I was reading through Tracy Kidder's book, Mountains Beyond Mountains, about Dr. Paul Farmer. Dr. Farmer specializes in Infectious Diseases, HIV, Tuberculosis, etc. However, Dr. Farmer spent most of his medical career between Boston and Haiti, prior to the earthquake. Within the first few pages of the book a phrase popped up, "Dèyè Mòn Gen Mòn." The phrase is a Haitian proverb, meaning "behind mountains there are mountains." The proverb is described in greater detail with the meaning "once you solve one problem, you will have another."
I had a lot of mountains this week, I had a lot of problems. I was struggling throughout the week since Tuesday, and then the events that conspired yesterday ending in a volunteer injury made it all a lot worse. I believe that I am in New Orleans for a reason. That I am meant to discern parts of my life, find out who I am as a person, make life-long friends, pick up new skills, and mature in my personality and my faith. I also believe that through it all God is trying to piece together a overall message for me that is the combination of smaller messages. Messages like things in this life aren't always going to go as planned, I don't have to be perfect, I can do whatever I set my mind on. The message for this week though was one that I wasn't ready for come Monday. It started with a volunteer who disliked a judgement call that I had made and decided to leave my site and work on another one. Then yesterday one of my other volunteers fell off a exterior staircase, landed on an air compressor, and broke her hip. I tried to keep my cool on the work site while the rest of my volunteers were on site, and I did a good job, but then on my way home lost it a little bit and started to really beat my self up. I felt like it was my fault. I hadn't put a hand rail on the stair case, I wasn't told to, but I knew that I should have. I couldn't get the ordeal out of my mind, and thought about it all night and well into the morning. I thought about it and was beating myself up over it and then while I was on one of the other work sites getting volunteers the supplies they need, one of the team leaders came up to me. He had heard that I was upset over everything (apparently news travels fast) and he wanted to reassure me that she was ok, that she wasn't mad about the whole thing, and that she didn't blame me. It took every part of me to not break down and give that man a hug, because I had been so distraught over everything that had happened, and then he told me that everything was ok, that accidents happen, that it wasn't my fault. It was in that moment that I received the most recent message, that accidents are going to happen, but that I can't blame myself for them, because when I start blaming myself that's when I start to get upset with myself.
The whole day I was reminded of a certain episode of Scrubs. (Spoiler alert, if you don't want to know what happens in this episode, don't read this part.) The episode is in the 5th season, and involves Dr. Cox rushing to save three hospital patients who need organ transplants to stay alive. He gets a donor who had recently died, and puts her organs into the patients. The patients get better, and then quickly become worse. Dr. Cox then finds out that the woman who had died, died of rabies, so all of the organs were infected too. The three patients passed away, and Dr. Cox was left with a lot of guilt. There is a moment where J.D. relates with Dr. Cox, telling him something that Dr. Cox had told him a few episodes ago, that "once you start blaming yourself for other people's deaths, there's no going back." Obviously a little more of an intense situation, however I kept thinking of the episode, I kept thinking about how I can't blame myself for every injury that happens on my site, because when I do it drives me crazy. This is another one of those messages that, like when my dog and band director passed away this year, was a hard pill to swallow.
In other, happier news. The house that I am currently working on, on Louisa Street in the Upper 9th Ward is close to completion. It is starting to look amazing and it is all thanks to some amazing groups. It is crazy to me how far people will come to help out, all across the country and internationally.
The other thing that I have to talk about is how thankful I am. How thankful I am for the people in my life who will talk me through all of these trials in my life, who can calm me down, get my head on straight, and ease my thoughts when I feel like I've been emotionally slapped around.
In conclusion, I've had a long week, there will be longer weeks I'm sure, weeks that will make me forget about this one. However, for right now I've gotten over this mountain of a week, and I can look back down the mountain and see that I got over it, and even though there will be more, I know that I'll be able to get over those too.
I only have till August, then my YAV year is over. What a scary thing to think about. The year may be over soon, but the events and people will never leave me.
Peace
