Today was another one of the jumbled days, one of the ones where I live a thousand moments that I want to tell you about and then find myself sitting here in front of an empty screen, searching for the words to somehow make you understand what this place means to me.
It never gets old. I've been here for four years, and today I was explaining some of the surgeries we've been doing to a visiting media team and the wonder in their eyes looked exactly the way my heart feels every. single. day. I look around that room at the hope lying in each bed and I can't really imagine anywhere I'd rather be.
My disembarkation form, the one we all have to fill out when we're leaving the ship, was on my door today, Thursday's date printed neatly across the top. I burst into tears when I saw it because it means that my time left is measured in hours now, and hours don't feel like enough.
So instead I measure my time in those thousands of moments.
My mind snaps a photo of a mother and her still-so-sick baby, mama's hands covering her daughter's, protecting her even as she sleeps a sleep born of pure exhaustion. I store the image away to be referenced later on when I need to know how to be the right kind of mama.
Across the ward a teenager returns from surgery. What was meant to be a routine bandage removal turned into several hours on the operating table, but I can't help thinking that Someone planned for this, because the little piece of bone that had to be removed to make room for the muscle that would cover the hole they found was just the right size to give shape to a new nose, one we never thought she'd have.
A newly-minted thirteen year-old is admitted on his birthday, sitting shyly on a chair in the corner, a rag covering the tumor on the side of his face as we dance and clap and sing Happy Birthday in three different languages. His grandma sits by his side, her back ramrod-straight, eyes glittering with the promise that this year will bring for her grandson, for the day coming so soon when he won't have to hide anymore.
Just before shift change, a four year-old taps my leg and lifts up his hands, hope in his still-swollen eyes. I reach for him, settle him on my back, his feet wrapped around my belly, and he rests his head on my shoulder as we gather to pray. From behind me, I hear the amens echoed in his tiny voice.
Soon enough I'll have to open my hands and release this place. But for now I gather these moments like a farmer bringing in the harvest, stuffing my heart until it's ready to burst, tucking still frames and memories into each little corner.
It never gets old.
It never gets old. I've been here for four years, and today I was explaining some of the surgeries we've been doing to a visiting media team and the wonder in their eyes looked exactly the way my heart feels every. single. day. I look around that room at the hope lying in each bed and I can't really imagine anywhere I'd rather be.
My disembarkation form, the one we all have to fill out when we're leaving the ship, was on my door today, Thursday's date printed neatly across the top. I burst into tears when I saw it because it means that my time left is measured in hours now, and hours don't feel like enough.
So instead I measure my time in those thousands of moments.
My mind snaps a photo of a mother and her still-so-sick baby, mama's hands covering her daughter's, protecting her even as she sleeps a sleep born of pure exhaustion. I store the image away to be referenced later on when I need to know how to be the right kind of mama.
Across the ward a teenager returns from surgery. What was meant to be a routine bandage removal turned into several hours on the operating table, but I can't help thinking that Someone planned for this, because the little piece of bone that had to be removed to make room for the muscle that would cover the hole they found was just the right size to give shape to a new nose, one we never thought she'd have.
A newly-minted thirteen year-old is admitted on his birthday, sitting shyly on a chair in the corner, a rag covering the tumor on the side of his face as we dance and clap and sing Happy Birthday in three different languages. His grandma sits by his side, her back ramrod-straight, eyes glittering with the promise that this year will bring for her grandson, for the day coming so soon when he won't have to hide anymore.
Just before shift change, a four year-old taps my leg and lifts up his hands, hope in his still-swollen eyes. I reach for him, settle him on my back, his feet wrapped around my belly, and he rests his head on my shoulder as we gather to pray. From behind me, I hear the amens echoed in his tiny voice.
Soon enough I'll have to open my hands and release this place. But for now I gather these moments like a farmer bringing in the harvest, stuffing my heart until it's ready to burst, tucking still frames and memories into each little corner.
It never gets old.