beautiful

Darkness surrounds the ship. I sit here in the dim light of B Ward, ensconced in the throbbing hum of the generators. Every so often, I can hear one of my patients turn over in bed, but for the most part, they are still. Nights can be long here. When all my patients are either weeks out from surgery or small enough to be comforted easily by a close-lying mother, I'm left with not much to do but think. Tonight, Bendu is on my mind.

I was talking with a coworker yesterday as we realized all over again how dangerous it is to grow up in poverty. For those of us blessed enough to have been born into Western society, we take for granted clean, running water and electricity. We know that turning on a tap provides us with drinkable water, and we know that plugging a lamp into an outlet produces light.

This isn't true for the developing world. I have no statistics to share about the number of homes with electricity here in Liberia, but it's safe to assume that the percentage is dismally small. Bendu is one of the many women who live by the light of the sun and kerosene lamps. One night, a few months ago, she got into bed with a book. What happened next is a mystery, but as close as we can figure, she had a seizure and knocked over her lamp. Her face and arm were horribly burned, and she came to us with open wounds and eyes that were rapidly losing sight. These days, Bendu is not easy to look at. Her face and head and arm are swathed in thick gauze. Her nose has been twisted out of shape. Where the dressings slip, the raw, angry-looking skin shows through. One of the other children on the ward started crying when she came near him the other night.

Bendu is one of the most beautiful women I have ever met. Over the weekend, she was my patient, and I was the one to change her bandages. It's a long and arduous process, so to distract her from the pain, I started asking her about her family. She told me about her brothers and sisters. She shared that she just finished high school and was getting ready to go to college when she got burned. I will be an accountant, she told me, through teeth clenched in pain. Will be, Bendu? I asked her, testing her resolve. She nodded, determination written all over the parts of her face I could see through the gauze and tape. This is why I must get better. I must go to college like my friends. I turned away, fighting with myself to hold back tears, but the moment was over as soon as it had begun. True to form, Bendu was on to the next thing. Do I have eyelashes? she asked me, grabbing her mirror and taking a long look. I think I might need them someday.

That's Bendu all over. She refuses to believe that her injury is going to stop her. She wanders around the ward, visiting other patients and playing with the kids and learning how to knit with fingers already stiff from scars. Tonight, when I came on duty, one of the first things I did was fire up my computer and have a dance party with her and the mother of one of my little boys. We shuffled around an empty corner of the ward, laughing and shaking and showing each other our moves.

She's twenty-four years old. My age. And I can't help but try and put myself into her slippers. I sit here and I imagine what she must be going through, and I don't think I could do it. I don't think I could keep smiling if I had to tip my head at a specific crazy angle just to be able to see past the bandages. I don't think I could chat about my family while my wounds were being soaked in bleach. I don't think I could laugh if any movement meant pain.

I remember the prayer I breathed over and over during screening day in February. That God would help me to see the people there as both loved and lovely. Sitting here with Bendu asleep a few beds away, it's so sweet to realize how often that prayer has been answered. Yes. Yes. A thousand times yes, I hear Him say. These are my beloveds, and they are so precious to me. Loved and lovely.