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Love Letter to Public Health #1
by Anonymous
Dear Public Health,
I didn’t meet you in a boardroom. I met you in a free clinic where I held my breath, praying my name would be called before my courage ran out. I met you in WIC offices with diaper bags slung over my shoulder, in food pantry lines where dignity was something we shared quietly between nods. I met you in a NICU, where strangers in scrubs taught me how to care for two tiny boys who came into the world far too soon. You were there with breast pumps and car seats, with patient hands showing me that love and survival could fit in the same moment.
You weren’t a program or a policy to me then. You were a lifeline.
As a single mom, I have leaned on you more times than I can count, not because I’m weak, but because I know the truth. No one does life alone.
As a millennial, I’ve grown up in the shadow of “unprecedented times”—recessions, a pandemic, civil unrest, and a climate unraveling before our eyes (just to name a few). I’ve watched you hold the frayed edges together when no one else could or would.
As a nurse, I know how much it costs to keep people healthy, and I know the heartbreak of what happens when care comes too late.
As an Indigenous and mixed-race woman, I carry in my blood both the profound wisdom of community-based healing and the scars of a system that was never built for us.
As someone who has lived with poverty, with mental health struggles, and in the shadow of familial trauma and addiction, I know that “health” is never just about lab results or hospital beds. Health is about safe housing, nourishing food, a fair shot, and the dignity of being seen.
You have been underfunded, misunderstood, and politicized. But still, you have shown up.
You have walked into schools, shelters, clinics, and living rooms, not with judgment but with vaccines, naloxone kits, prenatal vitamins, clean water, and a thousand other invisible acts of protection. You have stood between our communities and disaster, knowing full well that you’d rarely be thanked for it.
And I choose you. Through pandemics, defunding and policy changes, through burnout and budget cuts, through the quiet nights when you wonder if it makes a difference—I still and will continue to choose you. Because I’ve seen what happens when you’re not there, and the cost is too high. The price is life.
My love for you isn’t blind. I see where you falter. I see where you’ve inherited harm and where you must do better. But my love is fierce, because I know intimately who you protect. You are the reason children survive, communities thrive, and justice has a fighting chance.
So, I’ll keep showing up for you, Public Health. Not just because you showed up for me, but because you are, quite literally, the heart that keeps us alive.
With gratitude and grit,
Anonymous
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