Just Some Folks - Not All

 Sounds of Silence - NOT

I have long since thought that we did not have anything at our core – no central defining value, soul, centre, whatever.   We are the unique ingestion of our experiences and especially our experiences with others.   So the “who” of John is the amalgamation of all the relationships of a lifetime.   There is no “Cogito, ergo…” anything.  I am my memories, some conscious, some only felt, of all the relationships of living.  These relationships may be long and intimate, conflicted or demanding or punishing, short and/or significant.  They are all there in “who” I am today.   These internal beings share in the new experiences of my present incarnation.  How could I have been anyone if not for those who have known me and I have known?   However unique or different I am, I owe it to the people like those whose existing has bounced into mine this week in Guyana.

Rev. Richard Young

I would have a difficult time keeping a white Lutheran pastor who used to be a doctor and has been here for nine years anonymous… and there is really no need to do so.   I met Dick even before I physically met him… He had arrived as a long term missionary just before I first came in 2002.   He had a big write-up in some Lutheran rag… that told of a hodgepodge of activities in which he would be involved.   I did get to meet him that first year and every year thereafter.    And after his move into the city several years ago, we have gotten together frequently… for a few beers. [Yes, I drink them all as Dick doesn’t.]  I could not really last more than three months here because I do not have the patience nor the spirit to deal with all the disappointments of inertia, but Dick has a wonderful acceptance of people and all their failings….. He is a pastor of the people here; he has a sense of call that emboldens his work even when it is a colossal failure – in my eyes. 

Enough of the pre-canonization propaganda….. I am sad:  Dick is finishing his ministry in Guyana for all sorts of reasons at the end of December.   And, of course, this means he will not be here if/when I return.  [Ah yes, my students, as I have said, “grief is essentially selfish” – at least initially.]  He will head back to his family farm in Oregon… and I will miss him.

And he has become a part of me – as Doc Young before him.  That Doc Young was a retired police surgeon whom my mother kept busy by bringing me to his home (next door) for treatment… I have a lot of stories – here's just one: I fell through a French door full of glass and gashed my head… and he stitched it up right in his kitchen.  Now that isn’t the point of the story…  The point is that he gave me a six pack of small Cokes and told me to take one every hour! 

From their Prison Shots of 2006

 

Annessia and Nathoya

These two had been my students a few years ago and were among those 19 fired/laid off by Mercy to “save” the hospital.    Well, Tony and I had a meeting for all those folks last Sunday and 6 showed up [I have seen almost everyone else in the following days.]  It was a good meeting of sharing and support and for a moment there seemed to be more of the spirit of the Mercy Family there than elsewhere.  It is strange – well, not that strange for here.  There was very little resentment at Mercy even though almost no-one had seen it coming.   It confirmed my “script” that there is a generalized despair….. like "Nothing good ever happens here in my life and why should this be different?"   Anyhow, they exchanged phone numbers and offered ideas of how they could use their strengths to get jobs. 

I had met Annessia after she had been fired and, like the others, was not all that distressed – at least not as much as I was.  (She had just received the award for the most improved student in her batch.)   Mercy had forwarded all the names and phones to other hospitals and major employers who might be looking.   Mercy nurses are still regarded as the best in Guyana and rightfully so…  So the next time that I saw Annessia she was wearing a smart looking pants outfit with a Bhawant Singh Hospital logo…..  She had been hired at another private hospital in Georgetown and for considerably more dollars.  And Nathoya is there too… I have not seen her personally as she is very short and I may have missed her in a crowd!

They are my children here - and the reason that I have come here.  I want the best for them that they can manage.  I didn’t realize how much of myself that I had invested in them….. all of them.    They had been pre-incarnated by those McMaster family members who were also given the opportunity to "free up their futures" by those who really had none of their own…  I remembered them (and me with them) going in a blink of the eye from loyal staff to potential corporate saboteurs.  Strange -- if I had a soul it would have MUMC branded on it….. for McMaster University Medical Centre, as it was then.

Another Nursing Graduate

Last week she had asked me if she could talk to me and I said sure ….. [As Anne just wrote:” …you can say no, sorry, not today as I’m too busy.  Oh, I forgot – you have to take care of your need to be needed ...... and I’m not kidding or disparaging; I do know that’s important for your soul.”  Soul? And she calls herself a Unitarian?]   This nurse eventually caught up with me to tell me that she will be leaving Mercy Nursing  - initially to stay at home with her three kids… Her second child was born at the end of her first first year in the school of nursing.   You see, if you are pregnant in the first year you have to leave. [I have not quite figured out this reasoning, but I am pretty sure it has to do with British decorum and all that stuff.]  Well, two years later she returned to start nursing again and became one of the few "two-timers" of my students.   I shall not use her name, though those who know her already know her story…..  Her own mother had abandoned her when she was small and she is determined that her children will have the sense of a mother who cares about them – even if it will be difficult financially.   I am sure she will return to nursing, in Guyana, but now a special season is demanded in her living.   She seems to be me ......  so familiar that she has to be me.  (When I stop coming here, perhaps I’ll have money for analysis!)
 

