My mission mother – Carolyn

So, I’d never replace my mother in a million years. I’ve experienced things on this trip that have made me want my mother. Of course, she’s back home in Walla Walla and unable to hug me when I need it.

Our head nurse, Carolyn, has filled the role as a surrogate. She’s the wife of this mission’s medical director and an experienced mission worker having done about 30 of these trips. She’s a force to reckon with, pushing the mission’s interests ahead with rock-solid poise, a constant smile, and a kind word for everyone. She is my mission mother.



At the center of it all, Carolyn works with everyone
maintaining the schedule and focus with a smile
throughout every day. From where I sit, this
is a common scene (reviewing upcoming cases with
surgeons Jim and Sandy, and anesthesiologist Fiona)



This is a woman to be cloned, people. Along with her husband, Frank, she’s raised two daughters who both learned service as modeled by their parents and both work in service jobs. She admitted that her girls could have been given more growing up. After all, their father is a doctor. And, she heard all of the complaints about what friends had what designer things and what they got to do while Carolyn and her husband held a more modest standard. Today, she can be proud. But she’s modest about it. I coaxed it all out of her. It’s not hard to see why it happened this way – she’s really a solid person inside and out. In retirement, she’s still serving alongside of her husband a couple of times each year and experiencing the world by giving to it.

During our short visit after yesterday’s clinic, she warned me about the “re-entry” from a mission trip, admitting that every time she goes home following one of these ordeals of service, she’s reminded of how excessive we are and how little we have to complain about. She’s right, of course. I’ll blog more on the situation here later. I know what she’s talking about though. It’s hard to imagine that my priority for an easy Saturday is getting a pedicure – that it’s my greatest “need” for the day. We really can do with so much less. An experience like this is a reminder that we should bitch less about our lot and act more in the interests of those who have FAR less than we do. I’ll step off my soap box now.

Yesterday, as I was pushing through the process of receiving every patient and creating their charts, I had several tough moments. At the end of the day, exhausted and emotional, I collapsed into her open arms recounting the impact of what I’d seen. I admitted to her how hard it was to look at each disfigured face and that I had focused on the eyes of each person to get through it. She said “The eyes tell you who they are.” And it’s true. In every situation, I saw the desperate plea in the parent’s eyes begging “please help my child.” I saw the fear in the eyes of the children and in some, a weariness – that they’d already been through so much. In other’s it was curiosity about who we, the volunteers, are and where we come from. There is was so much in those eyes. And I’m still processing it.

But, mother Carolyn, she’s been the glue on this mission so far. I couldn’t let another day go by without sharing the gift that she’s been to all of us.