Image by Derrick Coetzee
Right in front of me, a tall man fidgets. His body crackles with restless energy. His legs are covered with angry purple-red blotches. They look like self-inflicted burns.
The door opens. We quickly file pass the front desk. A short pink form on a clipboard is thrust into anxious hands. The electric man in front of me has sores on his knuckles as well. He is talking to the woman behind the desk. I tune in to the conversation after all the important things are said.
"I'm sorry, Jason but we can't help you here."
Jason thanks the woman politely and awkwardly lurches out the door. The static generated by his presence lingers and then is covered by coughing and quiet sighs.
For most of us, it will be a long wait. Some of us may not be seen. The clinic can only serve so many. Those not seen will carry the burden of our ills back into the world.
We live in the "land of the free and the home of the brave" but some days even the Free Clinic isn't free for all. Yet, all of us must be brave. It takes courage to crawl out of bed in the morning. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness teases us from a great distance.
A young woman sips the last of her water from a paper cup. She reaches up and wipes tears from her eyes. She tries to hide her tears but she can not. She sniffles quietly and shifts uncomfortably in her chair. Her pain, her need, is an embarrassment.
I've seen her before, a different face, a different person but the same pain, the same need. I have been her before wiping unwanted tears from my eyes. Today, I float above the tears. I am being brave.
We all wait quietly. We all struggle inside with the burden of being here. We struggle to find work. We struggle to find the money to pay for food, housing, health care. There is never enough. We struggle to buy our children clothes and shoes that they will outgrow all too quickly. We struggle to hold our families together against great odds. We struggle to keep our dignity and we struggle to summon up the hope to begin another day, to wage another battle against never having enough.
No one understands poverty better than the poor. Yet, our voice is only a faint whisper. The powerful can not hear. Exhausted, ashamed of our struggles, there is little energy left to advocate for ourselves. We blame ourselves for where we are. We wonder what happened to the dreams were were promised as children.
"Work hard, and you'll go far."
"Everyone can be a success."
"You can be anything you want to be!"
Some how we've failed the dreams and the dreams have failed us. Bitterness often hides behind the exhaustion. Apathy is an armor we wear when we can't take any more.
Slowly, I become aware of the television droning overhead. In the waiting room, a documentary about the current state of health care plays. It focuses on the flaws in the current system and about the need for more patient-centered care. These words are depressing. We know what is wrong with the system through thousands of personal experiences. We all tune it out. It becomes another background noise, like the coughing, the crying, the cooing of a baby. The facts are already crushing us. We need words of hope.
People flow in and out almost seamlessly. All that remains is a little room in which to wait. Maybe tomorrow will be better than today. We wait.
Please note: I am extremely grateful that the Free Clinic of Southwest Washington exists and that I have received excellent care from the people who volunteer their time to help the low-income and uninsured in Clark County. They are providing an incredibly valuable service to a growing number of its citizens. They treat the people they see with dignity and compassion.
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