Farewell, Friends

I never expected to write this particular piece – a farewell letter to the dear colleagues whom I genuinely respect, who have taught me many big ideas and brave lessons and who have become my friends. Actually, it may be in large part thanks to the pioneering work we accomplished together that I swallowed the bait Miami offered me. They are ready and eager to build a well-integrated system of services and supports across the developmental spectrum, keeping caring and human dignity at the center of partnering with families and communities. When I joined the Children’s Board in 2006, I found an organization filled with sympathetic souls who lived their devotion to seeking and bringing out the best in others (and each other) and who were never afraid to speak their true mind or to carefully weigh the merits of any new suggestion (admittedly, we were sometimes too contemplative for our own good). I met colleagues who fiercely promoted the needs and interests of disadvantaged children, families and neighborhoods. And I thrived in a culture led by humane values and mutual respect.

At this end of my tenure with the Children’s Board, I have collected a few core beliefs that I intend to bring along to my next station. We seeded and nurtured them here. I think they will transplant well anywhere that folks strive to brighten the future. So this, then, I believe:

a. that good plans become great achievements when they are conceived, guided and evaluated in genuine partnership with people who will live the experience and learn the results personally;
b. that advantages acquired early and consistently build the biological and psychological foundations for health, adaptation and resilience;
c. that unfair inequalities (aka inequities) of opportunity, whether for health, wealth, education, or any other advantage, can be reduced best through strategies that act upon every child’s potential rather than by waiting for individuals or populations to suffer risks or failures;
d. that nobody ever triumphed without the active help and support of others; therefore, healthy communities with engaged neighbors produce children who learn to live interdependently and responsibly;
e. that government earns our trust not by representing its wealthiest political contributors but by holding itself accountable to all of its citizens;
f. that we will have succeeded when good outcomes for any group compare well with the best outcomes for all groups, not just those “at risk”;
g. that when it comes to obtaining the highest returns on human investment, love matters most of all.

I will never forget your kindness. I will always cherish our fellowship. I will leave part of me here with you. And I will keep with me forever your wisdom, your spirit and the precious time we shared.

Since I love the simple truths that poetry plumbs with more immediacy than any other written form, let me thank you for your being a gift with one I wrote a few months ago, anticipating, perhaps, a time of personal transition, or, maybe, a more universal one we all reach time and again.

Well, By the Way

How could I have lived so long
and still find more to discover than to remember
more to imagine than to grasp
more to learn than to forget?
(Now I understand:
what we know confirms the vast unknown)

I am well, by the way.
This too, increasingly, amazes me.
Not because I know my age
but because I can’t recall my start.

What exotic brew of place and time
formed my energy
and framed the questions
that shape my life?

I think therefore I make mistakes.
And when you point out
that things did not go as I expected
or believed they should,
well, by the way,
I open to a new possibility.

May you continue to pursue meaning and find happiness.

With gratitude and love,

Peter.

Peter A. Gorski, M.D., M.P.A. is the Director of Research and Innovation at the Children’s Board of Hillsborough County and Professor of Pediatrics, Public Health, and Psychiatry at the University of South Florida. If you'd like to e-mail Dr. Gorski directly, please click here.