How do you measure, measure a year?

In daylight? In sunsets? In midnights? In cups of coffee?  In inches? In miles?  In laughter? In strife? In five hundrend twenty five thousand six hundred minutes- how do you measure a year in the life? How about LOVE? In truth that she learned?  Or in times that he cried? In the bridges he burned? Or the way that she died?  It's time now to sing out though the story never ends- lets celebrate remember a year in the life of friends...
*At our Augustinian Volunteer "End of the Year Retreat," we had to share what happened during our year of service.  Though I never officially explained on this blog what it was that I did for the past year, my reflection pretty much sums up what happened as a result of the year.  Unless you are an AV, you won't understand it all, sorry!  As a warning, I did cut and paste one of my first blog entries for part of my reflection, so if you think you heard the story before, you probably did...*

I can pretty much sum up my experience in a quote from one of my friends from work.   Just last week I showed some “emotion” after reading a note from one of my patients.  My friend looked over in amazement and said, “wow- look who went to Oz and found a heart!”  and she was right.  For as long as anyone can remember, I was all smiles, no emotions.  I was always laughing, making jokes and listening to others share their problems- Nobody needed to hear mine.  Even during sharing my faith journey, in reflections with my roommates and one-on-ones w/ Pat and April I was always careful not to share too much of myself.  As I mentioned in my faith journey like 1000 years ago, last year during my SEARCH retreat I met somebody who made me realize how important it was to open up- but even still, I struggled to do so.

For a long time I have struggled with something in my past that I wasn’t able to talk about because I never knew where to start.  During my first month as an AV I was torn between letting my community know about it or letting it go.  During each prayer I found myself not contributing b/c I didn’t know if I should or could- and I felt like I was doing a disservice to my entire community, including myself. 

Back in late early October, I met with a patient who came in complaining of an incision from a recent surgery that wouldn’t stop draining; essentially, he was complaining about a wound that wasn’t healing, despite it appearing to be healed.  TO this day I don’t know how it happened, but somehow in our discussion we went from this physical unhealed wound to a deeper unhealed wound.  This burly 50 year old man broke down and cried before me, telling me HIS story- a story that could have been written by me.  Through tears he told me how he uses humor as a defense mechanism, how he is suffering and doesn’t know how to ask for help- how the ONLY thing he is sure of is that God sent him to his current living situation for a reason- a reason he wasn’t sure of just yet.  I fought back tears as I touched him on his shoulder.  I wanted to tell him that I had to believe that part of God’s “plan” for him was meeting me- his words were too familiar, his story too similar, for our encounter to be a coincidence. 

For my next prayer I asked each of my community members to make a timeline of their lives and share their 3 highest and 3 lowest points.  Through this prayer I was able to share with them a piece of me, which hopefully allowed them to understand me a bit better- and I was moved by each of their stories.  As Papa Duck said recently, it ain’t always rainbows and lollipops, but by learning about each other we were able to help each other, challenge each other and grow together.

Though at times community life was VERY frustrating, it was my community that helped me get by each day.  It was Emily who, in an attempt to stop my self-deprecating talk, threatened that for each bad thing I said about myself, I had to say 7 nice things nice about her.  It was Katie who stayed up with me at night, talking about life, love and the midnight chirping birds.  It was Anne who didn't accept when I said “yeah I’m fine”- and would then climb into bed with me, where I found myself spilling my heart to her.  It was Chris who constantly questioned why I couldn’t love myself the way I am- because he loved and accepted me the way I am.  And it was Mike who one night sensed something was wrong and asked me to move to the other side of the kitchen so he could give me a hug without having the rest of the community see.  Yeah, that happened.  I’ve been blessed to know all 5 of my San Diego community members and have learned so much from them in the past 10 months.  I haven’t always been a barrel of sunshine, but they’ve loved me none-the-less.   Well, maybe a little less.    

I’ve also been very blessed to have had the opportunity to work at the medical clinic.  Being the triage nurse I was able to talk with a lot of different people- some who made me want to scream, some who made me want to cry- and others who always brought a smile to my face.  At the triage window I’ve been criticized, yelled at, cursed at and challenged- but I have also been complemented, loved, blessed and thanked. 

