My First

You were my first.    The first patient to recognize me.  The first patient to break into a massive smile when we locked eyes on each other.    Me in the doorway, you in bed 15.    We live vastly different lives.  On the opposite sides of the world.  Yet our paths have crossed.   There is a part of me that doubted.  Doubted I could truly fall in love with a patient here.  Surely the cultural and language barrier is just too big.  Its too massive a gap to feat.  Too wide a bridge to narrow.  I'd continue to tell myself there is no way I'd make a connection.  Until you.  

    And you, this infectious little boy with a smile and a laugh that would leave me in continuous fits of giggles.  You'll never have before and after pictures.  You won't be a media patient.  Your condition is... well, too private.  This struggle you've kept hidden for so long is kept to a quiet hush.  I remember the first day I was assigned to you.  The terror in your eyes when I asked to see your incision site.  The shame.  The embarrassment.  It broke such a huge piece of my heart.   And that shift I'll never forget.  A last minute bedside procedure from a complication with your incision.  

    Your body seized in fear, your veins forming an endless map scaling up your arm.  You gripped my hand, your huge dark, seemingly endless eyes locked on mine.  And in that moment I would have done anything to protect you.  And you're not even mine.  Its that nurse instinct.  The protective, fierce love that could never be taught in a nursing textbook.  The IV was successful on the first, quick attempt.  You immediately giggled at the completed feat.  You looked inspired, awed and even captivated by your own bravery.    And then it was your chart.  In your results.  While silently praying for benign, I was greeted with that dreaded word.  Malignant.  And in that moment I realize we're not going to be able to save everyone.  I know deep in my soul that your days are numbered.  And I fight back these feelings of anger, of resentment.  And wanting nothing more that to figure out some way to protect you.   

     You don't get the endless opportunities and future that I've been blessed with.  We just happened to come into existence on opposites of the world.  Me in a lap of luxury, you in terrible poverty.  You and me.  We're really the same aren't we?  Just battling the realities of the human experience in different environments.  Disappointment, fear, anger, hope, resilience, acceptance, love.     I remember for a still moment that the world is broken and I can't save you.     I watch your beautiful momma with two babies slung on her hips follow chaplaincy down the hall.  Walking into a conversation that part of me would rather be left silent and unknown.  Let's go back to before.  When you didn't have to know the possibilities.  When a huge, white hospital ship came ashore in your home, promising hope and healing. When you expected healing.   And she moves on.  Your mother, I mean.  Resumes the only role she knows, her role as a mother.  Like the earth didn't shatter onto her shoulder from a conversation five minutes ago.  I remember staring at her in awe.  I was witnessing the bravest person I'd ever met.  That language of motherhood that knows no cultural divide.   

     She proceeds to pick up her devastation off the floor, kiss you on the head and decides to continue fiercely loving you, just as she did before we came ashore.   We can never promise physical healing.  But we can promise spiritual and emotional healing.  You are just as loved, just as accepted as those we are able to physically heal.  You are just as important in our eyes.  Just as brave.  Just as inspirational.  Because your laugh, your infectious, playful soul that walked off this gangway is still intact. It's teaching us resilience and love in the face of a harsh, broken world.  

    Hopefully you left us with hope.  With a profound sense of being loved.  Not only by us, but by a God who restores our broken world.  For while the world may be so incredibly broken, it is also so incredibly beautiful.             “We are just two people. Not that much separates us. Not nearly as much as I'd thought.” -Kathryn Stockett