Healthcare is a basic human right

I've seen far too many sick kids in my lifetime; I've visited far too many hospital rooms. Working at a nonprofit that granted wishes meant that my job was to bring a smile to the face of a child who had overcome or was currently facing a life-threatening illness. While we were there to bring joy, I knew there were other moments we didn't see that were less joyful.

With the latest GOP push to change access to healthcare, I keep thinking of the hundreds of children and families I've met during a health crisis. Some parents had traveled from other countries to seek out the best care for their child in the US; some children were born here to undocumented parents. Some parents served as chauffeur to daily hospital appointments while others relied on hospital-provided transportation or housing near the hospital. I met single parents, step-parents, grandparents, and foster parents. I was always surprised to find out some of our parents were younger than me--no matter how much older I got!

Every parent had one thing in common, though: hope. Whether their child had recently been diagnosed or had been undergoing treatment for years, each parent I met had the belief that their child would get better. They were surrounded by a team of medical professionals--doctors, nurses, therapists, social workers, and more--who helped them keep believing. That hope fueled every attempt to get the best care.

Healthcare is more than insurance; it is more than a capitalistic market exchange. Healthcare is a system of medical professionals, as overworked and weary as they may be. Healthcare is the nurse who shows you how to change your child's feeding tube or check her oxygen levels.

Healthcare is what my aunt deserved--but did not receive--when she saw a spot on her lungs, years before she was officially diagnosed with the cancer that would kill her at age 45. It's the belief that a child with poor parents should not suffer in a waiting room and that people should not die in our streets from treatable conditions (although many homeless individuals still do). Healthcare is the system that has saved me after a life-threatening car accident without bankrupting my mother. It's the safety net that provided mental healthcare for me and for those I love despite preexisting conditions or status as an abuse survivor.

Healthcare is a basic human right; it's hope.

Wherever I Go

This week, I've been walking around the lake at the nearby state park. As I start my walk each day, I'm weighed down by the emotional work I've been doing since I quit my job and moved across the country; I'm weighed down by pain and anxiety and shame I've been processing for the past five years and, truly, my entire life.

Wherever I go, there I am: Arkansas, Los Angeles, Nashville. And, so it is, that today, I'm on this specific trail.

This trail must be tended often, because it's safe and clear. Except for a few stumps and signs with arrows, it's hard to see human intervention. I crunch over brown leaves and small sticks, and I step around roots of trees that refuse to be tamed. The only sign of a ranger is in the things not found on the trail. Larger trunks lay at the side felled by nature and moved a safe distance away. In the chill of winter or the slog after a rain, I can imagine a ranger making his way around the lake. Then, every night, nature tries to take those same trails back as animals build their homes and winds wash over the lake.

I walk farther today than I've gone before, tracing the beginning of the route I had already traversed as it meets the path unknown to me. In that moment, my physical path matches my emotional journey; I have been treading paths I thought I'd conquered to get to a new place I've never seen. I've been cleaning out branches and leaves. I've been lugging the same old logs to move them aside. Again. I've been clearing paths in my emotional life only for them to be taken back over in the night. And it's been exhausting. And unfair. And hard. Pain and grief and shame don't really disappear. Trauma from my childhood doesn't go away because I found a way to get through it and live my life today. I have to do the work tomorrow. And the next day. For the rest of my life.

Some days, I get farther down the path than before. Often, I have to sit in the pain without making much ground. Other days, I wake up, and I am at the beginning. The path I made yesterday has been overrun with the debris of my hurt and feelings of failure and unworthiness, and I have to clear a new way around the roots.

When I feel defeated, starting at the beginning of pain I thought I had processed or stumbling over an emotional hurdle I tell myself I should have seen coming, I try to remind myself that the most important part is showing up to do the work--especially when my biggest instinct is to shut down, to turn around, to run.

But, today, I lace up my shoes, and I show up.

On Fathers' Day

This third Sunday of June, I remember
my friends, like me, who have no father.
Resolution does not grant me the ability to forget.

