Danny and Annie

I heard about this animated video from a friend at Improv Boston.

It is the story of a couple, married in 1978 and separated by cancer in 2006.
In 2006 they recorded their story with StoryCorps, and their interviews were combined into the video below.

Listening to Danny and Annie talk about their love and respect for one another reminds me of my grandparents, Ben and Adele, talk about one another. It reminds me of the faith and infinite patience of my friend Veronica as she waits by the bedside of Rob, her fiancé who is recovering day by day from a motorcycle induced coma. It's a testimony to how amazing the phenomenon of love really is. Human beings have a (possibly) unique capacity for experiencing and expressing enduring affection for another person. When the mutual act of giving of self becomes the driving force in every aspect of a shared life, the miracle of that is really obvious to everyone else who comes in contact with it.

Watch the video first (it's a tear-jerker, you've been warned); then for more info check out their story on NPR's website.


Danny & Annie from StoryCorps on Vimeo.

Leaving Haiti

I titled this entry "Leaving Haiti," to offer parallels to Leaving Costa Rica and Leaving Japan, but I don't know yet if it's the same at all.

Before I even got to Haiti a coworker advised me, "as soon as you get there remember you'll be leaving. Otherwise it just becomes impossible to walk away at the end." She pointed out, "just like you leave your shift at the end of the day to another nurse, I had to remember to trust the next ones coming after me."

She was right, but no matter how I thought about it I couldn't wrap my mind around it. To knowingly walk away from such suffering is already very difficult, and it only became more difficult as I got to know the patients personally.

Starting on Monday I attended a brief Eucharist service every morning in the chapel. It was my way of starting the day with a clear head, a fresh perspective and a connection to God. I've never done to a daily service before in my life, not even when I was living with the Sisters of the Good Shepherd in New Jersey. To be honest, I don't always even say a formal prayer in the morning. But I figured I needed all the help I could get.

On March 4th the Gospel reading was the story of the rich man and Lazarus from Luke 16. I felt terrible as Sister Ann read it out loud. It seemed as though the message couldn't be more clear. I am the rich man, and these people are Lazarus. How could I return home now that I've seen this level of poverty with my own eyes?

I began to pray and slowly my despair turned into gratitude. 

I realized how easily I could be living some other life. But every single event in my life fell into place to lead me to this moment, there in a chapel in Milot, Haiti. It wasn't my fault or my doing that I was born in the United States. But that was the beginning of my story. And then every next step led little by little to what I would become and where I would go.  It was mind blowing. With any slight alteration of course, I wouldn't have been sitting there surrounded by surgeons and nurses at seven in the morning. With a start, I realized that was true of every single person I met on the trip. God built our lives, and He has a plan. 

My behavior doesn't always demonstrate faith in a higher plan. In fact, most of the time I act like I don't believe in a "Plan," at all.  I like to be in control of my own life and of my environment. I like to take credit for the things I do. I like to plan the future.  And it's easy to grab onto my life tightly and try to steer it the way I want. And for the most part, it's probably not too harmful. It certainly keeps me moving.  But ultimately, I have to submit to the idea that I am not in control simply because that's what faith is. I need to let go, because letting go is believing. It's a trust fall with God.

My brain argues with me every time I try to relax and trust God. "Stop it!" it yells, "the path of least resistance is not for people of your educational background and social grooming!" But trusting God isn't the same as giving up, or taking the path of least resistance. In fact, some times what you find is the hardest path. But it's a path you'll never find unless you shut down all the things you think you want and listen to what you're meant to have. 

From my journal on March 4th: 

... so I am going to trust the plan. The plan is for me to be here this week. The plan is for me to leave on Saturday. To see my Mom, and my brother. To pay my bills. To fill the shifts at work that are mine to fill. And if the plan is for me to return here again - God will surely let me know. I will continue to pray for Him to tell me. I will pray for ears to hear it. 

And that's how I was able to leave. 

