Like Facing a Firing Squad

July 23rd, 2003
Just got back from an admissions interview at Berkeley. I think it went well, and I'm pretty sure that's not just the projection of wishful thinking.
One guy, a Dr. O'Malley, said I'd have a lot to make up for by looking at my grades. But, he'd continued, with a gentle smile, he understood that there'd been extenuating circumstances surrounding my graduation. They liked my essay, for which I was glad. It was all true, and it was all honest:
I want to go to school, to this school for a multitude of reasons. I want to honor my mother's memory. I want to keep the promise I'd made myself as a child: to help people.
That was how it started. I talked honestly about how those plans had been derailed. Then I talked about the consequences of ignoring my obvious path. That's really what I think happened. I don't know if it's as strong as destiny, but I have always, always known in my heart that I am meant to help people. I've spent some time deciding what that means, and trying to reconcile my selfishness with what help really means.
Help means giving people what they really need to improve their condition. Sometimes this might mean defending someone's right to die, and I know this sounds better and less tricky on paper than it will be when I really face it. It always sounds easy on paper, I'm sure of that.
Maybe that was the help my mom really needed. She didn't want a cure. She didn't want to be fixed. She wanted reassurance. She wanted to know I was going to be alright, and I denied her that because I was too young and too selfish to understand. She tried pointing me in the right direction, like she understood what I was meant for. Parents are their own kind of magic, I guess.
Only I was too stubborn to listen and when she decided I would be ok without her, I decided to prove her wrong. I ran away from what I was meant for, ran into a war and did all I could to get shot. Only they didn't shoot anything important. Each of the eight bullets I took outside of Kabul missed organs and arteries. I'm not a mathematician, I don't know what the chances of that are, but I know they are small. They were, I think, warning shots from the powers that be.
And now, after encouragement from my deceased mother and a crazy man dying from cancer, I want to help again. Every step I take in that direction makes me feel stronger and a little less off-balance.

Progress

July 22nd, 2003
Dr. Thrace thinks I'm ready to stop seeing her on a weekly basis. She is of the opinion that I've made enough progress to switch to monthly appointments. For all of the good she's done me, I'm not sure why I'm paying her instead of Hal.

Just a Fading Memory

July 18th, 2003
I went and saw Hal again last night. He doesn't sleep much either, says the meds keep him awake. My shift ended, and I walked into his room carrying a big folder.
"What's that you got there, peach?" Hal smiled a little, a very subtle smile.
"Applications," I smiled back, but bigger. "I'm learning to listen to my elders."

We chatted some, but mostly I worked. He said he knew I'd be bringing these by.
As I filled out form after form for transcript requests, SAT scores and personal essays, I felt a little more right on the inside. Like someone was plucking all the shrapnel out of my throat and my heart. Like something was changing me, burning away who I used to be.
I know that Afghanistan changed me. For the better, I hope. I have a feeling I won't really know for a while.
I just know I'm not the same Laurel I was when my mom died. I'm scared and skittish and I don't like people touching me and most of the time I'd just rather be alone. So of course I'm pursuing a career where I'll be surrounded by people. Maybe, just maybe, if I can figure out how to fix them, I'll learn how to fix me.

"I used to be so big and strong, I used to know my right from wrong.
I used to never be afraid, I used to be somebody.
I used to have something inside, now just this hole it's open wide.
I used to want it all.
I used to be somebody.
I'll cross my heart and hope to die, but the needle's already in my eye.
And all the world's weight is on my back and I don't even know why.
And what I used to think was me is just a fading memory..."
Nine Inch Nails, Down in It

Basket Case

"Do you have the time
To listen to me whine
About nothing and everything all at once?
I am one of those
Melodramatic fools
Neurotic to the bone
No doubt about it
Sometimes I give myself the creeps
Sometimes my mind plays tricks on me..."
Green Day, Basket Case



I haven't slept in a week or so.

Let me start over.
Last night, after my shift ended I went and hung out with Mr. Della'Alba. After the other day, he apologized and told me to stop by any time. Something about me being better looking than Nurse Ratchet.
So I went by to talk to him, and he asked me the weirdest question.
"What's haunting you, little girl?"
I felt my brow furrow and my head quirk a millisecond before I felt my throat close and my eyes start leaking. Tears, I mean. I started crying. God, that sounded a little dramatic. He wasn't trying to kill me like Darth Vader or anything, the guy can barely get out of bed. And I'm hedging.
Big girl breath here.

