i have found the paradox.

There are some days that you will remember all of your life – maybe the day you graduate, or the day a child was born, or the day you met the person you knew you’d marry someday. Those days when things slow down for a minute to wonder – what have I been so busy doing, that kept me from this day sooner?

I volunteered with the nuns at Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity. They sent me to a home called Prem Dan. It’s a home for those who are destitute and dying – Mother Teresa knew that the poor should not die alone, on the streets, unnoticed and unloved. I arrived early, and the nuns led a song and a prayer, and then went straight to work. I washed more laundry than I’ve ever seen – kneading the linens and saris against a large stone counter to get out as much water as I could. My arms ached after a few hours, and the bleach left me hands raw and chapped – definitely a labor of love. After carrying buckets of laundry to the roof to hang in long lines in the sun, a nun tapped my shoulder and said, “Come, Auntie.” Back inside, I scrubbed bed frames and mattresses, and pulled pink and blue checkered sheets over rows and rows of beds.

The women in Prem Dan were enjoying the morning on a large veranda, and the nuns instructed me to serve chai and cereal. The women are beautiful – I sat with a woman (impossible to tell her age), who had leprosy and was covered in sores. She pointed her sores to me, saying “eckinay, eckinay” or “here, and here.” My Bengali is weak, so I just said, “yes, auntie,” and held her arms steady while she drank her chai. I tiny wisp of a woman who is suffering some sort of mental condition followed me as I collected empty chai cups in a bucket, letting me know very clearly if I missed one! After the dishes were done, I spent more time sitting with a blind, very sick lady who just curled into a tiny ball on a small bench – I rubbed her back and she reached out and put her hand on my hand. I couldn’t help but hum Amazing Grace while I tried to hold back the tears – if not for the Missionaries of Charity, this woman would most likely be tucked under a bridge somewhere, wet in the monsoon and completely alone.

At lunch, I carried trays and trays and trays of rice and potatoes and dal and mangoes. Once all were served, I fed a lady whose condition is not like anything I’ve ever seen. Her hands and feet were twisted and deformed, and it looked like she had both leprosy and severe burns. She was blind, and had cataracts that bulged so far that she couldn’t close her eyes. I fed her, one spoon at a time, and you can imagine my surprise I heard her speak, in English. “Stir it,” she said, “mango is last.”

Mother Teresa said a lot of amazing things. As I carried dirty dishes, scrubbing the pots in the hot sunlight, I remembered reading a quote of hers, “I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.” True words – when a woman in the unbearable pain of disease smiles and puts her hand on top of your hand, her hurt has been replaced with love. And my hurt has been replaced with love too.

xoxoxoxo