All my life I was told to tell the truth. In childhood it was a stolen coin, in training diagnoses no one wanted to hear, in residency life and death spoken plainly at bedsides. Then COVID came, and truth felt different under ventilators and fogged masks. A young woman begged me, “Don’t let me die.” For the first time, I didn’t tell the whole truth. I said she would live. I wasn’t sure. She died later, more peacefully than fear would have allowed. I learned then that courage is not only truth-telling, but sometimes what you choose not to say.
Toshita Kumar is a physician, immigrant, and emerging writer exploring belonging, memory, and human connection through tenderness, displacement, resilience, and unexpected moments of grace. “Choose to Say” is the winner of our A TIME YOU HAD TO ACT LIKE SOMEONE YOU’RE NOT contest, part of our 2026 Micromemoir Marathon.