“May we think of freedom, not as the right to do as we please, but as the opportunity to do what is right.” ~ Peter Marshall.

I was a frontline nurse working in Miami when AIDS appeared, with all of the unknowns that went along with it.  In the early years it seemed to be a disease that only affected male homosexuals, but before long (and once we were more clear about the method of transmission) we saw both men and women affected.  One thing that doesn’t change in nursing, is the ‘hand-over’, the report given by the off-going nurse to the oncoming nurse at shift change.  This is where one nurse attempts to summarize all of the crucial aspects of a patient’s history, demographics, their current status, and necessary nursing tasks pending, along with any other relevant item deemed important to the patient’s care. Hopefully you can get this done for all of your patients in the thirty minutes allotted for the overlap in shifts, but that rarely happens!

A curious aspect about giving report on a patient who had the HIV positive diagnosis (or with AIDS) was that, invariably, the nurse receiving report for the first time would ask: ‘How did the patient get it?’.  Now this is not one of the usual questions a nurse asks.  If a patient has diabetes, or a stroke or a heart attack, you don’t need to know how they got it.  If a patient has a fractured hip, you don’t necessarily need to know how or why they fell.  Yet, and especially if the patient was female, this question was asked.

I could only surmise that it was more than our need for gossip (inappropriate and unprofessional, but human nonetheless), it was a way of reassurance.  If the patient was a known IV drug user and that was the probable source of the infection, the nurse could relax, for the nurse was not an IV drug user.  If the patient was a male, having sex with males, again, relief, I don’t fall in that category.  But if the female patient perhaps contracted it through sexual activity with her male partner, that was chilling, for which one of us has never had unprotected sex? 

When it comes to empathy, to being authentically present for someone who is in need, a lack of judgmentalism is necessary.  So long as I am judging you, how can the support I offer be genuine?  Those nurses with their need to know were silently judging the patients in their care.  See, if you weren’t an addict, or a sex worker, or gay, you would be healthy now.  We tend to do the same with patients whose hypertension is uncontrolled (well you should have taken your medicine), not wondering what other factors may be at play.  Woulda, shoulda, couldas are never helpful after the fact.

Of all of the images that we have seen over the past ten weeks, one that haunts me is the sight of brown men with shaven heads, shackled, being led like lambs to the slaughterhouse.  As the mother of three men of that complexion, although only one has tattoos, I shivered.  I have memories of having been called to the principal’s office for one son, when he was in high school, and being informed that he was in trouble for being observed in gang-related activity.  What, I asked was that gang-related activity?  He was walking through the playground in a group of three.  I could not hide my disbelief.  In that case, I told him, I too belonged to a gang in high school. 

My older son once got pulled over for driving ‘four deep’. What on earth did that mean, I had to ask.  Four young black men in a car.  Immediately suspicious.  Another son once got thrown to the ground and handcuffed for ‘matching the description’.  Another time for riding in a nice car with his friend, who happened to be driving his mother’s car.  Mothers of black and brown men in the US are not unused to these reports, and many have experienced far worse.  The current reality is that apparently anyone not looking like a ‘real American’ and we have to presume that means white, walking with proof of legal residency or citizenship is a necessity.

Of course, in the case of the shaven headed men transported to El Salvador, perhaps they are all criminals and gang-members who only had evil intentions.  But what if, as we are learning, one or more of them are not?  How is this legal?  Again, the need for empathy means imagining that something could happen to you.  It could be your son who was carted off leaving his pregnant wife behind.  It could be your daughter and grandchildren who suddenly find that their headstart program, their WIC food assistance, their health care has been disappeared.  It could be your sister who is suddenly jobless and at risk of being homeless.

This week we saw an act of courage, of moral rectitude, and of great fortitude.  Sen. Cory Booker stood and talked on behalf of We the People for over 25 hours.  It is significant that the record he broke in his filibuster was previously held by a racist segregationist who was arguing against the Civil Rights act.  In an interview after his speech, Sen. Booker downplayed the exhaustion he must have felt, reminding us that he did no more than those who work two or three jobs to take care of their families.  Nurses frequently stay on their feet for a whole shift (which may be more than sixteen hours), not remembering if they went to the bathroom or ate a meal.  Security guards may stand or walk for their whole shift. When the Senator was asked how he prepared mentally for the task, he referred to a gospel song which had got him pumped up: ‘Stand’.  I had to use my search engine for that one.  “What do you do When you’ve done all you can And it seems like it’s never enough? And what do you say when your friends turn away And you’re all alone?”  Well, you just stand.  And that’s what he did.

In Jamaica they have a saying, as seen in the title of this essay, advising you to ‘Tan tuddy’.  You could translate it to stand steady.  But it also reflects the need to stand firm in your convictions, which is what the Senator did.  Yesterday I watched a documentary on that musical but troubled genius Sly Stone. He too had a song called ‘Stand’: ‘Stand for the things you know are right, It’s the truth …that makes them so uptight’.  He was writing songs in a polarized country, as civil rights protests gave way to Black Power marches and riots over police brutality.  His multi-racial, multi-gendered Family Stone sang loudly about ‘everyday people’ who are all the same, regardless of color, class or wealth, we all have to live together.

This Friday morning we are called upon to stand for something.  We cannot avert our eyes and think that bad things only happen to bad people.  We have to know that there, but for the grace of God, go you or I.  We may be conditioned to judge, but with unconditional love we can live together, and stand for each other.  Our human connections, our neighbors, our family, these are who will get us through, together.

Have a wonderful weekend, Family!

One Love!

Namaste.