but she still works harder than a lot of fully employed people I know.
To my sister and me,of course,she was and is just Mom.When we were kids,we came home from school to a baby-sitter,who watched us until our parents came home.Mom took Fridays off so she could spend more time with us,and we could tell that she felt guilty about not being home more often.My sister and I figured out at a fairly young age that this guilt was Mom's weak spot,and we exploited it mercilessly whenever we wanted a new "Star Wars" action figure.I'd like to think I stopped doing that the first time Mom told me about one of her patients who had died,but I'm sure I didn't.I can't imagine what it's like to spend all day taking care of other people's sick children,some of whom are not going to make it,and then come home to find that your own kids are acting like spoiled brats.I suppose she could have worked that angle to find our guilty weak spots,but she never did.I think I'd better thank her for that.