Light breaks the clouds.
It wafts in the window through the sterile air
into the room where he lies, burning.
Its rays hit your face
I stand behind you in the dark as you speak to him.
Elevated, authoritative, calm and cool,
you look pain in the eyes and smile,
explaining, the fever is spiking
because the infection is spreading
and there’s need for debriding,
also treating with something
starting with “Vanc” and ends with “In.”

I watch silently from the corner, and as you speak,
I realize who you are.
You are smart, strong, and shrewd,
You are tough and tenacious.
You are efficient, and you make your work look effortless.
I could be all of that.
I will be all of that.

But first of all, you are you.
I want to be me too.

One two, one two, with a pause between.
Victory drums beating out in glory
because today, I am alive.
Maybe someday, the drums will skip a beat.
Certainly someday, the drums will stop.
But for now my heart is dancing happily
to the pulse that gives me life,
making music with every single breath.

I like to begin this story with her shoes: Sequins, orange plastic straps,
cork sole, pointed wedge toes, and 2 inch high heels.
Impossible for mountain climbing.
And yet, I was the one who fell.

I thought I was saving lives that day.
I meant well, and as I see myself,
climbing down the mountain,
I know I believed I was a hero.
And, honestly, wouldn’t you?
If you climbed up a mountain to give medicine to
someone laying sick in a house made of dirt,
if children smiled as you gave them toothbrushes
to protect the teeth missing already from their parents’ mouths,
if an old woman held your hand and thanked God for you,
Me agradezca a Dios por su ayuda.

She walked with me, my guide.
Meant to walk before me and lead me safe,
but heroes are better than high heels
so I walked beside her, faster.
The path inclined downward, sharply, and curved.
At the edge of the curve, a drop, 30 feet or more,
My left boot slipped, rocks and dust giving way
I shot sideways toward the drop, flailing,
Humanity crashed back into me.

I like to end this story with her hands:
Simple human hands, four fingers, a palm, a thumb
Strong, worn, smooth like a rock worn by the sand.
These hands caught me falling to my death
on the side of a mountain and held me steady.
These hands taught me that it’s not heroes who save lives
because all she had to do to save me was hold my hand.

He bends over the paper, his pencil scribbling,
trying to keep up with his neurons firing.
Three plus eight is eleven, carry the one,
He shows me when he’s done,
and for a moment looks at me
questioning, did he succeed?
Carefully, I check his work, I smile, I nod.
The light in his eyes lights up the world.

We are stories that we tell because we can’t help but live,
every day and every way, through our music, our words,
our pictures, our bodies.
All day and long into the night, the universe hears us living loud
as we share our stories spinning around the sun’s fire,
playing songs and writing words,
drawing pictures and dancing to the rhythm of our heartbeats
driving us forward into our future.

In the scheme of things, I am small.
But my problems can’t shake me off their backs,
my to-do list wants a quiet night at home, and
my calendar wishes it had room to breathe.
I’ve always been insane that way, but truthfully
it doesn’t bother me.
Before I go to sleep, my problems are solved,
the to do list gets a rest,
and tomorrow’s calendar may be full, but today’s calendar sighs with relief.
World, your problems have lived the easy life,
but I'm awake now, with a calendar of a lifetime to fill.
Can I help with your to-do list?

There’s a difference between looking and seeing.  
I’ve looked bones in books a million times.
I’ve looked at skulls in horror movies out of the corner of my eyes.
But this year, I saw her.
Yellowed and petite, she stood in the corner of the lab.
A stand cradled her spine, wire bound her together,
her head ornamentally dangled from a string.
Tasked with learning the parts of the body, I touched her hands.
Then I realized:
These are her hands.

One. Two. Three.
And then you exhale.
Your head is cradled in the pillow.
Your eyes are closed.
You are fast asleep in a very waking world.
It’s a noisy world, my love.
Machines are beeping, wheels are squeaking,
busy heels are clicking, clacking on a white tile floor.
It’s a world of firsts for me, my love.
The first meal bought in a gift shop,
the first night sleeping on a army cot,
the first consent form I signed on your behalf,
the first time I squeezed your hand
and you didn't squeeze back.
A world of hope and faith,
friends’ prayers wing to heaven,
and surround me in peace.
A world of fear and doubt.
I count the seconds until you breathe.
I will you to inhale.
Then exhale again.
Please.

That canyon deep inside--that aching, echoing chasm
where at night your pain is so loud that you can’t sleep.  
I’ve had one too, and so I ask as one who knows:
please don’t fill that canyon with rocks,
only to repeat when time weathers the rocks away
leaving the canyon empty and echoing again.
Don’t treat what hurts and ignore the cause.
Instead let your tears run, filling the canyon with a river
that’s fast and frightening.
Let me take your hand to travel in a boat up the scary waters of pain,
rowing together, moving out of the canyon to a place where nights are silent.

For every life, a life must be given.*
Nature knows this well; my mind reels in
fascination and revulsion at Nature’s ugliest things.
I am caught in wonder and disgust for the things they do.
Bacteria that thrive on flesh, parasites that steal life from life,
viruses that invade the deep and make us their home:
these are the beautiful and terrible of Nature,
slipping past our defenses to make us give our lives for theirs.

Yet, humans are clever and wise.

Clever because we get sick,
and when we’re sick, we’re fighting,
We fight on and on, we get sicker and sicker,
and when we’re most vulnerable,
when our bodies fall around us, and we shake from the fever of battle,
all the beautiful and terrible cry out in agony and
what was lost is reclaimed in health.

Wiser because some know they can give their own lives
to help each other take back what was stolen.
That is what I know.
That’s why you’ll see me there on the day of the battle.
I’ll feed spirits with faith and love,
bring medicine that weakens the enemy, and hold soldiers’ hands,
give all my hours, days, and weeks to help fight the greatest fight.
And when the battle’s won, I’ll send up a mighty cheer, toast the troops,
pack my bags, and head for home, content.
We'll live to fight another day.