leaving

I'm coming home. In less than an hour, I leave for the airport. Twenty-four after that, and I'll land in Toronto where my family will be waiting for me.

There is no way that this is real.

I was awake before six this morning, lying in my bed and feeling the barely-perceptible rock of the ship begin to summon the day’s familiar nausea. The tone of the overhead announcement sounded and I tensed, not quite able to shed the past year’s duties as an EMT even though I’m off the team until I come back for Benin. For those on deck, please no flash photography. It came back with a rush, then. The captain’s announcement at last night’s meeting that the pilot would be coming on board promptly at 0600 to guide us to a berth. Going to sleep feeling for all the world like I was five again and it was the night before my family started the five hundred mile drive to Toronto before the sun had risen.

I shrugged into my clothes and stepped out into the cool, damp air to be greeted not by the familiar wind and darkness, but by a fairyland of lights. I blinked, but they stayed lit, shining through the night to guide us into port. The ship began its slow crawl towards the dock, the lights beginning to distinguish themselves as houses and Christmas trees and street lamps. I saw a man standing on the end of the dock, illuminated by the headlights of his car. He stood straight-backed, a trumpet in his hands, and as we threw out the mooring lines the simple, clear notes of Away in a Manger floated back across the water to where we stood at the rail.

I had to swallow hard just then and make some offhand comment about how insane it was to actually be able to see my breath or else the whole ship would have seen me break down right there on deck seven. Because it finally hit me; I just realized that we actually left Liberia.

It seems insane, after a week of sailing away from West Africa, that I can only just now comprehend the fact that we left. I kept staring at those lights, brighter than all of Liberia, and all I wanted was to see the dim outline of the Ducor on top of the hill. And now that day has come and the mountains are draped in shadows and sun and all around me civilization grinds unceasingly on, all I want is our wide-open port, dotted with canoes and sunken ships.

It’s dinner-time, and I have yet to step foot outside the ship. Granted, that’s partly because I’m on duty and carrying the pager limits me to a pretty small radius, but the truth is that I’m scared. I’m scared that stepping onto Spanish soil will finally mean that I’m not in Africa anymore, that I’ve left Liberia forever, and I’m just not ready to do that.

I’m hiding behind the steel hull of my ship, because the longer I stay here, the longer I can pretend that I’ll look out the portholes and see my beloved third world.

Why is this so hard?

I'm sorry for the long silence. Truth is, I'm in a weird place right now. I've been sicker than I really realized over the past few weeks, and I'm just now coming out of the fog enough to realize how much has passed me by. Maybe it'll be better once I'm well and not so worn out, but I'm overwhelmed by the sense that things are just unfinished here.

I mean, they're not really unfinished. There's nothing left to do; the wards are closed. The last patients went home on Friday, Eddie and Kwelywoh to the MSF hospital for further care. Dr. Gary reported to me today that Kwelywoh's CSF drain is working well and that the swelling between his eyes is gone; he might not need any further surgery. Back on the ship, the hospital is silent and mostly dark, wards piled with mattresses and bed frames and supply carts all lashed together and tied down to bolts in the floor, ready for the sail.

But I missed all that. I wasn't there to kiss Eddie's little face before he headed out the door, and I wasn't there to feel the gentle weight of Kwelywoh's body as he leaned up against my legs, beaming up at me in one last search for stickers. I couldn't even help with the cleaning and packing up, since the thought of dust and chemical fumes was enough to send my lungs into a full-scale revolt against the rest of my body.

There were parties, celebrations for all the translators and disciplers and the myriad other dayworkers who have served alongside us during this outreach. The ship was full of friends, dressed in their finest, and I couldn't find the energy to greet them all, or to say my farewells. They've all left now, gone back to their homes for the last time and I didn't get a chance to tell them I loved them.

I'm sad and I'm frustrated and it kind of feels like I got cheated. I've been here since the beginning. I made it through screening day, I helped open up the wards and welcomed the very first patients. I cared for three of the little boys who went to Jesus over the past months. I have seen so many patients come back for multiple surgeries, greeting me like an old friend as they're re-admitted.

And now, now that it's all over and done with, I feel like I missed the end, and that's not good. I'm not sure how to leave this country when it feels like my chance to say goodbye passed me somewhere last week while I slept through yet another day. I hate feeling like this, but I'm not sure I have the chance to change it; we sail before Sunday.

I just wish it didn't all seem so unfinished.

Remember ten years ago, when that song Closing Time came out? If you're close to my age, you probably had it recorded faithfully on at least three different mix tapes. It ran through my head almost constantly today as we power-cleaned the now-empty A Ward.

Closing time, open all the doors and let you out into the world.
Closing time, you don't have to go home but you can't stay here.
Closing time, time for you to go out to the places you will be from.
Closing time, every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end.

Three weeks from today I will walk down the gangway and into a Mercy Ships car. We'll be in Tenerife by then, so we'll drive on pothole-free roads to the airport where I'll get on a plane and I'll fly home. And just like that, Liberia will be nothing but a memory, forty-five hundred miles away from the family I'll be winging my way towards.

I can't wait to see them. I don't want to leave. Bring on the paradox. (Which, I'm realizing, is exactly what I typed the night before I left home in February. Oh, how my paradigm has shifted.)

I'm probably going to beat this feeling to death over the next few weeks, but this leaving is so bittersweet. I know I'll be coming back for Benin, so when I disembark it'll be with the assurance that it's not forever. But when the ship sails from Liberia, I don't know if I'll ever return, and I don't know how to come to terms with that. I love so much about this country.

I can't stay here. I have to go out from this place and back into the world, and I'm scared.

Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end.