Joy and Mental Walls

My roommate Carley and I had a really good conversation today. It came about because I found an old blog from a girl that came to Romania previously and loved it.  And- all of her posts were about these deep spiritual insights she was receiving about her kids lives and how much Christ loves them, but also about how hard it is for her emotionally to keep doing the work. It sounds like she had several emotional breakdowns.

At first, I thought, “Hey- how come I'm not having these deep spiritual insights about how much Christ loves these children and how much they deserve to be in families? Maybe I need to start searching a little bit deeper into the meaning of life and such during my work.” But then, I realized, “Well- I haven't had any emotional breakdowns either. I like going to work, and I like coming home. And when I come home to the apartment, I really come home. I leave it all at the orphanage and come home to delicious meals of Romanian bread and cheese and adventuring in a town where we don't speak the langauge. It's awesome."

So- which is right? And, which is better?

Well, here's the thing- if I let myself, I could come home every day and keep thinking about the kids. It's human nature to not be okay with their situation. Carley said, “There were kids we saw in the hospital today that had bruises covering their bodies. There's a lot of reasons for that- but not very many are reasons that are okay with me. It is likely abuse- not okay. It could be negligence- not okay. It could be an honest mistake- but if you got in a car crash because you were drunk- that's not okay either. And I could dwell on that. I could come home and cry and cry. I could sit in the hospital room and cry and cry. I could hold the orphans and cry and cry and cry. But what good would that do?

“Anyone can pity an orphan. I'm pretty sure everyone in the world does.” Just watch Annie and see if you don't get a little emotional when she sings, Won't you please come get your baby, maybe.... Everyone pities orphans. I know I do. That's why I came to Romania.

But Carley continued- “But not everyone does something about it. Not everyone leaves their home, their life plans with college and school and work, their families, their comforts, their favorite jar of late night Jif peanut butter, to come to a dumpy apartment with a showerhead that doesn't attach and lightbulbs all burnt out and sketchy elevators to actually bring some light into these kids' lives.”

And- if I set all that aside, not to mention paid quite a bit of money to BYU to do it- what good am I to go in to an orphan and cry on their bed? Orphans already have sorrow- but they're surviving. Orphans are tough. Somehow- they still laugh and smile, because they have learned to live with pain, and it no longer bothers them. Mental and emotional and physical. They don't cry when they are man-handled because they're rarely cuddled and gently stroked. They don't cry when someone they have attached to leaves them, because that's all they've ever known. They don't miss people, because they've never known anyone long enough or grown close enough to miss. Pain is their life. And they're good at it. So- they don't need a foreign girl that doesn't speak their language to come to their hospital bed and cry. Why re-introduce sorrow when there's nothing you can do about it?

What can we do? What can I do? Why did I come here? To bring joy. JOY. Joy. Happiness. And light. And sitting on a bed crying isn't joyful at all. Not for the orphans. Not for me.

I'll tell you what joy is.

Joy is smiling and being so excited to see the kids and seeing their faces light up when they see you, smiling their biggest smiles, and their little legs come running up into your arms, and you wonder if that is the first time they have ever run, because they just learned how to walk last week.

Joy is being a “calul”- a horse, and making trotting noises and neighing and whinnying in a room with other adults, and not caring what they think, and having two kids on your back at the same time riding you and your arms and hands getting sore.

Joy is dancing to Stevie Wonder's “I just called to say I love you” (more than half of music on the radio is from America) with a kid in your arms, and 2 other kids hanging onto your scrub bottoms, waiting in line for their turn to be danced with, and having to switch which kid you are holding every 15 seconds because they all want multiple turns.

Joy is hovering over three kids- a crying baby, a handicapped older kid, and an attention-thirtsy toddler, and getting them all to lay on the ground at the same time so you can make funny faces at them and switch where your eyes rest constantly so you can be looking at all of them, and then tickling all of them, and hearing all three of them laugh at the same time. It's like music.

Joy is when a kid that usually runs back and forth aimlessly and can't ever focus on anything- focuses on you, because you imitate the funny buzzing noises they make, and they get a taste of human-to-human communication.

Joy is bouncing kids on giant rubber balls, with 4 of them all in line, ready for their turn and squealing in pure ecstasy when they finally get their turn.

Joy is taking kids content to sit, blank faced and alone all day every day, and giving them attention, and discovering they own a smile, and a laugh.

Joy is standing by a window with a kid on your hip, and letting him touch the window- feel how cold it is, and point to cars, real cars, bigger than the ones he zooms around on the floor, and see birds fly, and snow, and big, beautiful trees, and bright sunshine, and seeing their faces completely mesmerized by the beauty of it all.

Joy is not crying by a bedside. That's called sorrow.

Joy is hard. Sometimes. But usually it's easy. Sorrow is hard. It wears you down. Joy builds you up.

Joy comes with a price. You have to build mental walls. Some things, you just can't do.

When you are all alone with a kid in a room, hugging him, and he is smiling a smile you didn't know he had, and he loves it, and he is nestling his nose close to yours, you can't sing I am a Child of God. You just can't. Or else the tears come. Sometimes you just have to sing Adelle instead. Or not sing at all. And that's okay.

When foster parents come to look for your kids, or social workers start going into the social histories of the children's families and why they were placed in the orphanage, you have to shut your mind off and for once, try not to translate everything in Romanian, and convince yourself that those unfortunate circumstances did not exist. All that exists is here and now- and we are coloring pictures of cars with yellow and red crayons.

You have to, unfortunately, desensitize yourself to pain. When in Romania, do as the Romanians. And- as the orphans. Don't cringe when the nurses slam kids on the bed or hit their head with the top of their pen when the kids are naughty. Don't cringe or think bad thoughts about the workers. The workers are good people. Extremely good people. They are all taking pay cuts and refusing other jobs to work here with the kids, because they love the kids. You see tenderness from them all the time- tenderness, and patience, and love. It just might not be in the way you are used to seeing love expressed. So- force yourself to think that being rough isn't wrong. You can change your mind when you get back to America.

When you hear sobs coming from the bathroom where a 2-year old has been sitting on their potty chair for an hour waiting for poop or pee to come out, and they can't leave until they do, just sing a little louder to the kid you're with, and white noise it out. It is not your place to interrupt the very well-tried system of these workers who have worked here 17 years, and honestly, know more than you do. WAY more than you do. Don't let your ignorance get the best of you. And don't try to change their ways until you can successfully spoon-feed kids as quickly and cleanly and happily as they do. And if you still disagree, hey- at least someone is potty training those kids.

When nurses come to put feeding tubes up the noses of children who can eat with a spoon when someone sits down and spends a good 30 minutes working through a meal with them, you just have to turn your back and look away. The staff is not heartless. There just isn't enough of them- and they don't have time to give each child all the attention they deserve. But the children need to be fed. And so, tube feeding is okay.

When you go home, you have to leave it all at work, forget that your kids are still there at the orphanage without you, and have fun. Try new recipes. Eat all the chocolate and donor kebabs and gogosi that you can. Look at silly you-tube videos. Explore the city. Play card games. Order pizza and watch Daddy Day care. Go shopping for beautiful Romanian scarves. Joy people, joy.

So- I'm okay not having big spiritual insights. I just want to be happy. And I want my kids to be happy. And we're pretty good at doing that.

And so we continue...