Another friend has lost her father,
and there are those whose fathers have lost them
Through actions, through words.
What treasure they have lost.

Seeing my friends become great fathers is a wonder I never expected to behold,
so, I remember
friends who want that opportunity still.
And friends who are not dads, but imprint young souls each day
in their work, in their service.
I am struck by my good fortune to know them.

Reading the handwriting of a girl whose number one wish was to see her dad,
still, I remember
I am no longer her.
What treasure has he lost.

I am left
with this idea
that the fatherless,
we will be patched-up,
together.

What treasure we have gained.

Forgotten magic

When you've had a harsh reminder that magic doesn't always last in real life, the movies do not disappoint. If you think I'm about to opine about Paul Walker and Furious 7 on Good Friday, you are right.

There's no denying that the Fast and Furious franchise is big and bold. The soundtrack is my guilty pleasure, and I want the team to be as unbreakable as they seem. Of course, I cringed at the women used as accessories to cars, I rolled my eyes at the vocabulary, and I laughed out loud multiple times at the ludicrous scenes. And at Ludacris. The movie started out too loud, and I was anxious most of the time. From fighting scene to unbelievable car chase to fighting scene, I kept waiting for the moment when I would remember why this movie was delayed a year. Why not every actor in the movie would see the finished product. I kept waiting to see how they closed the loop of Paul Walker's character.

About a half-dozen times, the movie magic was obvious. But the rest of the time, I couldn't tell that Paul Walker's brothers stood in for many of the scenes. Honestly, it was like a trip back to 2001. The first Fast and Furious meant youth: laughing with old friends, driving my first car, cruising between Sonic and the junior high.

It was hard to say goodbye to all of that.

It's been a long day without you my friend/
And I'll tell you all about it when I see you again

Friend

I was going to send flowers,
but then I decided to give you something else:
this empty vessel to fill.
This used, passed over, chipped,
and re-gifted space --clear as dawn.
This vase
to house the bright moments that will come.
This home for small beauties and treasures.

The sorrow, we know, is that you don't always
foresee what tomorrow will bring.
You open the door
to brief joy
or drowning grief.
You feel strange,
even to yourself.
And what was certain yesterday
is no longer certain
today.

Steady,
this vase,
to house small,
beautiful moments in time
for as long as we can keep them.

Steady,
even empty,
to remind you of the big, bright tomorrow
it cannot possibly contain.
Those bright days are the kind we wish for
in the seconds before dreaming
and the moment we awake.

This vase,
open clarity
that we miss in our own mind and soul, at times.
But, open clarity, we will see again.
This vase, tomorrow, maybe
filled with wildflowers that grow where they aren't supposed to:
joy that peaks around unseen corners when it was long lost.

We deserve more than flighty joy and dying flowers,
but we can fill this vase with anything we want.
And wait for the sun to rise,
light shining through the glass to fill the empty space.

LA, CA (9/22/14)

Distance

Two Arkansas summers ago,
I thought I knew a lot of things.
Where I wanted to be
and who I wanted to leave
Most
likely it was a deep burn that I felt.
I sought freedom from this life,
straight and narrow.

One Arkansas winter ago,
and a birthday in between,
I packed every small and big thing
and headed west
into some multi-colored sunset.
Last
feeling when I boarded that plane
was not knowing
--and I liked it.

Weeks of sleepless nights ago,
I gave up safe and easy.
I gave up the things I knew:
how my heart didn't fit his,
and how my words clanged against church walls,
and how my story struggled to be born.

Eighteen months ago
lives no closer to a happy ending
than today.
And I was no farther.

Truth, a moving target.
Happiness, a ghost.
They danced two summers ago.
And now.

LA, CA (9/10/14)

Weak

The pain you caused is still there,
deep.
It stings when certain words are applied.
It curses you when it's pressed.

You, who meant nothing in all honesty,
managed to hit that soft spot,
under my armor.
And it hurt.
It still hurts.

Time has little chance with this,
because time, before you,
is what made it so

weak.

LA, CA (6/21/14)