The day I left we all had to work a morning shift. I pushed my goodbyes off as long as possible. I built a wall of protection around myself by passing out medications, hanging IV fluids, and cleaning external fixators. When I started contemplating alphabetizing the med desk I knew I couldn't put it off any longer.

I started at the back of the tent and worked my way to the front, but word traveled fast that I was saying my final goodbyes and soon I had a small procession of family members and patients who could walk following me from bed to bed. Eyes were wiped, blessings were said and I told each person to be strong and to get well. Then the interpreter yelled that I was going to miss my ride.

"Ok," his voice boomed out, as he gently pushed his way to the center of the small crowd, "she is really going now!"   I ran out of the tent to a chorus of blessings and goodbyes and demands for promises of a return trip. 

Back at the compound my friends, old and new were packing up. I grabbed my belongings from inside and then joined everyone on the porch. Some of our coworkers from BHCHP had just arrived from the airport, ready to start their orientation.

 "Any words of wisdom?" they asked us. We told them everything we knew. 
Then, just like leaving work after an eight hour shift, we were done.  We might have another shift in the future, but for now the plan led home. And as we piled into the truck for the bumpy ride to Cap Haitian I felt alright. 

World Religions 101

It was night time and the air in the tent had cooled off considerably. Everyone had quieted down and were talking softly among themselves, reading Bibles, or sleeping. One man in the corner was singing a hymn very quietly that had gone on for quite some time.

"Michelle," my patient called out, "can you help me please?"

I stopped what I was doing and approached his bed, thinking he needed his pain medication.

"Please, can you help me understand this?" He was speaking in English and pointing to a passage in a Bible that was also in English. This particular young man had been enrolled in school for many years and proudly spoke both "higher" and "lower" English fairly well. I know this because he once explained to me that "maybe" was lower English but "perhaps," was higher. I was impressed.

"I am reading this and I need to understand," he said. "Ok, shoot," I responded.

“Speak to the people of Israel, saying, ‘If a woman conceives and bears a male child, then she shall be unclean seven days. As at the time of her menstruation, she shall be unclean," he read.

Oh boy I thought.

"What is conceives?" he asked, "does it mean have a baby?"

"Yes, it means have a baby."

"And... menstruation? How is that?"

Words failed me. "It means..." I stalled for a minute, "well it means..."

"Is it like when a lady has her bleeding?"

"Yes. Exactly." I began to get suspicious of his need for my tutorial, but his question wasn't about feminine body functions.

"Ok... then it says a woman will be unclean for seven days if she has a baby and it is a boy. And she is unclean for seven days if she has her bleeding."

"Mmmhmmm."

"Ok. 'If she bears a female child she shall be be unclean for two weeks.'"  He looked at me. This isn't my favorite part of Leviticus* so I just nodded, waiting.

"If a lady has her bleeding or a boy baby she is unclean for one week and a girl baby she is unclean for two weeks, so what is unclean?"

"Oh wow. Ok... well the Jewish people had a lot of rules for things," I stopped, wondering how far in over my head I was about to get. "And there were rules about when you could and couldn't enter a temple. Having a baby is one, touching a dead body is another."

He stared at me, not blankly, but waiting for more explanation.

Guessing his question I said, "Temple for the Jewish people is like going to church for Christians."

"So if a lady has a baby she can't go to church? If she is unmarried?"

I had no idea where the last part came from. "No, I said, "whether or not she is married. She has to stay away for a certain amount of time. Then there are things you have to do to get clean again. Rituals."

"But we don't do that here," he said, his brow furrowing. "We don't say that."

Realizing I was about to deliver the most diverse theology lesson he may have ever heard, I tried to chose my words sensitively, "It's a different religion.  Jesus was Jewish. When Jesus came, some people started a new religion. That's where Christians came from. They don't follow all the same rules of the Jewish people."

 For good measure I added,"We have the New Testament."

He looked relieved. "Ok. Because I was surprised to read that. We don't do that here."

