Memories
Sometimes, I want to forget.
The heart-wrenching pain of seeing tiny bodies so emaciated and knowing there’s nothing we can do to save them.
The tiny baby born too early, his body too fragile to survive outside the womb.
The mom having seizures, eclampsia, while we rush her into the operating room for an emergency C-section.
The boy in a coma from malaria, he’s not responding to treatment.
The old lady with a prolapsed uterus who has no interest in ever having sex again because it only brought her pain.
Yes, I want to forget them. To pretend that they never happened.
Can’t I just put up a shield and pretend it was all just a bad dream? That the world could never be that cruel, that painful, that sad?
Can’t I just pretend that everything is perfect and right in the world?
Can’t I just remember the good times? Dancing under the stars to African folk music and Justin Bieber. Swimming in the nasty cow excrement filled river. Flying to spend the weekend on safari.
Can’t I just remember shopping for the library and singing songs with the kids under the palm trees?
Can’t I just make Beignets, beans, rice, and goat sauce and pretend that there is enough food in the world for everybody?
Can’t we just work together to make the world better?
Can’t we just put away this whole us versus them mentality that we all have?
Can’t we just make this world perfect? If we really, really try, can’t we make it perfect?
But I can’t forget. And we can’t make the world perfect.
We can make it better if we choose to remember our humanity every day.
If we choose to we can make the world just a tiny bit brighter.
