Haiti Uses Me Like a Rubber Band

Haiti uses me like a rubber band. Stretches me

Because my heart knows I am here to serve, yet

My head does not know how, or even why. It

Wonders if what I do here will matter.

My teachers are about to arrive.

I see Mersilia

As she comes to my scale to be weighed.

She must be helped to walk,

With each slow step she winces in pain:

70 pounds

28 years old

Sickle cell anemia

Dr. Rony says she must go to the hospital—

Something else is wrong.

We make plans:

Her older sister and mother will come,

I will go to make arrangements and pay,

Pastor Solomon will drive (a gentle man who

Is also a lawyer, working to help victims of Haiti's child slavery).

After her frail body is carried to the truck

We begin the long, bumpy ride.

The intake physician is kind, but

The small ER has half a dozen people

Working on the unconscious policeman

Whose motorcycle crashed into a wall.

Other patients sit or lie in different corners

Of the room, some on IV's.

We wait our turn.

Finally I am sent to pay the first fee—

Everything seems agonizingly slow here.

Pay, then blood work. Wait.

Pay, then a shot of morphine. Wait.

Pay, then x-rays. Wait.

Four hours have passed.

We will probably have to bring her

All the way back here tomorrow

To see the Canadian doctor.

No—maybe if we wait longer

He will finish in the OR and come.

I look over at her.

In her tiredness and pain

She returns the most gentle, understanding smile.

Another hour passes—I wonder if we should leave.

I try to apologize to Pastor Solomon for the long waiting.

He smiles and says simply,

“If we love Jesus, this is what we do.”

Is it time? I look over at Mersilia:

No, my heart decides. We must persevere for her.

The ER becomes even busier.

I tell them we will have to leave soon.

“No, wait ten minutes—the doctor knows you are here,

He will come!”

He does.

She has rheumatoid arthritis. She can have pain medication.

A specialist can see her next Wednesday.

They will treat her disease.

Later, as we say good bye,

She warmly smiles her thanks.

My heart knows it has been worth it.

So I am different now,

Stretched out into

A place of gentle waiting where

Events can flow around me. Sometimes

I remember I can respond from within,

Instead of reacting from without.

I wonder—

Will the rubber band snap back

So that I lose this new found gift of

Waiting for the heart to lead?

Yet I see I also have been working, preparing for

This gift Haiti has given me.

Now my heart knows—

The rubber band

Can always stretch again.

Jonathan Wright-Gray

March 29, 2015