The Bigger Picture

The Bigger Picture

    Today was a day of trimming trees for me, nothing too big mind you but just what I could reach with my saw-pole and extender (the trees in our backyard --which were all about 10 feet tall when we moved here-- are now at the 60-foot point; "at least they're done growing," I told the last arborist who had come to do the professional "cleaning," to which he shook his head no and told me that they were all at only about the halfway point...yikes).  Some of the trees in back are box elder trees, native to our area, and the others are a mix of both elms and maple (with one black walnut tree that snuck in thanks to a frisky squirrel whose earlier generations must have forgotten where one of their winter hoards lay buried).  All of them are considered "dirty" trees by many due to the plethora of "helicopter" seeds that twirl down like moths with broken wings, or in the case of the elms, the taffeta paperlike dots of seeds that fall by the hundreds of thousands, day after day (sweep the deck one day and with the first gentle breeze, your efforts are negated); the black walnut is said to poison the soil below it (at least for vegetables or so say gardening manuals).  And all of the trees makes spindly, almost spider-like branches, millions of them, each of which either clings to the high branches above like dangling bleached skeletons, or falls to the yard below like castoffs, hiding beneath the grass until you decide to run in the yard with bare feet and discover that you might have had better odds by throwing a box of push pins on the dirt.  So at the end of a few hours I was doing a bit of grumbling...dang trees.

    Actually, I rather like them, those trees, always talking to them as I cut, telling them that this was nothing more than a trim, a "haircut" if you will.  As they reached for the sun and battled for the light they were forming a tunnel of sorts, or so it seemed.  Back you go, I declared like some wild musketeer yardman.  But in the end, the yard lay littered with everything from limbs the size of plumbing pipes to what I thought was a generous contribution of a gazillion broken-fingerling branches that had accompanied those branches.  Now the cleanup, hours of cleanup.  So you ask, where is all this rambling heading?  Well as it turns out, the quick tree-trimming job took far longer (and took far more out of me) than I expected.  I was getting quite grumpy and impatient, I had other things to do.  Grrrrr...dang trees.  But I had written about this in an earlier post, not so much about the trees but keeping the bigger picture in perspective, and somehow I was appearing to lose sight of this.  Which is when my friend's emails arrived.

    As a surgeon, he's donated his time to many less-than-fortunate people, bartering with them (in one case, a wheelbarrow full of stone crab claws from a crab fisherman) in exchange for doing their necessary surgery.  And now he was with Doctors Without Borders, volunteering once again only this time near a portion of the Syrian border.  He had done this before when the earthquakes rocked Haiti; but this was his first foray into a war setting, and it was unrelenting.  He wrote to me: Living next to my compound with rest of their clan/tribe in several tents made of camel and sheep hairs.  Roula and Hadi.  Beautiful.  War continues 2 miles from here on Syrian border...despite Ramadan.  Very tragic injuries most nights from bombing and shelling.  Not describable.  Here's Roula and Hadi, local Bedouin children from the nearby town outside the camp (no pictures are allowed in the camps):

     I wrote back to him: Unbelievable that you're so close to seeing it all.  As much as any of us can attempt to visualize the horror you're seeing, it likely doesn't even come close.  Good for you for even being there, along with all the others...it must break your heart to see such beautiful children and people and all of it not their fault but caught in this ridiculous crossfire.  Just your photo alone made us want to reach out an adopt their entire family, one small drop in what now seems an overflowing bucket.  Somewhat reminds me of that film, the volunteer surgeon in Africa coming home now and then and having difficulty managing the petty problems he faced when he had witnessed such a bigger picture.  At any rate, we will hear as much or as little of it as you want when we meet.  Take care, and thanks for writing.

    He responded: I will surely have a re-entry period.  I remember after I returned from earthquake in Haiti I was amazed at what people complained about in US.  Was difficult for a while.  Will be much more poignant after this one.  Was at refugee camp yesterday..80,000 Syrians in 108 deg temp in middle of desert in metal containers.  Can't leave.  Then ISIS suicide car bomb went over at adjacent border crossing.  It never ends for them.  I replied: One can't imagine and likely you're discovering the same lack of words.  It's somewhat like getting people to relate to being paralyzed, just incomprehensible.  Still, as you've likely heard about the UK voting to leave, much was made of anti-refugee sentiment.  Sometimes I think our humanity is so bubble-wrapped by the media that we are forgetting who we are inside; I hope that we still have that basic humanity inside us.  Just the ISIS stuff and the urge to join or destroy puzzles me...what causes that shift?  Anyway, thanks from afar for all that you and the other doctors and volunteers are doing, not only there but in so many other areas of the world.  Each step begins with putting one foot forward, even if it seems that a bully might be pushing you backward.  Try not to let it get you down (impossible, I know, but try)...it IS being recognized, maybe silently, but it really is.  His answer: Europe and US definitely shifting quickly to xenophobic cultures.  Jordan has absorbed millions from Syria and Palestine and Iraq but financially they are strapped.  Conditions tough here except for urban subculture in Amman...The Syrians I treat are all grateful and I feel no anti-Amertican sentiment.  I am the only American here presently.  Anyway, taking it day by day and patient by patient. 

    Humanity.  That's what I was losing sight of.  It was right there, even as my friend was perhaps adding horrifying memories to his brain, all as he tried to do what he could to make a tiny bit of difference.  It made me think of countless medics and others in the field, each trying to do what was right; except that these people being wounded and now living in such conditions were apparently just trying to get away from something far worse, leaving their homes for places unknown, metal shelters in 108-degree heat...and this was a better choice for them instead of what faced them at "home."  It was something I simply couldn't grasp, me worrying about the delay my tree branches were causing me from my normal "schedule," and my friend worrying about whether this child or parent running to get out would last long enough to have their wound closed before they bled out, their life cut short for reasons they (or I) couldn't understand.

    The movie I mentioned was the Danish film, In A Better World, several years old but giving you an idea of the jump from our everyday "troubles" to an isolated camp where being a doctor or surgeon is no guarantee that you are protected from bullets.  The reality of life or death is suddenly real, and non-stop, and without end, and without reason it would seem.  My trees?  Nothing.  Nothing at all.  Once again, I needed a wake up, I needed to realize that I was breathing normally and had a home and had running water and had free time to write this...free time.  How precious was that?  How precious was life?  My friend was doing his best, saving lives and perhaps both building and damaging himself.  He was one of many, one small part of humanity...I just needed to be reminded that the word "human" was in that word, and to reflect on what all of that really meant.