Patient Connection

As I strolled through the surgery ward yesterday afternoon, I peered around each corner cautiously, dreading that I might involuntarily spot an unwrapped amputee. By the time I reached the third room, occupied by about 5 patients, I found who I'd been looking for. He is a young man, about twenty, and an amputee victim; wrapped. I am unsure how lost two thirds of his right leg, but I didn't ask: the cause of his injury was not the subject of my visit. He greeted me with excitement, upright in his bed, English literature scattered at his side. His English is immaculate, especially in grammar and conjugation, two of the most difficult aspects of the language.
"Did you finish them all?"
"Yes, of course."
I should have known. They were apples eaten to the core, tossed aside, and he was anxious for more.
"Do you know of Edward Abbey?"
"No, I do not."
I brought with me Desert Solitaire, an all-time favorite of mine, and I figured he would appreciate an author who could bring to him, in beautiful clarity, a foreign desert landscape and make it feel like home. An author who, in the book, lived his life in ways that parallel a Haitian mindset: abandon and reserve; freedom and self-governance.
"Thank you, thank you very much." He expressed an eagerness to bite into a fresh apple, from which I knew the book wouldn't last more than 24 hours before the hunger returned. "I will help you with your French if you help me with my English," he suggests.
"Sounds great, I will come back in a couple of hours."
"Okay, thank you, this will be good for both of us," he confirmed. His tone was always confident, strong, and affirmative.
Walking away, I smiled and shook my head, still struck by the unyielding dedication to growth and knowledge that the young man exhibited, his limited financial support and resources notwithstanding. I returned to my computer, determined to prove to myself that I, too, could be motivated as he was: foolish. After an hour of struggling with my own level of commitment to growth, I walked leisurely back through the hospital doors, where a sign reads, in French, "Reverence Pour La Vie," or "Reverence for Life." That young man, I thought, showed a reverence for life in his exuberance and willingness to learn. I am comforted and reassured by this sign, for I know that such reverence is not by any means, quantifiable. One either has it or does not, and although I am at a loss to explain exactly what reverence for life means, when someone who possesses it comes about, there is no question.
"How's the book?"
"Juicy."