I told him everything. I told him about my dead dad. I have a picture of him and Mom, just after they were married, that I took from Mom's wallet.
"Devastating" doesn't begin to cover it. He could have leveled the hearts of a nation with a look. Mom said I got that from him. I told Mr. Della'Alba about how, even though I never knew the guy, I missed him. Mom told me about him sometimes, his temper and his brilliance: "Just like the sun," she'd say. "Bright and burning. Sometimes you couldn't stand too close without feeling like you were going to melt and plummet, screaming into the sea." Mom said I got his temper too. Yay?
I told Mr. Della'Alba, who told me his name was Harold and to call him Hal, about how my dad was great with home remedies and knowing how to kiss in just the right spot and make the pain go away. His cups of tea cured everything from migraines to chicken pox. All of this, according to my mom. He could have been a neurosurgeon or invented the next synthetic heart, she'd said. Instead he went to fight in some conflict in the Balkans and never came home. Two months later, I came screaming into her world. She said I got his eyes, dark sometimes but always with a hint of gold around the edges. Weird eyes, that just get brighter. She missed him too.
I told Hal about how my mom wanted me to study medicine, how I wanted to study medicine myself.
"It's something I just picked up," I'd shrugged. "And it always made me feel better knowing that someone else's pain was lessened. Just because I was lucky enough to be there with the bandage or the aspirin. It was mind boggling, Mom said, how I always managed to find the wounded birds, especially in the fall when the crows would come. Neighborhood cats hated the crows, and they'd always fall flapping into our backyard. I'd carry them into the house, bleeding and squawking. Mom would scream everytime, until I cried long enough that she'd let me set up a nursing station to mend it. I probably picked and nursed twenty birds over the years." I grinned a little, remembering how comforting the sound of wings used to be.
"Then," I went on, "Mom got sick." The statement hung there for a moment, heavy as a loaded gun.
"So I stopped praying at the altar of Hippocrates, because he stopped listening. She'd finish a round of chemo, she'd get better long enough for her hair to start growing back - grey now, and thin - before the ultrasounds would show new tumors. Mom kept it up for four years: tumor, treatment, remission, relapse. Tumor, treatment, remission, relapse. Repeat.
Then we started to fight. Graduation loomed and I didn't want to go into pre-med anymore. I didn't see the point. All the technology and treatment in the world couldn't seem to help her body from turning against itself.
We kept fighting. I had a gift, and she wanted me to share it. I didn't want to help a world that couldn't help my mom. Then she died.
I guess an accurate description would be to say that I snapped. I finished high school - barely. I'd been poised to graduate 6th in a class of 2,000. I stopped doing homework. College level Biology was the only class I kept attending, and I went from 6th to 282nd in my class. I spent the last week of school taking makeup tests that I just barely passed. At least I didn't need a job. Mom had taken out a massive insurance policy to take care of me and the house. Enough to put me through med school, her last letter to me said. What a shame that I decided not to go."
"Is that all?" Hal interrupted my pity party. "Mom died, and now you're taking it out on the world by mopping floors? I remember being your age, peach. Every death is a tragedy, and when the deaths were at home, shit. The world ended. But this was in high school, right? It's been a while, peach." I don't know why he called me peach.
"Yeah, Hal. It's been a while since she died. It's been one year, six months, eight days, six hours and twenty-four minutes. But that 'wisdom' about time healing all wounds? That there," I mimicked his down-home accent playfully, "is horse shit. Because I'm still counting every minute that she's gone."
"Alright, it still hurts. So what? It probably always will. Get fucking used to it, cuz that's what people do when they're done living. They die." He looked at me intently, unapologetic for the razor edge to his voice. "You know and I know that's not what chases you in those hallways. It's not why you take the extra time with the battered women and children." His voice softened a little, soothed a lot. I was glad that he wasn't being gentle with me, treating me like I was going to break.
Part of me wanted to wonder who the hell this guy even was and why the hell I was spilling my guts to a man with no testicles and one lung, but I was here and I just kept talking. Some switch in my head said I just needed to talk to someone, and this felt like the right place to do it.
"No, Hal. She's not the reason why."
Another big girl breath.
Doctor Thrace, I know this is a long entry. So you're welcome to take a break and make a sandwich, or some tea. Or drink some whiskey.
Better? Ok, onward and upward.

