“It’s just because of the lightning.” A lie told by my parents throughout my childhood. It was only a few months ago, during a conversation with my father, that I finally realized the deceptive nature of this explanation. We were in the car, driving to my golf banquet. We were on the topic of my 8-year-old brother, the first child in my family to earn anything less than an “A” on his report card. I questioned what the cause of this was. What was so different about his upbringing compared to mine that made him this way? My father responded saying, “You guys [my older brother and I] had it a lot harder than them [my younger sister and brother], you know. There were times when they would turn off our power because we couldn’t afford to pay the bills.” I paused. I never remembered that happening. Oh wait, maybe I did. Now that he had mentioned it, I recalled there being times in the middle of perfect weather days when the power would just “randomly” go out. Strange, right? I had thought so too. I would ask my parents what happened, and they would explain that it was just because of lightning. My younger self, innocent and naive, did not question it any further. My parents had lied to me in order to protect me from the destitute reality of my family’s financial situation. My father runs a small construction company with a crew of two or three guys he would rely on to help him. Following the loss of one of his workers at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was my responsibility to step up and help provide for my family. I remember always hearing my mother complain about my father not charging his clients as much as he could have, and I agreed with her. We were struggling, and we certainly could have used the extra money. It was not until I started working with my father and saw the people he helped that I realized: my father did not work for wealthy clients; the people he worked for were in similar financial situations as my family. Charging them more money would have benefited us, but these people would be forced to pay prices that would ruin them financially. So instead of charging more money, we worked more. We started our days earlier and ended them later, taking on more jobs so that we could charge less. A common thing I saw in nearly all our low-income clients was their poor health, and once I noticed it for the first time, I could not ignore it. Upon further research, I realized my observations were well founded by the fact that low income is a primary cause of healthcare disparities. I realized something needs to be done to reduce health disparities. Working with my father, I was able to ease the necessary financial burdens of suffering people by charging less. I want to go a step further, however, alleviating the medical sufferings of people through my future role as a physician. As someone from a low-income background, I will be able to empathize with my patients. This background will allow me to connect on a deeper level, acknowledging not just their medical conditions but the broader socioeconomic factors affecting their health. This personal understanding enables me to provide more holistic, patient-centered care, addressing not only immediate health issues but also the underlying disparities prevalent in underserved communities. It is important that I will know, and I will know because I have been in their shoes.