He was just worried that they weren't following the Bible as closely as they could be. I shook my head in wonderment. Across the tent, the hymn continued.

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* I do not have a favorite part of Leviticus.

Day Two: Hitting the Ground Running

Actually we hit the ground last evening, and have been running since.

Right now, to paint a picture, I'm on a porch. It's pouring but the computers are sheltered by a roof. The rest of the volunteers are milling about drinking beer and relaxing, or sleeping beneath mosquito nets behind the thin wall to my left. I'm in my scrubs and interrupting my own writing to chat with two 4th year med students who are sitting with me. They are discussing creating an art therapy group for the children, who are all having nightmares. These are my new friends, comrades. I'm so proud.

I'm not sure how I want to frame all of the information I have for you. A narrative would be overwhelming at this point, and we're only two days in. So much has happened, I feel as though I've been here for a week already, and yet I'm sure as the actual week goes on I will start to think  I only got here.

I have fallen in love with Haiti and with the people here. It's a beautiful country and the people have a spirit which is incredible. It blows me away and puts any faith or hope I may have to shame.
I want to talk more in depth about it. Because sometimes it's easy to take for granted. In fact - I have to. If we spent all our time marveling at everyone nothing would get done. But once in a while a look from a patient, or seeing an exchange between two people will hit me- HARD. And it makes me stop everything.

BHCHP can be proud of us so far. Although last night we worked together we got split up today and we're each handling a tent of 36 patients. The teamwork here is amazing. Sometimes there aren't enough people to go around and that's hard, but everyone is here to help. There were two other RNs with me for the first part of the day. One had been in charge of our tent all week and she left this afternoon; she gave me a quick orientation last night. The other RN, April is an ER nurse from Oklahoma and and she's awesome. We gave out all the meds, did vitals, flagged patients for surgical wound rounds and once that was done ,  set to work immediately rewriting every chart (which are in complete disarray), creating our own plan for medication distribution, and updating the care plan papers that hang taped above the beds because they were mostly outdated.

I want to go be social, and I still need to wash the DEET off my skin. But first, another picture:

Today in my tent I was creating a system for how to communicate with our MD, who was in and out because he was also rounding with ortho across the road in the OR.  To paint the picture for you even more, the tents are hot, hot hot. It's hot outside, but worse in the tents. It's over 100 degrees easily, and muggy. Inside there are a lot of flies looking for wounds we forgot to cover. It smells like people in the tent. There are not only 36 patients, there are family members sleeping on the ground, or sharing cots.

  I had done all my patient care and was trying to sort out all the orders I needed clarified. (There were a lot of them). Then twenty men in suits walked into our cramped, thick aired tent. They were smiling and shaking hands. I ignored them after a minute because they didn't seem harmful, and there are people in and out the tents all day volunteering to help their neighbors and family.

Just then one of the patient's family members sidled up to me and said "you know, I'm not his family."
He pointed at the patient, "he lost everyone in the earthquake. But I stay here. I wash him, I bring him food. I take care of him. I met him here. I also have no family.

"I do it because the Lord loves me, so I love him."

The men in suits lined up in the center of the tent, and began singing. They were an acapella Gospel group. And they were amazing. They sang for a long, long time. My patient's "family member," translated for me:

"If you have problems... don't worry. For the Lord is with you.
"Don't cry... don't cry. He understands you."

All around us patients smiled, bowed their heads or sang along. They have so much faith. They have no doubt. They adopt one another. They live for each other because that's how to stay alive.

I have literally never seen anything like it. I'm floored.

Lenten Dread

The true focus of Lent is on a renewal of Baptismal promises. A turn away from sin and a return to true Life offered in the Gospel. However, many of our Catholic Lenten rituals come to us from pre Vatican II, when the focus of Lent was more on the suffering and death of Jesus.

And that is why I have been dreading Lent.

