True Life: Love Doesn’t Make Sense

    The first wave of screaming nannies shuffles in at 6 am. Bare feet scrape the floor and the startling clang of kitchenware crashing onto the floor wakes me from sleep. Not long after their indiscreet arrival, the tangy scent of curry permeates throughout my room from the cracks in the door. I pull back the rose-printed curtain from the window above my bed, only to reveal the same chaos that occurs every morning. Women, both young and old, scatter across the room in sarees and punjabis. They giggle as they scoop rice into their mouths, banter to each other in Telegu, and bark humorously at the watch man as he holds out a plate to receive his breakfast. Puddles of brown curry dot the floor and steam floats in hazy clouds over the rice cookers. Soft morning light drips over the room like honey, slowly and sweetly. Once again, India romances me fit of unorganized beauty, just before I rest my head back on pillow.
     Three hours later, I rise again. I look like Beetlejuice when I step in front of the mirror to brush my teeth. My bed-head juts out in every direction and yesterday’s mascara still lingers in black rings under my eyes. Barely opening my eyes, I dress myself in a tunic smudged with an unknown substance and a pair of faded jeans that I haven’t bothered to wash in a month. I begin my fifteen minute walk beneath the southern Indian sun and by the time I arrive at preschool, sweat is rolling down my face. A child runs up to me and moves her hands over my arms and legs as she grunts “hello”. Stubby black eyelashes flutter over the fleshy pockets where her eyes should be and her feet roll inward as she steps toward me, her eight toes curled tightly. Following a swift kiss on her cheek and a quick run through of circle time, I plop down onto the cool marble and begin to teach my one-on-one student, Lily. She runs her hand over the numbers puzzle and the pile of sensory beans lying on the floor. She begins to count and though we do this every day of the week, today something clicks for her and she begins to learn. After she counts ten beans, she yells “ELEVEN!” Two weeks of trying to instill this simple lesson of her have finally made sense to her today and it’s incredible. CUE THE BIG BAND AND CONFETTI! This accomplishment creates an invaluable moment, where potential and joy intersect, and banishes the discouragement the world often preaches over special needs children. This moment erases all of the times she has sneezed and drooled on me, mumbled all through class, or gone to the bathroom just to get herself out of the lesson. Intimate experiences like this, where I learn to choose patience over frustration, reveal to me how much working with special needs children has changed me. The change is incremental and often invisible, but it is joyous. It has taught me that for each of us, capability has nothing to do with how quickly you reveal that you are. It has everything to do with how you show it and how you leap over the hurdles in front of you to do it. 
        Two months ago, I stepped on a plane that would carry me across the vastness of the Atlantic to a land I knew close to nothing about. As I sat on the airplane, staring at the small contraptions in the ceiling that airline companies loosely refer to as “air vents”, I began to panic over the world I was about to enter into. I had no previous experience teaching children with special needs, yet I signed up for three months to do just that. Was I insane? Would anything I was going to do even matter? I still ask myself those questions today. I still wonder if my help meant anything at all.
       Yesterday, as I finished up preschool and one of the children who goes to a separate school, came barreling through the door. Louise is def and wears a cochlear implant, so she can speak moderate english and makes adorably funny noises as she tries to read lips and copy. Yesterday she came in screaming “AHHHH” and by the time her shoes and backpack were off, she was in my arms. She wanted me to spin her and bounce her on the couch. As she was looking at me with two little brown eyes and a bright smile, I started singing to her. I don’t know if Louise could hear any of it, but she just looked at me and wrapped me in a hug like a little koala. I immediately started crying. I don’t spend any of my time teaching Louise, but the moments that we have spent playing together have made an impact on her. I may not have taught her the entire alphabet or something else profound, but I have given her friendship. And in one way or another, that has enriched her life, just as she has enriched mine. That makes it all worth it. The hard beds, the sleepless nights, getting pooped on, getting spit up on, sticking my hand in drool, the 6 am wake up calls, endless hours of back pain, getting bit, being surrounded by strange smell that lingers constantly. It’s ALL worth it. I swear. I pinky promise. The privilege of having relationships with Louise and Lily and all of the other children here are worth more than any comfort could ever be.
       So, why do I write all of this to you in a mess of jumbled experiences? Well, I just wanted to tell you the truth of what life is really like. Not much about India has been easy. Not much about living with and teaching orphans is easy. Having patience and grace is hard. Most of the time, I feel like giving up. But I have never loved anywhere more. I have never grown more. I have also never showered less or smelled more like saliva and curry, but those are all things I have come to term with because those are the easy sacrifices. The hard sacrifice is knowing that there is an expiration date on my service here. I will have to leave the children and the team I love so much. How do you leave behind a world that seems like the only one that you’ve ever known. You don’t. You bring it with you. You carry that hope, beauty, love, and passion with you the rest of your life because you don’t have a choice. What you love never really leaves you. Sometimes love is spectacular purely because it’s so easy, because it’s so relentless, and because it really makes no sense at all.