"Heart:A History"

     Author and cardiologist Sandeep Jauhar relates his personal history and the history of the advances in cardiology, and shows how the heart functions, may become problematic, then treated.  He writes, "Understanding how and why my grandfather had died, and what implications his premature death had for my father, my siblings, and me, was fundamentally intertwined with my decision to train in cardiology."
     Historically, the heart has become a metaphor for courage, emotion, sympathy, and love, but can be viewed as a machine, a pump with a set of pipes, a circulation system that generates it's own electricity.  Sometimes problems arise caused by genetics, injury, and disease.  Other problems occur from unhealthy habits and may be prevented with proper diet, exercise, and stress management while avoiding detrimental behaviors.
     In addition to eating right and exercising, Jauhar recommends, "take good care of your interpersonal relationships and the way you deal with life's inevitable upsets and traumas.  Your mind-set, your coping strategies, how you navigate challenging circumstances, your capacity to love, these things, I believe, are also a matter of life and death."

"There Will Be No Miracles Here"

   
     Casey Gerald in his memoir "There Will Be No Miracles Here," describes his life from boyhood to manhood, born in Dallas, Texas in 1987 to an often absent white mother and a former black football star.  His difficult family life, his experiences as a high school football player, and further success as a scholar, leader and football player at Yale help form the man who would continue to Harvard, Wall Street, and the political scene in Washington, D.C.
     Gerald shows how his grandmothers, sister, friends, coaches, and mentors helped him toward his goals.  He also helps others  to improve their lives.  Whether you are very different from Casey Gerald or in some fashion similar to him, his memoir provides an understanding of a black, gay male whose success does not come from miracles but from hard work and determination.
     

"A Place For Us"

   
     In Fatima Farheen Mirza's "A Place For Us," a young husband and wife born and raised in India move to America and have two daughters and a son.  Along with the typical challenges of most families, they also try to keep the culture, traditions, and behavioral norms associated with being Muslim.  They often experience the difficulties of assimilation and being a minority of a different race and religion.
     The children "were told not to question the way God worked, not to think too much into it.  That it was a mystery."  The daughters were taught: "Modesty - the highest value a woman can embody, and the most crucial.  Without it, a woman is nothing."  "It is up to the girls to do what they can to protect the boys from sin."  As the eldest daughter Hadia begins to grow up, "She knows her father.  His pride, his values, his adherence to religious rules.  They are more important than love."   She "became  more aware of her choices, of what was important for her to keep and what had just been an inherited, unexamined habit."
     The son Amar "detests, most of all, the importance placed on maintaining a sense of decorum that feels stifling, false."  He realizes "his sisters never experience the doubts he was feeling, that they never shake in the certainty of being Muslim."
     The father Rafiq believed, "I had laid the foundation of our family on the principles of our faith and our customs.  I had set standards for what we expect of each of you."  Later in life, he realized, "Anger was my worst attribute."  "I have no duty toward them except loving them."
     Most parents of every religion try to instill their values upon their children, but their insistence upon their way can cause many problems.  Some children will continue in the ways of their parents perhaps with small alterations.  Other children will adopt their own way.  If parents have a home that does not allow their offspring to blossom into their own adulthood, they may rebel in unhealthy ways or leave home altogether.  Accept the idea that as your children mature, they have a right to choose for themselves.  Create a comfortable, loving place for your family.