Sunday Morning ~ Lucky 

Linda, madzi apite, ndipo uziti ‘ndadala’. ~ Wait, let the waters flow away, and you will say “I am lucky”.

~ Chewa proverb

March 26, 2023

Hi Everyone,

I used to be irritated when someone told me I was lucky. It implied I hadn’t worked for what I had. But now I recognize how good fortune, providence, divine intervention, luck, however one chooses to describe it, has been a recurring theme in my life.

When I went to Malawi in 1979 as a young wife and eager to save the world, my husband and I attended the missionary church in our village. The priests there, happy to see practicing ex-pats, invited us to Sunday dinner afterward. They were White Fathers, and though they were indeed caucasian, the order was named for the color of their vestments. Originating from France and Canada they devoted their lives to service far from their homes. I hear the criticism of missionaries but my experience didn’t support it. I saw them as selfless and giving, providing needed services: schools and hospitals. African priests now run these missions, but back then they were seminarians. Our time there was the beginning of long and meaningful friendships with these men and we saw them almost every day. They acted like proud uncles when my baby was born, baptizing him, visiting, caring, fretting about me. It was lovely.

Fr. Richard, the priest who baptized my child, left Malawi in 2019 for a retirement home between Quebec City and the mountain where I ski. I visited this week, wonderful to be with him again, like slipping on an old comfortable sweater. At the end of the week I stopped to have supper with him on my way home, and looking around his room, I thought the covering on his bed was too rough, too shabby, too basic. This man deserved a quilt with more meaning, softer, warmer, one that would soothe his aches during the night. I’ll make him one, I thought, I’ll use Malawian fabric and soft flannel for the backing. I’ll consider the design as I drive back to Maine, five hours into the sunset. I am so lucky to have this old friend and the time at the mountain where so much happiness resides for me.

I was saying goodbye when he said, “Wait, I go with you to the car! But first, I bless you.” He put his hands on my shoulders and asked God to care for me and keep me safe, to care for my children, to watch over them, to keep them healthy. I stood with my head bowed, comforted by the weight of his hands, feeling safe and loved. Any speck of angst within me spilled down a chute from his hands out through my feet into some receptacle I imagined in the basement. I thought, I am so lucky. We made the sign of the cross and said “Amen”. I lifted my head and he turned toward the door, then turned back quickly and said, “No wait, now you bless me.” I had never been asked this before. I have always taken his blessing as an unreciprocated gift. After all, I was not licensed for this. His head already bowed, I put my hands on his shoulders, now shorter than mine, and asked God to watch over him, to give him strength and shield him from the pain of aging. I asked God to help him know deeply the good he has given this world and surround him with the love he sowed.” We said “Amen”, he lifted his head with the air of routine and said, “Ok, now we go.” as if we had just finished putting the leftovers away instead of having a deeply spiritual moment. I chuckled following him into the hallway. I love this man. 

In the parking lot I worried he might slip on some ice. I said, “Be careful, you may not be used to ice after so long in Malawi!” He laughed, “Yes, yes, yes, I know, I know! You call me when you get home, eh?” I told him it would be too late and I’d call in the morning, warmed by his concern. He looked in the back of my car, saw the skis and said wistfully, “Ah yes, I used to ski.” I said, “Everyone here skis. Of course you did. I bet you were a good skier. I wish I could have skied with you.” I handed him the bouquet of flowers I had in my car. “For your room. For Easter.” I told him I’d be back. He waved goodbye holding yellow tulips, as I pulled out of the parking lot and onto Route 40 south, the sun still high enough to get to the border before dark.

It doesn’t have to be winter to visit, I thought, though winter on the St. Lawrence has been part of my life since childhood. The cold can be brutal but the people never seem distressed by it. Their rosy cheeks and big smiles are framed with fur that speaks not of pillage but pragmatism. The beaver allowed human habitation in this glorious place; a remarkable gift. They exude a sense of joyous survival. Embrace this environment! Conform and be happy! That’s the feeling I have when I am there.

It had snowed the day before, piles of white, soft, fluffy stuff making everything magical. The skiing was fantastic. Gliding down the slopes on sugary snow, it was a postcard of winter into spring beauty. Each trail I descended brought back a thought of laughing with college friends, my siblings, my children, my father. I am so lucky, I thought. I am so lucky to have this place in my heart. I grabbed it, because nothing lasts. Rain will come, the snow will turn grey, and remind me there is always an icy underside. But it melts eventually. Until then we adapt with spikes and sand. Lucky.

