paradox

If there’s one thing sure in an uncertain life, it’s that it will move on. James passed away yesterday morning, and the same afternoon a little almost-two-year-old with the same name was admitted to B Ward. Sporting curly hair and a miniature pair of sunglasses, he spent the evening laughing, stomping around the room and snuggling with me. (You can probably guess which was my favourite of his activities.) James had cataract surgery a while ago, and was back to have the sutures taken out of his eyes. It was clear from the way he grinned up at me that he could see perfectly, but he flat-out refused to let anyone touch those glasses, which earned him the nickname Baby Ray Charles. His mama approved.

By the time I came in this afternoon, Baby Ray had been to the OR to have the sutures taken out of his eyes and had already been sent home, so I had no one to play with. The shift turned out to be busier than I anticipated, though, so I didn’t have much time to miss him.

It was one of those shifts so full of both good and bad, one of the ones that has you reeling from the near-whiplash of emotions. For some patients, it was good news. Surgeries to be performed, stubborn wounds healing. For others, it meant heartbreak. We turned one guy away because of a tooth abscess that would make anesthesia too risky, told another that he’s HIV positive and watched his world crumble around him. It’s almost impossible to go from that to a particularly funny ward round where the surgeon tried his hardest to talk like a Sierra Leonean, and I was told in no uncertain terms that I speak Krio like a Liberian.

But that’s the way it is here. Life ebbs and flows and sometimes the only way to survive is to just let it wash over you, arms open wide to receive the joy along with the pain. The sweet and salty mix and it’s a drink that doesn’t always go down easily.

Kisses from freshly-repaired cleft lips help; I got a few of those today, along with a little three-year-old dance party in the now-empty ICU. I printed out the discharge papers for the boy with HIV, and as I headed home down the hall after handover, one of the day volunteers called out after me. Goodnight Liberian woman!

And so it goes on.

It's just a few minutes before midnight, and I'm sitting on my bed, willing the clock to stop, to speed up, to do anything but march on in its slow, inexorable rhythm. In six minutes it will be tomorrow, and tomorrow is when I go back to my heart's home.

And for the first time, I don't know how I'll do it.

Earlier tonight I sat around the table in our dining room, all the leaves in, stretched to its longest length to accomodate the wealth of family around it. Turned to a friend beside me and confessed. It's never been like this. I don't know what to do.

It's always been one way or another. Sometimes I'm bursting at the seams, so ready to get on a plane that I can hardly spare a thought for those I'm saying goodbye to. And the rest of the times that I've travelled, whether from here going there or from there coming here, I've done so with a heart torn to pieces for the place I'm leaving behind.

This time I'm cut clean in two, and it doesn't seem possible that I'll be able to get on that plane tomorrow and it doesn't seem possible that I'm still sitting here, late at night, alone on my bed.

This has been the most beautiful summer of my life, and I say that with all the pain and uncertainty included. The list of things I no longer take for granted has expanded far past family and friends and a roof over my head, and I am so grateful for the chance I've been given to live my life like this. I'm still in awe every time I pick up a jug of milk, every time I sit down on the floor to play with my nephew, every time I get back up without pain. When he reaches out his hand to lead me off for our next adventure, I can give him mine without wondering whether he'll hurt me. I can finally say that I'm ready to go back to work and not secretly question whether I'll make it through a shift.

I'm ready to go back, but I can't see how I can leave. This all feels so melodramatic, but anyone who's spent time on the ship can relate to the abrupt shift I'm about to undergo. I'm going to trade in the stability and predictability of life in my hometown for a world where friends come and go with every departing flight, where one day is almost never like the next, and where not even the floor is steady beneath my feet. Yet again, I've bought a one-way ticket to Africa, signed up for two more years of this constant whirlwind.

I'd have to be crazy to want this.

I'd have to be crazy not to.