closer

i know i'm crazy, after all my complaining, but i miss my csa vegetable box.   i miss having something to start with.  even peppers.  i miss opening it and being surprised.  i miss the dirt.  i miss the challenge of making something from what i have.  i think it's in my future - creating from limited resources.  and we're getting closer.  closer to uganda.

today i had to say goodbye to some of my patients- people i won't see again before i stop working. people who i've seen almost monthly for a year or so.  who drive 100 miles for a prescription, exam and conversation.  these vets amaze me.  i remarked on this to one of them, that he'd come so far, gotten up so early, waited in the waiting room and all for 20 minutes of face time. 

"i guess in my heart i'm a marine.  if i'm supposed to be somewhere- i show up."

i love this. these tough guys who do what they need to do, who do what is asked of them.  i asked him when he wanted to come back.  i told him i could mail out his prescriptions since he lived so far. 

"you tell me doc, and i'll be there."

wow.

but i just couldn't say goodbye to mr. b.  i knew i needed to tell him i was leaving, but i had to sugar coat it.  so instead of saying goodbye, i told him i'd come visit him at home- or i'd extend my time at work until the day i fly out.  i just am not ready to say good bye and i'm not sure why.  i mean specifically, what it is about him and his wife that i've become so attached to? maybe it's time, maybe it's coming through the hard seasons when we all wondered if he'd make it.  maybe it's that he's shared his story with the entire first year medical school class, or maybe it's the feeling that we're somehow linked and loosing a link might break the chain apart and where would that lead?

i'm bad at goodbyes.  i avoid them.  i say things like 'i'll see you' or 'bye for now'.  i'm not good at final.

i know it's going to be really hard to say goodbye when we leave for uganda.  how do you say goodbye for years? how do you acknowledge that you're lives are going in different directions- and ours is across the atlantic? maybe i won't have to.  maybe people will come visit!  maybe i can stick with 'bye for now.'  yes, i think that's better.

today is another beautiful day after a long, needed sleep.  i awoke to an email with our housing assignment at the university where we'll be living in uganda.  this comes right after more news on the upheaval in kampala- more conflict, more riots, more violence.  and as the history of this country unfolds, so does our life there- and it still feels so right- despite a less stable situation than a year ago when we began this process.  we are watching it all come together and it's amazing.

i can now visualize our home, our porch, where i will sit and write at 5 in the evening, with a lot of bug spray.  i can hear our kids outside.  i can see the patients in the clinic that i will get to know.  they will amaze me as well, even more.  they will come from far way too, but they will walk, or ride a crowded bus, in flip flops, with children on their backs, and not much in their pockets.

my eyes are closed. i feel it.  we're getting there.  we're closer.

zoe in what will be our yard

the porch of our uganda home

zoe with ugandan kids