Rafael Eshmun

[Michael]

for as long as i can remember, i've wanted to help people. when i think back on it, a lot of that has to do with my dad. my pops was a military doctor, a damn good one from how he tells it. he settled down in the sevii islands after years of service and an injury that cost him one of his legs.

pops took the hefty check the league gave him as part of his discharge and set up a clinic with my mother. i was born a year later on a warm spring morning. mom never fails to remind me how it was the happiest day of her life. dad, less so.

he never was good at expressing how he felt.

still - watching the two of them work, never turning someone away if they couldn't pay? awe-inspiring. but i couldn't help notice they treated the physical ailments never the mental.

the mind's as easily damaged as the body, and it needs a doctor to help it heal too. my dad called it psychiatry when i brought it up. hearing him explain it made me realize what i wanted to do with my life. he was more than happy to guide me down that path. part of me thinks he regretted that choice. because i saw how bad his mental health was once i walked it.

pops had ptsd. a byproduct of losing his leg and watching his closest friends die. he hid it all so well. until he couldn't anymore. i watched the ptsd destroy him, and at eighteen, i buried my father in a six by twenty-four coffin. his death hardened my resolve into steel.

i followed in his footsteps and joined the military to fight rocket, to help people. still remember kissing my mother goodbye and how she wouldn't stop crying, afraid to lose her only son. she didn't, obviously, but i had close calls. there were people i couldn't save no matter how hard i tried. i lost friends and more.

i saw the ugliness that tore down my father. but i needed to if i was going to treat it. when the fighting stopped, i went home and finished doing what i needed to become a licensed psychiatrist.

now, for the second time in my life, i bid my mother farewell and head into dangerous waters. i'm going to hoenn. the region is rife with those in need and steeped in conflict.

are you watching dad? i'm going to save the world, one ailing heart at a time.

like i promised.