While I learned to accept the complements and brush off the patients who shouted- so all of the clinic could hear- that I am an evil child and not a real nurse and that I don’t know ANYTHING at all- I never got used to having to tell clients that I couldn’t help them.  Some left with tears in their eyes, some left with security- screaming and cursing- and others left thanking me and telling me “God bless you for trying.” 

Even when I was able to help patients, I found myself wondering if I did the right thing.   

One cool San Diego night when I was working triage, patient Mr. J came in with a fever and a list of symptoms that I thought required a doctor’s evaluation.  Though the doctor had a full schedule, I asked Mr. J to stick around to see if we could squeeze him in.  At one point Mr. J was going to give up and leave for the night, but I assured him I was working on persuading the doctor to see him.  Around 7pm, Mr. J approached me asking what the chances were that he could be seen and discharged before 8pm.  Mr. J had been homeless for 3 days and had been staying at a shelter near the clinic.  I’m not too familiar with shelters elsewhere, but in SD each shelter has a “curfew” to guarantee that a bed won’t go wasted any given night.  This shelter had an 8pm curfew- no exceptions.  I gave Mr. J the option of returning in the morning to be triaged again (which didn’t guarantee him being seen) or staying and having me call the shelter to let them know he was at the clinic and will be late.  He needed to be seen, we both knew that- but when I called his shelter, nobody answered and the inbox was full.  

Mr. J was seen by the doctor, given a diagnosis and medications.  When I told him I couldn’t get through to the shelter, he thanked me and said, “I’m going to try and get into the shelter tonight, but in the likely case that I can’t get in, where do I sleep?” 

I didn’t have the heart to tell him I didn’t know, because that would have been a lie.  He would sleep outside, where hundreds of thousands of others sleep each night.  And even in sunny San Diego, the nights get cold.  At night I went to bed with a sweatshirt, sweatpants, socks, 2 comforters, a fleece blanket and the heat on- that night that man had nothing but the clothes on his back, and because I pushed to get him evaluated, he had no bed to sleep in.  No roof over his head.  No blanket to keep him warm.  At least once a week I saw patients who were beaten up on the street or whose backpacks were stolen with all of their belongings inside.  (One time I had a woman come to get her prescription re-filled because her backpack was stolen- then she broke down in tears because inside her backpack were her mother’s ashes that she had carried around for two years…)  The people living on the streets have a world of their own- they know who belongs and who doesn’t.  Mr. J did NOT belong.  That night was Mr. J’s third or fourth night without a home, and would have been his first night sleeping outside.  Before he left the clinic he offered to buy me a soda, and though I didn’t want the soda, I wanted him to have 1 less dollar that could make him a victim.  I wanted to offer him my house, my bed and my blankets- but I knew I couldn’t.  I said goodbye and wished him luck.  He kept thanking me for helping him get medical attention and “everything else I did.”

I had to watch him leave the clinic that night with his bag of medications, a horrible cough, and an immediate future so uncertain it was unsettling for me.   When I got home that night, knowing I was upset about something, Annie had come to my room to talk.  She reminded me that sometimes the only thing we can do is pray and believe that everything is going to be okay. 

My faith, though it was never anything I depended on before, made leaving the clinic possible.  I hated knowing that while I left every night at 5pm to return to my house, where I had access to food, water and really anything I ever needed, my patients either slept in bunk-beds in cubicles with strangers, in dorm-sized rooms with sometimes more than 8 people, or in no bed at all.  I hated on June 18 when I left the clinic knowing that I was returning to my life of luxury and my patients’ lives remain unchanged.  Since I can no longer be with them and check up on them, I have to believe that they are going to be okay.  I have to have faith- they all do. 

SOOO now that I just rambled about nonsensical things for a long time-  what happened during this year of service?  I shed some layers.  I opened up my heart.  I learned the value of faith.  I took chances.  I was disappointed.  I disappointed others.  I was hated.  I was loved.  I loved.  I laughed.  I cried.  I learned.  I was given everything by people who have nothing.  I learned that sometimes a smile and a hug is the only thing somebody needs.  I made a difference in people’s lives- but what I did for others can never compare to what others did for me.  I was changed.  I don’t know how I will live differently as a result of this volunteer experience, but in the wise words of Elphaba, who can say if I’ve been changed for the better- but because of this year, I have been changed for good…