 I find it hard to focus on that for very long. The reason used to be a childish one. It was because I felt guilty for my own shortcomings.  As a child I remember a certain elementary school teacher vividly describing the mechanisms of a crucifixion and then reminding us (as we pondered things like hypovolemic shock, mind numbing pain, and asphyxiation secondary to the body's inability to expand the thoracic cavity efficiently) that it was for our sins that this human sacrifice occurred. That stuck with me a long time.

I have since processed a lot of this guilt into a much healthier faith life, a topic for a whole other conversation.

But the reason I now find it hard to concentrate on this suffering for very long is because there is still so much suffering in the world. Jesus' death and Resurrection bought us all everlasting Life after death, but it did not wipe out the darkness and sorrow in this life. It wasn't meant to.

I find it nearly impossible to  bear witness every single day to the personal tragedies of the individuals I work with, and then meditate on even more suffering when I get home without getting deeply depressed. 

Watching The Passion of the Christ in 2004 did not inspire me, or help me feel closer to God, or turn me away from sin. It traumatized me because I can not watch senseless violence inflicted on a living creature without a great deal of mental anguish. It effected me the way Requiem for a Dream did and I have only seen each film once because of it.

Working as nurse has only augmented my aversion to thinking about suffering for the sake of just thinking about it.

What I find brings me closer to God is focusing on the promise that He will "wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore" (Rev 21:4).

I always rationalized it as "we need the forty days to really appreciate the miracle of Easter".  But I don't buy that anymore. Why does Death get 40 days and the Resurrection only get Easter Sunday?  How can anyone expect me to manufacture sadness for this long? Why isn't anyone else going crazy with this gloom? 

Then, at the 8pm Mass at St. Clement's on 2/21 something amazing happened. Father Peter gave a sermon that made me think of Lent in a refreshing new way.

"In forty days," he said, "you'll be watching the Red Sox play baseball. Think about that." We thought about it.

"In forty days," he continued, "you'll hear birds outside your window. In forty days the bulbs I planted will be growing and in forty days that tree outside will have buds."

I have been taught about mentanoia, and the deep change we are supposed to go through during Lent, but my own experiences with Lent have been too wrapped up in a focus on the darkness to really feel a change within me. 

But Father Peter put it this way. He told us he's been cranky recently. Irritable. It's hard to do service to others when you're irritable all the time. So he gave up answering email at night and started reading books.

Sounds selfish, right?  Sounds less like a sacrifice and more like a leisure. Not very "Lenten" at all. 

But it made him stop being cranky. It made him less likely to be short with his loved ones. It made him happy to get up and go to work in the morning. It made him better at helping people.

He asked us to replace one undesirable behavior or habit with a good one some how.

"In forty days," he asked us all, "everything will look different. What will you look like?"

I like his take on Lent because it matches the beliefs I am newly forming. Which is to say:

I believe that Lent doesn't have to be about gloom and doom and pain and hurting. 

It's about finding new ways to combat the gloom, doom, pain and hurting we see every day.

Lent is a training season for putting our own needs second, and the needs of others first. 

It's a challenge for us to seek out the suffering of others and to find ways to relieve it.

Because then and only then do we imitate Jesus' victory over evil and death.

So as Lent marches on I find myself still having some problems with the ways the Church goes about observing the season. Many people have to go into the Dark place to find the Light. The long Latin prayers, and the stripping the church of decorations, and the songs about bleeding and dying bring them there. 

 But  I am beginning to  understand that I personally do not have to go into that dark place if it will actually be more harmful than useful. There are other ways to glorify God, and those are the actions I must identify and engage in. For that will bring my personal mentanoia. 

Having A Dream

When I went to college my first major was Social Thought and Political Economy. My hunger and thirst for justice were fueled by one of the best teachers I had in high school, Judi Freeman. But my first sense of why I should care about the rights or lives of others came from my faith based upbringing.

I believe that we are all called by God to serve one another. Serving others is a common theme in several major world religions, leading me to believe that no matter which one you practice, we're probably all on the right track when it comes to that particular point.

