Out of the night that covers me . . .

For those of us who didn't grow up (at least initially) around city lights, we know what it is to sleep under a moonless sky with only stars and crickets to keep us company.  These inky black nights are the type where you can't even see your hands in front of you. 

It's those dark nights that remind us that there will be times, when it won't be sunny and when your wish for even a cloudy day will not be answered.  Like life, the night brings with it a deafening silence, a loneliness that can't be resolved by human contact or interaction.  You will be in a crowded room with chattering people and feel all alone.  Screams will come from all directions and all you'll hear is muted tones.

I have encountered the night in the words of the English poet Henley, "...the night that covers me, Black as the Pit from pole to pole" in recent weeks.  An emergency phone call from my dad one Monday evening in May, has sent me on a tailspin that's kept me diving ever since.  I haven't landed yet, because this veritable "pit" seems bottomless from where I am right now.

Two days after that call my mother was in an emergency room at Mt. Sinai with doctors and interns coming through an imaginary revolving door, all coming to see this woman who had withstood such a disease and was still alive.  You see, all it took for the ER doctor to see was her ravaged breasts to diagnose my mother with breast cancer.  He didn't need a Catscan, MRI, or blood test to tell him what was evident from first glance.  "No, I don't have cancer," was my mother's feeble but firm reply.  He paused and looked at me and his eyes confirmed my unanswered questions.  Yes she had cancer, she had it for sometime and the fact that she had made it thus far was reason enough for interns to come in with redundant questions asking how she felt, how long had she had her pain, and what types of symptoms did she have.

The day of reckoning was here.  Years of pleading with my mom had come to this.  Those closest to me, would hear me out on days when I had seen her recently and didn't like the way she walked.  My brief phone calls to her (cause I was always interrupting some prayer service she was attending) would end with "I'm okay, I'm fine."  By this time, she'd started using a walker and still adamantly refusing to seek medical attention.  Her five foot six inch frame that I was used to looking up at was reduced to my five foot three or less. 

Friends would hear the frustration in my voice, and try and give me some solutions--but it all came back to the same result.  You see, you really can't force someone to seek medical attention.  It is their human right to deny medical care and there is nothing that that can be done about that.  Unless that person was incapacitated (another fancy word for crazy), he/she could die in their beds without cause.  Well my mother wasn't crazy.  She spoke three languages and wrote in two.  She knew her rights and had told me repeatedly that there was no way in hell I was going to take her to a hospital.  Her God would heal her and the dreams that she had of Him healing her would be enough.

My mom is a cheat when it comes to verbal spars.  You can't bring God to a fight and expect people to even think of fighting back--least of all me.  How could I argue with God?  I mean after all He is Jehovah Rapha!  Isaiah 53:5 said it best, "He was wounded for our transgressions . . . and by His wounds we are healed."  I pray that prayer over myself every day, and it's the one I stand on firmly in times of illness.  So when her response to my insistence about medical intervention would start with the words "Jesus", I'd back down and call it a day.  This strong Haitian woman of faith had enough belief in her God to stand through seeing her breast shrivel, bleed, and drain pus.  She's gone from standing straight to walking with a cane, then a walker, now stooped over and frail.  She's gone from an able-bodied woman who in her prime traveled the Caribbean as a merchant reduced now to laying in bed unable to move her leg.  As her daughter, I'm frustrated, angry, and despondent because there's absolutely nothing that I can do within my willpower, within my own strength to ease her pain.  I'm frustrated at a system that keeps me from doing what I have to do to protect her from herself.  I'm angry at her for letting it get this far, and I'm despondent, because I wasn't "prepared" to take on this caretaker role, at least not yet.

Questions: 
1.  What's to be said about Haitian women in particular as it relates to their faith and reluctance to seek medical care? 
2.  What is the difference between the older Haitian woman who chooses to seek health care and the one who doesn't.  Does the former believe less in God and does the latter have that much of a closer relationship with God?
3.  Where does your faith end and medical intervention begin?
4.  Is the faith of "nouveau" Christian women that much less than the stalwarts of old? 

Resource:
In the Haitian women population, the most challenging factor in disease prevention is associated with the culture that is deeply rooted in their belief system. Knowing that one woman out of eight is at risk of being diagnosed with breast cancer makes little to no impact on the Haitian woman who feels vulnerable by admitting that her eating habits are vastly unique thus making her different from others who make those statistics.

Furthermore, she believes that she is blessed by the hand of God who will protect her from evil and diseases. If, by some fortunate circumstances, a woman is able to feel and recognize a foreign mass in her breast, she tends to first treat herself by using palm oil or other leaves on the site of the mass with the hope that the mass will dissolve.

The woman will rarely divulge her findings to anyone close to her. She may prefer to see a traditional healer who will prescribe his own medicine before going to a regular doctor when diagnosis may come too late.
http://www.annieappleseedproject.org/breascanamha.html

Invictus!

A friend of mine knew I had reached an all time low in my life in recent weeks and directed me to this piece written by William Ernest Henley entitled "Invictus". 

It's poignant words are here below:

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

It's a poem I refer to every now and then, trying to glean something new, something fresh, something that I will take and learn from in the coming days, weeks, months, and yes even years.

Come along on this journey--reading, sharing your thoughts, and receiving what God would have you get.  

Proverbs 4:7

"Wisdom is the principal thing; Therefore get wisdom.
      And in all your getting, get understanding."