"I barely graduated high school after she died," I repeated. Stalling. "I just didn't feel like going anymore, or talking to anyone. I stayed home and read, rather than put on something besides pajamas."
"What'd ya read? Please tell me you're better than Danielle Steel and trashy romances." He was jabbing at me to make me angry, make me laugh. Anything but make me cry. Good. Anger's always kept me stronger.
"Nah, I'm not that kind of girl, " I laughed. "I mostly read anatomy books, bio stuff. Some of the old Greek myths Mom used to read to me, like the Odyssey. But I was just killing time until high school ended. On graduation day I went to the enlistment office for the army and signed up. Threw away my acceptance letters from UCLA and Berkeley and some from the East Coast and started basic training as soon as I could."
"You learn anything helpful? What I hear, the army is better at fuckin' people up than fixin' them." He had another coughing fit. I should keep doing the talking.
I shrugged. "It taught me a few things. I learned how to shoot, how to throw a solid punch, how to handle a knife, how to throw it if I needed. I learned how to take orders, and how to give a few. I learned how to cut a man open without killing him, how to sew him back up before he bled out and how not to let him die from shock in between. But some of that was after I got deployed." I took a breath and got us both some water, hedging again.
"Mostly, you're right. I got messed up. I was assigned to be the medic for a troop in a village south of Kabul. We were evacuating the area one night in preparation for a rather disappointing raid, and my company found some stragglers. Six women and nine children who'd been unable to leave when we first issued the order. So my company requested orders and suddenly we turned into an evac detail. The orders were pretty straightforward. Get to a safehouse, like a jail or something, and hole up for a little less than a week. A rescue transport will be on its way, they promised us. It would just take a while because it was on its way from Logar Airport." I think I started getting misty-eyed here, the room got a little blurry. "Five nights into the mission, one of the kids started crying. He was maybe three years old. He was tired, hungry and starting to get sick. He started crying early in the day and wouldn't stop. I didn't have any medicine to give him, I couldn't figure out what was wrong..." I leaned forward and something dropped from my face to my hand. Water. Tears. I sniffed and the words kept coming, like they'd been locked behind a floodgate.
"At midnight some patrols passed by and must have heard him crying. They busted in the door. It splintered and flew off its hinges. The militants screamed at us in a language I didn't know. It could have been Arabic, or Farsi or anything, really. My buddies didn't understand or didn't move fast enough because we all got shot before we could even ready our weapons. I fell down on my stomach, my side all blown to Hell." I'd set my water down and was hugging myself, the fingers on my right hand running over where I knew the round, puckered scars covered my left side. I kept going.
"They lined up the kids against the window, the crying one first. One guy took a handgun and shot each kid between the eyes. I couldn't move. I couldn't turn my head, I couldn't look away, I couldn't stop seeing their tiny terrified faces beneath the muzzle flash." I was shaking now, not cold but shivering.
"Then they stripped the women. Each one of them was stripped naked, and I remember thinking that they were all beautiful. They were terrified and cold, but they were beautiful because they were alive. And I realized that, the being alive, was why I'd always wanted to do the medicine thing. Life is something that should be protected."
I paused to pick up my water and empty the small cup. I fidgeted with it as I continued, turning it over and splattering droplets on the floor. "Then the fuckers raped them all. They noticed I was conscious, and leered. They um... they thrust harder, more violently and the women ...screamed for help I couldn't give them." There was a long pause. I didn't say anything and Hal didn't say anything.
Hal finally broke the silence. "Goddamn, kid. That's rough."
Another moment passed before he continued, "I get it. People are vicious these days. Fuckin' monsters."
"Yeah," I murmured. "Then they just... watched the women cry for a while, curled up on the floor, before they shot them. Some in the back. Some in the chest. I lost track. They turned to go, spit on me, kicked me in the ribs a few times and left me alone in that house. Nothing but gurgles and the smell of people... what used to be people, losing control of their bodies to keep me company." I paused again, waiting for the breakdown to come. And I waited. And waited. And I was ok, so I went on with the story. "They threw in an incendiary of some sort, as a parting gift. The house burned to the ground with me in it. As it fell apart, something fell on my legs, and broke them. And I was trapped. I remember thinking that I wished I would die. Not that I thought I would, but I wished it. It would be easier."
"I'm not sure how much later, but the rescue transport finally arrived. The house was just smoldering at that point. I was in shock, and I looked like hell warmed over, they tell me. Babbling and bleeding but not really responsive. A friend of mine was on the transport, said he didn't know how I still had blood to lose when they found me. I was the only survivor and got the honor of id'ing the rest of my buddies. I spent some time in the hospital, mending physically. My legs were in casts, and I had to have several hours of surgery to find all of the bullets stuck in my torso. Two of my ribs were broken. It took some time, but they fixed my body, more or less." I sighed, a long and draining sigh. "But lots of shit was going down simultaneously so no one was really able to worry about poor little Laurel's mental breakdown. They did have time to find me unfit for duty, though, and ship me back home to an empty house. Doctor Thrace contacted me afterward, and I was tired of feeling like I'd eaten shrapnel so I started working with her."
"And here y'are, peach. Little worse for the wear."
"And here I am," I spread my hands. "Been through Hell and got the scars to prove it," I stood and started to raise my shirt a little. His heart rate went up slightly.
"Easy grandpa, they're on my side." I showed him the mass of scar tissue that wrapped from just beneath my left breast, down to my hip around the left side of my torso, and his heart rate went back to normal.
"Christ on a fuckin' bike," Hal muttered.
"Indeed," I nodded. I looked at the clock and figured even if I couldn't sleep, he probably should. "I'll pop by tomorrow, Hal." I smiled a little.
"Alright, take care of yourself, peach."