Christians are taught that we're all different parts of one Body. We're each called to a unique and different vocation, and we are meant to utilize our own gifts as well as we can so the body is complete. It follows, although this is not part of the verse I am thinking of, that different parts of the body should protect and care for one another. I use my hands to wash my face, my nose stops me from eating rotten foods in my fridge (or purse), and if my immune system starts to attack me instead of intruders, there's a serious problem.

It's an analogy that works well for most non Theists too, I think. The reason I should care about your lot in life is because ultimately your lot and mine are inextricably connected.

I left the Social Justice and Political Economy program because during my dad's illness (and after his death) it became increasingly necessary for me to do something immediate and tangible to save people. "I needed to get my hands dirty," was often how I'd answer the unavoidable questions from professors about my change of heart. When I made that (admittedly rash) decision to change my course of study I had no idea how hard the next four years would be. I also didn't know how much being a nurse would change and shape the way I view the world every single day. I don't regret that decision one bit.

Still, when I made that decision I also left behind a wonderful network of people who really do believe that they can make a difference and leave the world a better place than when they got here. I miss that zeal. I miss rising to meet the challenge of making change happen. I miss the implicit expectation within that community of rising above selfishness and apathy. Every day.

I am humbled by the perseverance of those who dedicate their lives to human rights.I am floored by the hope that they carry like a lamp for the rest of us.

Today we celebrate the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.. Let's also celebrate the lives of all those who have given themselves in the constant struggle for justice and equality. While we're at it, let's celebrate each other for the fullness of life we bring to one another and to the world when we act out of love instead of hate. Let's celebrate how far we've come, and let's vow to go even further. Let's celebrate God. And Love. And let's vow to use our own unique gifts to fill the world with beauty, peace and compassion.

Rehashing Advent: The dark, the light and the Hallelujah

The Hallelujah

I was really excited this year about Jack visiting from Costa Rica for Christmas. Jack is my mother's cousin, and I met him for the first time last spring when Mom and I visited Santa Ana. He's a really fun person, and he and I are very alike in spirit and humor.

The last few weeks I have been preparing for Jack's arrival. Although he was only spending one night at my house before going to stay with my Aunt Mame, I wanted everything to be perfect. I scrubbed my apartment from top to bottom. It took five hours. I even cleaned the inside of my medicene cabinet. Did I think Jack would care about my medicene cabinet? No. But I cared. I cleaned my pantry. I bought a six pack of Coors, his favorite American beer. I put together a selection of books for him to read. I spent two days creating the most "welcome back to New England" meal I could think of, Beef and Potato stew with Guinness.
Before I left for the airport Tuesday night I set the table for two, turned the crock pot to "simmer," and put Dad's old leather jacket in my car so Jack would have something warm to wear. Everything was perfect.

Then everything fell apart. Jack didn't get off the plane. While other happy families reunited at the gate, I stood holding Dad's heavy jacket, distraught and worried. I got terse with a security guard who sent me to the wrong gate. I had Jack paged. Someone looked up his name and told me Jack had missed the flight; he was on the next one. I had two hours to wait. I sat and thought about the stew simmering away in my kitchen. I thought about how early I had to get up for work. I longed for my ipod. I got grumpy.

Once Jack arrived, things started looking up. We didn't stop talking all the way home. I forgot how tired I was, and put my early morning shift out of my mind. On the way to my apartment we passed a pizza place. Jack nearly jumped out the window of the car because he hadn't had a decent slice of pizza in twelve years. Excited for his "first" taste of American pizza, I stopped the car quickly, and he ran into the little store. Then I remembered my stew at home and started to laugh out loud.

I had spent all this time preparing and working and planning. In the end it was a good thing because my house was clean and comfortable, and Jack ended up eating some stew after his pizza anyway. But still, things didn't go as I planned.