Love to all,

Linda

Sunday Morning ~ Birthing Justice

Tangosauka opanira mphika ali cete. ~  We just suffer, but those who handle the relish-pot are quiet.

~ Chewa proverb

March 5, 2023

Hi Everyone,

As yet another small hospital in Maine closes it’s maternity services, I’m thinking about birthing justice. It’s been awhile since I’ve attended a birth. I know there are many injustices surrounding this event, some of which we are studying in the class I’m teaching. The racial injustice in our health care system affects women, of course. Cultural discrimination is widespread for those giving birth and most just take what they can get. What else can you do when vulnerable and in need of care? 

I’d like to think I’ve worked toward justice for all women but looking more closely at what that means, the hurdles for marginalized populations were always much higher. Working in my small town on an island in Maine, the diversity I dealt with was mostly socio-economic. A rich donor to the hospital? Immediately accompanied by upper management to cut the line. Poor women who have to travel hours in an unreliable car to get to an appointment? They could wait. 

I listened to a researcher speak about how awe affects our happiness and well being. He spoke of finding awe in our daily lives and how it can affect our mood and alleviate depression and loneliness. I thought about the word awesome. It’s used so commonly now as a routine response to ordinary events. But when I think of the true meaning, true awe-inspiring events, the ones that stop us in our tracks, the word seems insufficient. What inspires awe in me, I wondered? Birth is awe-inspiring. Anyone who has experienced it, either as birth giver or birth witness understands this. No matter how I was feeling, whatever my mood or situation, there was no feeling of awe compared with being present at birth. The depth of human emotion, the physical feat, the community support, it is an infusion of joy like no other. Why then do we make this event so hard for women? Our culture has it locked away, expensive and secretive, scrutinized and controlled, mystifying. Depending on reimbursement and the willingness of medical staff to be available, women can have a good or bad experience. I want it to be good. I want safe undiluted awe for all women.  

I’ve emphasized to my class the macro and micro systems in health care. It’s been a dilemma functioning in a macro system in which I did not wholly believe, while thinking my micro service was providing benefit. But I often felt it was enabling, allowing a system to grow more dangerously into a killer of women. The only industrialized nation with a rising maternal mortality, it is astonishing how our medical system can eliminate a critical service for women when they deem it unprofitable. Black women, Indigenous women, Women of Color, die in greater numbers than whites. Rural women have no access to care.

Maternity services close in rural areas because they can’t find an affordable specialist. I argue, specialists (Ob/Gyns) are not needed in small rural hospitals. Though midwives and general surgeons could provide the service safely and with excellent outcomes, hospitals dispose of this viable solution altogether. I’ve argued for years that midwives could provide the needed services, but rural hospitals still focus on the lack of obstetricians willing to practice in these areas, and without a physician willing to be on-call, they close. Subsequently, women must travel. Poor women in rural areas must travel miles, hours, to get both prenatal and birthing care. They must travel to services over bad roads and in unreliable cars, missing work and leaving families, instead of accessing services close to home. There is a plethora of supporting data demonstrating better outcomes when women are cared for in their own community, so why is our health care system allowed to act on only the studies they choose? Obstetricians are not needed in rural hospitals. Midwives are. A general surgeon is needed if an emergency cesarean section is needed, a surgery well within their capability. But if they refuse to do it, the service closes. Our community has been fortunate that the general surgeon agreed to this and I’m forever grateful to him. Why isn’t this a model for other hospitals? Why do doctors have the right to refuse care? Doctors have to follow other rules they don’t like. They couldn’t refuse to care for a person because of their race, so why are they allowed to refuse to do this one procedure? Why are they allowed to abandon a segment of their population? The argument we hear is “they don’t do enough of them to keep their skills up” as if that is a legitimate argument. Where is the critical thinking? There are many ways to keep skills up! That’s why hospital staff does simulation for CPR; because they don’t do it very often. These arguments are empty, invalid, and discriminatory.

This blatant discrimination sanctioned by hospital boards and administrators isn’t portrayed as such, but that’s what it is. Rural and marginalized communities have a muted voice. Compromised care, sometimes fatal, becomes the norm. Tired of their voices being unheard, they stop speaking. After awhile, when education standards are diminished, when expectations are lowered, when poverty and hunger give way to escape via drugs or alcohol, there’s little fight left. Economies of rural towns suffer when maternity services close. Families take their business to the cities an hour or more away. 

I am thinking this over at this stage of my career and life. The calling I’ve had to be there for women in their most awesome moment, needs to morph into something useful on a macro scale. I just can’t pinpoint what that is.

Love to all,

Linda