And I realized I was feeling a little bit better. Maybe I'll be okay, after all. Or maybe I'll just be okay with being a headcase forever.

Avoiding the Problem

July 12th, 2003
Doctor Thrace says that, "While what you've produced is interesting, I'm not sure that you really understood what I was asking of you with this journal."
So I'm supposed to write about what happened over there.

I'm not ready yet.

A Desperate Way to Look...

July 5th, 2003
Mr. Della'Alba called me into his room from the hallway today. "You're a sweet kid," he said to me. "More than that though, you got some brains and good instincts for how to treat people. I been meanin' to tell ya -" And here he went into a coughing fit. We think the cancer's moved into his lungs. Surgery obviously didn't get everything before it metastasized.
"Hweaugh," he wheezed, before managing to catch his breath and continue. I grabbed him some water to help the rasps.
"You, peach, you'd be good at the big-kid stuff. You got some damage, so what. Who fucking doesn't, these days? Stop mopping the floors. Get your ass in gear, and start filling out the charts. If I'd had a bright pair of eyes like yours, eyes with fire and a good goddamn left in 'em, lookin' after me, maybe I'd still have my nuts."
My eyes widened, and I stifled a shocked laugh. "Uh, thanks Mr. D., but I'm not really all that sure -"
"Fuck 'sure', kid. I've never been sure of anything, 'til now. Two things, though, I'm sure of: One, Dirty Ol' Hal is gonna die, dressed in a sheet with my ass hanging out. Two, you need to be a doctor. I seen ya talking to yourself, arguing with yourself and holding your head. I seen you crying over the buckets, which honestly looks stupid. Tears look fucking ridiculous on you. I seen you freeze when they bring a kid past you. But no matter what issues you think you got, mopping floors ain't gonna fix squat."
"Well," I laughed. "I thought I was coping quite well." I sniffed a little. This was getting uncomfortable. I was starting to think of Mom. It's a fresh wound, still.
"Look, I don't really care what you've got to cope with. I probably won't be around long enough to see it matter, but I wanted the chance to talk some sense into your crazy ass. Anyway. I'm sure you've got somewhere else to be, now."
"Mmk..." I squinted a little. This guy switches so quickly from mild to Mojave, it leaves you spinning a little sometimes. I turned around to leave, after asking if he needed anything else.
"Nah, just think about what I said. You've got fingers meant for ministering, stitching and shit. Not mopping up shit."

Weird old guy.

"Another promise fallen through, another season passes by you
I never took the smile away from anybody's face
And that's a desperate way to look for someone who is still a child...
So take that look out of here
It doesn't fit you
Because it's happened doesn't mean you've been discarded
Pull up your head off the floor,
Come up screaming
Cry out for everything you ever might have wanted
I thought that pain and truth were things that really mattered
But you can't stay here with every single hope you had, shattered..."
Big Country, In a Big Country