Connections

      On Sunday, we began our final week in Piura. It's still difficult to wrap my mind around the fact that we're nearing our time here. It seems like I just woke up to catch my early morning flight to head down here. The days and weeks have absolutely flown by. I'm ready to go home to my friends and family, but I'm not at all ready or willing to leave the people I've met, or the memories I've made. We've been really busy the last few days working late into the night to perfect our projects, only to get up early to start our clinical days. Over the past few days, it's been hard to find time to sit and think but in the moments we drive over to our sites or before mass begins, I think we've all been reflecting on our time here.
     Before I left the States, I expressed my doubt to my family and friends about if studying abroad would really help me learn about myself, nursing, and others. I was hesitant to leave. I talked to my dad a lot about it and he reminded me that although I had seen a third world country and seen poverty, I hadn't worked within its walls. I had not experienced what it means to be truly compassionate. He told me I had to be immersed into something that was completely unnatural to me in order to understand the healthcare I take for granted back home and to comprehend how the people who are less fortunate get by, so that I can learn how to become a better person for others.
     I remember being flustered before I left the States. I had packing to get done, people to call, flights to double check, emails to send. The list went on and on. Even when I landed here, I felt like I wouldn't be able to completely live in the moment because there's always something else left to do on our lists, right? But what I've learned here is the importance of being truly present. There's a beauty in living simply. During my time here, I've realized who's important to me, what issues are worth fighting for, and how to be happy with what I have because regardless of what I have, the most important is that I am able to love and know that I am loved.
     The people here are so compassionate. They welcome all of us into their homes, they share their stories with complete strangers, and ask us to do the same. I've learned that simply sitting besides someone can make a difference. Many of the people we visit for clinical are widowed and living on their own. Along with any physical ailments they might have, they always say that they're lonely, that they miss their life partner.
     My dad told me once that people are inherently wired to find a person or a group of people to belong to. That's why we get married, or have children, or make friends. We create and maintain connections with others so that at the end of our lives, someone knows what our daily struggles and accomplishments were. Someone is there to validate who we were, what we did, how we lived. The people in Piura taught me that although someone is old and can no longer walk or talk, they still lived a life with connections. They did things for others and for themselves in order to be happy. They lived just as I am. My time here has taught me to respect the life stories I will never know but have the privilege to protect near the end of life.
     With all of the older people I have cared for while being here, I've seen a loved one in their eyes. At first I was sad, knowing that eventually I'll be saying goodbye to the people I've come to love and that people will be doing the same to me one day. But then I understood why living in the present is so necessary. If we're always thinking about the future and crossing off to do lists, we never really live for now. We live for later, and eventually later catches up to us and we look back and wonder where our gift of life went.
     The people in Piura taught me what it means to live and to let life change us in order to become better. Better for the people around us, for ourselves, and for the people we'll never meet, but whom will be effected by how we treat others. Piura taught me that in whatever I do, I must be present and give it my all because if I don't, I'm not being respectful to those who are. Peru taught me that life is not a competition, but a journey through which we should meet people in order to learn as well as teach. The Peruvians helped me realize that I have the ability to choose to be positive or negative. They helped me understand that compassion does not know boundaries. They helped me realize that home is what you need it to be and that human connections are what make life worth living.