Fr Rick's Birthday

I feel so grateful that today, Father Rick’s birthday, I got to bring peace and happiness to a wonderful woman who is spending the last years of her life very anxious and confused because of her severe dementia. Tomorrow I will get to take her to the thing that brings her the most happiness—mass. She is unable to tell me any details about her life, not how many children she has or even where her room is, but every single day she can tell me how much she loves to go to mass. When I ask her about church, her eyes open up, she smiles and becomes more animated than at any other time. I’m not Catholic, but after spending a year going to weekly mass with Father Rick I can understand the joy and comfort that it brings. His birthday has been on my mind all day and although I’m positive that he would never mention his birthday at this morning’s mass, it would have been nice to be there today.

I've wanted to write a post for a while now as my one year anniversary has come and gone. I had anticipated that one year back was going to feel awful and disconnecting, but oddly it didn't. And now that I've had some time to reflect on it, I know that it’s because I've started nursing school. Every single day I get to remember exactly why I came back to the States—to learn what I need to know to go work abroad again. Learning pathophysiology is stressful and memorizing drug lists has been tedious (to say the least), but then we’re studying HIV and I’m thinking about Peterson or we’re learning about hydralazine and I realize why it is was so crucial that I was able to source it for St. Philomene. I’m grateful beyond words that I was able to start this next step of my life so soon after coming back to the States.

In school, we have a lot of time for small group discussion and sharing. There are lots of times that I contribute with my experiences from working at the pediatric neurology clinic or from the emergency department. But talking about Haiti is too hard and too personal to share in a classroom setting. I think that nursing school has kept me from feeling disconnected because behind every emotion I experience at school, every minute I stay after class, every time a disease or medication (or stupid glucometer!) is Haiti. And that tells me every single day that I’m on the right path.