When my family and I immigrated to Los Angeles when I was three, I never realized that I would miss out on the grandmother experience. The grandmother experience is growing up with her within travel distance. Even if she wasn’t down the road making the best cookies ever, she was a holiday trip away. Those visits make up the most fond childhood memories--or so I could imagine. Instead, I heard my grandmother’s voice over the phone during the late hours of California time when she had just woke up in Malaysia. I watched her fumble with the Skype app so we could wish each other a lunar new year “face-to-face”. I didn't realize how her physical absence affected me until I worked with elderly patients at an eye clinic. I felt such a deep and instinctual protectiveness for the older patients who came into the office. I learned about Medicaid so that I could inform them about their healthcare options. I guided them through optotype vision exams because some had never picked up English after moving to America. When people asked me why I was willing to give so much of my time and effort, I thought of my grandmother. I grew up thousands of miles from her, so it is simply an honor to care for people around her age. The community and family that we miss out on, is just one of the many sacrifices first-generation immigrants like myself make to come to this country. As an adult now, I may not have had my grandmother as a close guiding light. However, I found female role models in my current community. I was trained in stem cell culture by women who pursued STEM fields during a time when a female earning an advanced science degree was bold and rare. I also worked with many female physician assistants who inspire me with how they make crucial healthcare decisions that affect patients’ and their families’ lives. When I walk into a hospital or laboratory setting now, I am at ease. I know it's because I was lifted upon others' shoulders. I may be pursuing an empirical field where I am taught hard skills, but it takes a labor of love to teach a person to be confident in those abilities. I am confident even though I came from a developing country, a low-income background, and am a double minority. I am confident because I was the first in my family to attend college in America and paid for my own undergraduate education. I am confident because women like my grandmother went above and beyond in raising a family of people who can laugh off their mistakes so they can get back up again with an even better attitude. I aspire to work with an ethnocultural gerontological patient population as a physician assistant. As our country grows and diversifies, there is a projected demand for treating a diverse elderly population too. I will gladly fill this role. The times that I got to hold a senior patient's hand and listen to them about their life experiences, and the difficulties they had adjusting to a foreign, modern world, carry the greatest weight in my career inspiration. I am in school now to be a skilled physician assistant, but as an individual, I've always been more than ready to be that listening ear. My grandmother and I may have missed out on many chances to bond. However, because of her thousand-mile labor of love, I can someday share all those missed experiences with others like her who will need my care.