I may have another two-timer.  A bright first year nurse who has a child and is a single parent has had a cough for some time.  I had been after her to find a doc….. well, she got into line at the Public Hospital – as she has not been in the family long enough to get care at Mercy – and would still be there, except that, not having Dick’s patience, I paid for her to get a TB test done at Mercy.  And, yes, she has active TB, so she has had to withdraw from the school, as the first year students are only allowed three days absence…   So she has been at home and is now waiting for treatment to begin; hopefully, that will be sometime soon.   And the rest of us will need to have a TB test as they are worried about the spread.   I really doubt it as you usually have to have prolonged and close contact.

 

I have at least a dozen people left… I thought his would just be a short point-form thingy.  Maybe I should have a commercial break?   Okay one or two more, and that’s it.  

A Girl from St. Ann’s

Like the nurses above her story will be no secret here… She just turned 16; the pumpkin age for all girls at St. Ann’s to leave.   I’ll call her “John” [Did you know that all the newborns whom I baptised dead or alive at MUMC and whose parents didn’t want a name for them, I baptized them John. How can one go to the kin-dom without a name?]   Well this John was going to be adopted by an overseas couple who had visited her and were captivated by her personality.  In the process of applying for a visa, it was discovered that John was Hiv+.  And the family admitted that they were not strong enough to cope and the adoption was cancelled.   John has really never recovered in spirit.   Sometimes the matrons wonder why she acts out… and sometimes the smaller kids have answered “John” when visitors ask who is in charge of St. Ann’s.   Anyhow, Sr. Barbara has allowed the older girls whose hopes of ever passing an exam are minimal to work as apprentices and John is working with a veterinarian.   So I promised to buy her a book on animal husbandry at the bookstore.   We [John, John and several of her friends made the trip] actually found a book on First Aid for Dogs, complete with all the gruesome pictures of disease and accidents. 

It was a successful trip and when I got home – guess what – one of the dogs at the parsonage or had a red eye.   So I took a digital picture of my guard dog humping my leg ..… and went back to St. Ann’s and asked for a consult from Dr. John, and said that I would pay for good advice for my  dog.   She was thrilled and so was everyone else – till she realized that she would actually have to read the book!   I am still waiting for the advice and as the dog in question is still barking most of the night it seems that the disease wasn’t terminal. 

I have no idea of how and if John will survive outside the womb of St. Ann’s.   And I remember feeling the same (though I don’t have Hiv, nor am I a girl) when I left Maryknoll and Catholicism:  I didn’t know if I would survive… and if I did as what?   I do think that there were some who would have given me the same odds as this John…  I can only pray that this John will survive with the blessings I've had.

Can you handle another?  Just one more?

Gold Coast Waiter

I took Dick [see earlier, above] out for a farewell meal before his dance card gets all filled.  He wanted to go to the Chinese restaurant that was a favourite of my favourite nuns Sheila and Theresa.  I will make the waiter anonymous not only to protect his identity but also because I have already forgotten his name.  I knew him and he knew me; and, we both remembered Theresa who could not leave with extra chicken bones for her Guyanese dogs who seem immune to the warning to never give chicken bones to dogs.   And he always tried to get a little free medical advice from Sheila…  I promised to remember him to Sheila -- who will remember his name.  

The long standing restaurant was pretty much a ghost town as the new and chrome and cool New Thriving Chinese restaurant had opened across the street.   He stood, polite and courteous, unlike me in most ways, yet I saw myself in him --  in a world that had passed his style by, where customers were valued for themselves and their stories as well as their dollars… and the tip is included in the bill.   I imagine that this is how all us older people feel and whether the new will be better, I don't know – it just will be.  At least we can remember and smile.    

There are more of me here... and many of you are me, as I am you.   Thanks for joining me this week.  For better or for worse.. I would not be here without you in my spirit and in my body... John

I'll do this as a PS so I don't make a liar out of myself.

My Adopted Son, Rashleigh, The Lecturer

We were exploring a paper problem of a young Amerindian child in the interior who was thrown into prison for a crime that wasn't a crime.  The students wanted to go on a field trip - naturally, to the interior to see a jail there - and the sights too.  I had thought that we could get a tour of the local facility but apparently it was not possible for a class.  So I remembered that Rashleigh had spent a few days in the Georgetown lock-up in his youth a few years ago.  I asked him if he would come and describe his experiences there - and believe me, you don't want to know!   I was very proud of him - mature and articulate and descriptive... very descriptive.   Anyhow, I had promised if he came he would make my blog this week; as well as, I took a couple of thousand (Guyanese) off his loan ......