The opinion section is predominantly serious-minded. Our intention as an opinion team is to offer you, our readers, strong voices that express multiple views on an issue to encourage critical thinking and rigorous, productive debate. But we also like to provide plenty of space for the softer side of things, for opinion pieces that speak very personally to the human experience.
We are fortunate to have so many op-ed contributors write with awakened authority about issues that can resonate with us in a deep way. Here, in excerpts, is a look back at the some of the best of them. (And because there are so many to choose from, we are publishing more on Saturday.)
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Jan. 21: Destiny Haggett, ‘Chicago, the city that is saving my son’s life’
In 2007 ... my oldest son, Chansen, at age 6, was diagnosed with leukemia. It was a devastating diagnosis. Dealing with it was supposed to last only three years but ended up lasting seven years in total because he relapsed at 11. It wasn’t until 2014 that Chansen had his last treatment for leukemia. ...
... Then in May 2021, ... a routine ultrasound found a 7-centimeter tumor on my son’s liver. What would follow in the days and weeks after was a spiral of heartbreak, worry and desperation. ...
... A medical team at Rush University Medical Center was doing groundbreaking work on this disease. ... Our local medical team collaborated with them, and Chansen started treatment led by pediatric oncologist Dr. Paul Kent. ... These doctors’ spirit and willingness to trailblaze a path to survival have left me in awe.
However, I had not related it to the city until I took the time on our second trip to have a mini-vacation with my family in which I learned the history of Chicago and experienced the spirit of Chicagoans. I discovered that not only does this city harbor some of the most innovative and impressive museums, science facilities and architecture, but also the city is a place of incredible resilience, rebuilding, and growing over and over again.
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April 1: Bob Brody and Carol Everhart Roper, ‘A surgeon drove all night to make an emergency house call’
The Saturday night before last Thanksgiving, Dr. Alfredo F. Gurmendi, 57, pulled his Toyota onto the interstate in Dallas heading west. More than three hours later, just outside of Abilene, Texas, as he sipped coffee to keep himself awake, a call came through from his son.
“What are you doing?” the son, age 26 and also named Alfredo, asked from his home in Austin, Texas. His father, a surgeon, told him he was driving more than 580 miles to Alamogordo, a desert town of 31,000 people in south-central New Mexico where he lived.
“In the middle of the night?” his son asked. “Why? Why are you driving back at this hour?”
Dr. Gurmendi explained. A few weeks earlier, he had operated on retired chef Paul Olivent, but now Olivent was in the emergency room. The surgeon was going to drive through the night — across more than one-fifth the length of the continental United States — to operate on his suffering patient.
His son then told Dr. Gurmendi that he would stay on the line to keep his father awake. Not necessary, the doctor said. But his son insisted. He said it would be a privilege.
May 7: Phil Siegel, ‘Surgery promises me full hearing. I will use this gift to better hear others.’
... I was born with two inner ears but only one outer ear. So, on the left side, I have a typical ear that I hear from. I have never been able to hear from my right ear because there is no opening.
The surgery I had about a week ago implanted a small anchor in my head near the right side of my inner ear. It will take about two months for the bone to grow around the anchor to firmly hold it into place. At that point, I will be fitted with an external hearing aid that will connect with the new internal anchor inside my head, and I will be hearing from the right side for the first time!
... But if I had the choice of being born with hearing on both sides or to have to struggle as I have struggled all my life to hear well, I likely would choose to have been born exactly the way I am and to be given the struggles to hear that I have been given.
I work as a principal at a therapeutic day school with children and young adults with autism and intellectual disabilities. Many of our students are nonverbal. My limited hearing has allowed me to understand the nonverbal communication in a deeper way than I ever would have been able to had I been born with hearing on both sides. It is more than empathy. It is true communication and a gift that I will always be grateful for.
June 3: Tina E. Akouris, ‘My angry mother taught me the importance of being soft’
My mom was not a nice person.
I never knew who I was going to get. But I learned a few invaluable things from her.
My mother was rude, angry, irritable, judgmental and ill-tempered; she was neither compassionate nor understanding. We fought quite a bit. ...
As a child, I never knew what was going to happen when I woke up in the morning. Would I get the nice mom or the angry mom who lashed out for no logical reason? ...
But she did teach me a few things.
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I learned to be a better mother, giving my sons the childhood I didn’t have and breaking the cycle of generational abuse. My sons don’t have to wonder each day if they’re going to get Angry Mom or Normal Mom.
When my experiences became intolerable — crippling anxiety that prevented me from leaving the house and a battle with cancer — I knew that if my mom came out of two wars alive, then I could overcome pretty much anything.
Aug. 12: Jim Nowlan, ‘Waving allows us to connect in a simple, feel-good way’
Chicago Tribune Opinion
Not long ago, I moved from a tiny town to a small city of about 8,000 people in central Illinois to be closer to the action. You know: band concerts, ice cream socials, veterans’ sandwich sales in the park and even a professional summer theater festival, as well as a mayor who personally waters the huge flower-bedecked urns along Main Street. (Talk about good politics.)
A broken-down professor, I have been conducting a social science experiment in and around my new town. My finding to date: Waving is good; more would be better.
An inveterate walker, I give a rather hearty wave to every car and pedestrian I confront along city streets, country roads, park lanes and rails-to-trails paths. Nine of 10 folks I meet wave back. The fraction may be higher, but the sun’s glare on windshields sometimes blocks my view.
Some wavers seem a bit startled. After all, they neither know me from Adam, nor whether I am progressive, a Donald Trump supporter or maybe even a believer in QAnon. Yet wave back, they do. Most accompany their wave with a smile, which is an added bonus. The only thing they know is that I am a human, like them, and, somehow, we’re all in this together.
Editor’s note: More excerpts of some of our best heartfelt op-eds of the year will appear in Saturday’s edition.
Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.