This Advent I promised myself I'd really prepare a place for Jesus. I tried to be mindful every single day. I said I'd pray an hour a day at least. I told myself I'd find extra prayer services to attend. In the end, I didn't do that hour of prayer every single day. But I did pray more often. And I missed Mass twice but I went to a very moving yoga - prayer service at Hope Church. I also attended Taize, which I wouldn't have done if I hadn't missed Mass last week.

In and of itself preparing is not generally bad or futile. Because otherwise the apartment would be cluttered , the fridge would be gross and there'd be no six pack of Coors.
But flexibility is key in planning. It's important to keep in mind that airlines aren't always on time and that sometimes a man just wants a slice of pizza.

We can pray for Grace and make ourselves as open as possible in preparation, but it's still all up to God. Rigidity in faith, I am learning, might not be as useful as I once thought it was.

So, (ready for a corny and moralizing anaology to end this one?) I'm going to keep making stew but I'm not going to freak out about how many potatos to buy,* because in the end we might end up just getting a pizza and eating both.


Hallelujah!
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*right, Shannon?

Rehashing Advent: the dark, the light and the Hallelujah

The story of the darkest parts of my Advent seems disheartening.
But the truth is that the moments of Light far outnumbered those two dark weekends.

The Light
"They're here!" The supervisor is smiling. I'm munching on chocolate covered pretzels and trying to finish my charts while planning report for the next shift. I'm mentally preparing a list for the next morning, "find G. a coat," "remind W. to fast for blood labs," "urine test results for S."

"Ah! Already?" I start munching and documenting faster. My shift is over but I'm staying late because of the guests who have just arrived in the second floor patient lobby. I need to get down there.

I step off the elevator and walk around the corner to the Atrium. The snow on the windows is glowing, reflecting the many lights from inside. The angel at the top of the Christmas tree oversees the scene, as a few patients mill about and some take seats in rockers and on couches. Denny, the street team NP is talking to a group of children, two of them her own, while her husband tunes his guitar.

When the music starts and the children begin to sing, everyone is silent at first, but then one by one they join in the singing. Slowly the room fills with more and more people. Nurses, aides, and patients leave what they're doing and gather around to listen to the carols. Although the music is mostly upbeat ("We Wish You a Merry Christmas," and "Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer,") I see many of the men and women wiping at their eyes clandestinely. I wonder how many of them see themeselves or their own kids in the bright, innocent faces.
The nurse next to me wipes her eyes. The housekeeper wipes his eyes. I wipe mine.

The children do Silent Night, a request from a tired but happy looking woman sitting on a couch with her friends. Then they sing a few songs from The Sound of Music before launching into a rendition of Jingle Bells with a second verse they wrote themselves about getting injured while skiiing. Their lyrics elicit genuine laughs and delighted applause from their audience.

At that point my chest began to ache. I pressed my hands to my sternum as hard as I could. I felt so much love and so much hope that I could barely breathe. I looked around at everyone gathered. People from all walks of life, different faith backgrounds, varying degrees of hardship, tragedy and trauma. I was suddenly very, very sure of God's presence.
And I knew we were all going to be ok. In that moment I wasn't worried about whether I had gotten to church on time last week. I understood completely that God doesn't "love" as a verb alone. God is love.
When those kids started singing and we all joined in, our world stopped for a few minutes. The patients stopped smoking or watching tv or doing laundry. The nurses stopped charting and pouring and reading and fussing. Jim stopped sweeping. The security guard put down his newspaper. And like the Whos of Whoville we joined all our different voices in song. And in that song there was love. And where the love is, there is God. And in that moment, I became sure of it.

I continue to watch the patients in the crowd. In the corner a man in a hospital johnny appears to not be listening. His eyes are far away and trained on the ceiling. But he is tapping his foot. Beside me a small woman who has seen three friends pass away in the past two month, (all of them patients of ours) grabs at my arm with one hand and rubs her eyes with the other. "It's been a hard year," she whispers, not for the first time. "Every time I get my life on track someone else dies."
The nurse next to me whispers back, "it's time for a new beginning ... a fresh start."

Yes. Yes. Yes.