"I know you give because you want to
Don't you think it's time you learn to let yourself receive?"
"I Was Born To Love You" - Ray LaMontagne
I've listened to this song a lot on my current playlist but these lyrics really hit me in the chest as I thought about writing this morning.
I think most people would classify me as a pretty open person, even audaciously so, and that is true. But the really precious pieces of my life I am more careful about.
This new year has felt like a renewal of priorities for me. For some reason I was able to slow down enough to see the passage of time this holiday season and really take stock of the last few years and what I'm looking for moving forward. I can work hard. I don't think anyone would deny that. Being a workhorse is a big part of my identity and that was amplified in the pandemic. I had my babies, I was in a position to work hard and I did - I worked really really hard. If I wasn't working I was feeling guilty about not working because I knew how much need there was. I could be completely consumed by the volume of work and my sense of self within it because when you commit so many hours to something you become really good at it and I have said before work is sometimes easier than other aspects of life because that is where my capabilities shine because that is the place I have invested the most time. But going back to Edmonton at the holidays started chipping away at the shell I built around the certain parts of my heart, not the doctor parts or the mama parts but the parts of me as a woman in mid-life. The hugs and love from cousins and college friends and people who knew me without my major titles of doctor and mother were the catalyst to start feeling comfortable at looking at those parts of myself again.
My most important work in my new administrative role is the work we have been doing with Indigenous Health. That was the number one priority for me when I applied for the job and navigating this process has taken me places I never would have expected. The biggest unexpected gift has been partnering with the Grannies at the Women's Health Clinic. I came to the Sacred Fire at the Dancing Northern Lights not knowing anyone and was greeted so warmly especially by Grandma Louise. So often when I meet people it's what I can provide for them whether as their physician or as the section head of Peds Gyne or the site head of the building. Here was a woman who asked nothing of me other than what was on my heart. When I shared with her my distress around CFS experiences at HSC and wanting change she smiled eyes to eyes and heart to heart and said "Amanda we can do this." That was a loud but gentle knock on the part of my heart that I was keeping really protected - let us in, we can do this.
We have had a few meetings now - all in circle and each time I feel less alone and more a part of a community. So on Wednesday when Grandma Louise emailed me that she wanted to meet before our next meeting that became my top priority. Do you want to come over for lunch on Friday?
Friday morning Grandma Louise and Grandma Jeannie in their beautiful ribbon skirts came up the snowy steps of our house for lunch. They meandered through the kitchen and looked out to the river and through the bookshelves just like my own grandma would have done. We sat down at the dining room table with the china that my Oma bought for our wedding. Grandma Louise brought berries which has meaning in her culture but also has meaning in mine as my refugee grandparents spent their summers picking those berries in the Fraser Valley and so did I as a little girl. My mom's quilted centerpiece was under the candle in the middle of the table and a basket from the Sacred Forest in Kenya and surrounded by the cookbook on the counter of my grandma's best recipes with her and her outstretched arms on the cover and the photograph on the wall of my grandfather at the head of the table on the porch with all my great aunts and uncles; over these elements Grandma Louise asked me how I became a doctor. I could see reminders throughout the house of all of the people who supported and loved me to get to where I've gotten today: pictures of Catherine and the community in Salima who decided I should become a doctor, the little birch bark canoes that Phil's grandma made for our wedding, I shared with her that my grandfather had been the janitor of the hospital when I grew up and how I wanted to be just like him when I grew up because he was so loved and respected. "So it was really a calling Amanda". She asked me with the curious heart of someone who has seen so much in life and I felt so seen and cared for. Grandma Louise is powerful and grounded and that energy is missing in our work and so needed. Grandma Jeannie is an artist and being around her is like if a person was molded around a sunbeam. After our last meeting at Odeimin she came out to tell me she had an idea for a mural that is incredible and I was worried they wouldn't let us put it on the wall "We'll build our own wall - it's going to be great" and then she gave me a big hug. I was post-call and I think I could have moved mountains after that hug. The lunch at our house was about how big we could dream. What do we want to create at the hospital and how we could begin to achieve that. What I thought this was going to be when we started has shifted. There are the tangible pieces of shared programming within the hospital and in community that I think will be incredible. The ideas on how to make people feel more welcomed in our sterile space. All of the concrete things that I hoped would come out of this group. But there are some big things I hadn't anticipated. I hadn't expected that the sharing circles we have had where beautiful and creative decisions have come out in organic ways is how I want all important meetings to be. If we are talking about improving things I want people who have been directly impacted to share their experiences and their ideas for moving forward in a meaningful way. There is some resistance to that approach but I have seen a new way now and I don't think I can go back.
But when Grandma Louise asked me what my big dream would be - the one you are sort of nervous to share cause it seems too difficult - I want people to leave their work and leave the hospital with the feeling that I get when I spend time with the Grandmas. They fill my heart right up to the top and the hard stuff in my job doesn't feel as hard because I feel so seen and cared for and listened to when I am with them. I didn't earn this feeling. Truthfully everything about white supremacy and colonialization should deny me this privilege but I feel freely loved. And that gives me wings and fuels my spirit.
In my life the two words most commonly used after "universal" are "health care" and "love". So much of health care is devoid of love - it's been beaten out of us as health care workers and it's what patients are most looking for when they need care. When I hear from patients about their bad experiences in the hospital it is rarely because of a missed diagnosis or medication error - it's that they didn't feel cared for. Health care workers don't feel cared for either and that's why physicians who already make a lot of money keep asking for more - thinking that the gaping hole they feel can be satiated by a higher income.
I would like to centre this care and groundedness and love as the heart of the work we do. I would like to weave it into everything so it is inseperable from reproductive health and can't be undone by someone looking to dismantle it. If we put this work at the centre the garden of what we can achieve scientifically and medically will feel richer and more beautiful. Sooooooo just a small dream but something I think we can achieve with the guidance that is being offered. I am so humbled by this gift in my work and in my life.
The hugs at my front door yesterday I still feel this morning. They felt familiar like the hugs my grandma used to give. Oh how she would have loved these women.
After my time with the Grandmas I was able to go out skiing on the Assiniboine river walking past where we placed the ashes from the sacred fire from Winter Solstice and reflecting on all I have learned with fresh air in my lungs as the sun set over the city.
After putting the kids to bed I had time to myself and I thought it was the perfect time to use the cedar bath ingredients that were given to me as a gift after our last sharing circle. I followed the instructions and as the cedar was soaking beside the bath I realized it was sitting on the little bench I have from my grandparents. The one my grandma would put out for me to sit in the garden as we waited for tea time with my grandfather when he came home from the hospital. I sent a picture to my mom saying that grandma felt near me all day and she reminded me that her birthday was tomorrow. How fitting that she sent me grandmas in my life when I was in such need of them.
Cedar baths are for cleansing and purification and I woke up this morning feeling amazing. I am letting go of the work of the pandemic and looking forward to the work ahead. My grandma was an incredible baker and used to say "Put a little love in it". That's what I intend to do. And I'm so grateful to find a group of people who've put a little love in me too.
