What was he thinking? What did it all look like to him? Was it as exotic and fascinating and confusing and mysterious as his country had seemed to me when I first visited? Was he afraid? Was he just a quiet guy? I wanted to ask him these questions. I wanted to make sure he understood what was going to be happening and to reassure him that we’d take good care of him. I suppose I just wanted to connect with him in some way. I was, after all, only thirteen years older than he was.
We sat in silence until I thought of a simple question I knew how to ask in Creole. “W grangou?” (“Are you hungry?”)
He raised his eyebrows very slightly while slowly making a small nod upward of his chin. It was the first facial expression of any kind that I’d seen him make. I presumed it meant yes.
Finally, here was something I could do for him. I took the hospital menu and translated each item into Creole.
“Do you want chicken?”
He closed his eyes and lifted his right hand an inch off the bed, slightly straightening his fingers. His hand began trembling and he put it back down. Seemed like a no.
“Beef?”
He closed his eyes.
“Spaghetti?”
He closed his eyes again.
“Fish?”
Same gesture.
“Salad? . . . Chips? . . . Fruit? . . . Cake? . . . Cookies?”
No to all of these. I went back to the top.
“Chicken?”
He raised his eyebrows slightly. Yes? Maybe?
I smiled. “Chicken, then?”
He closed his eyes.
This was going to be harder than I thought. Was it my Creole? Was there just nothing on the menu he wanted? Was he completely overwhelmed? Was the tumor putting so much pressure on his brain that he couldn’t process what was happening?
I ordered him a few different things and turned on the television. Channel by channel I asked if he liked the show or movie. He stared intently at the television but made the closed-eyed no gesture to every channel when I asked him if he wanted to keep watching it.
We continued this confusing exchange for a few minutes until I heard “Kouman ou ye!?!” (“How are you!?!”) half shouted, half sung from the doorway. I turned around to see Michelle in an orange-and-black plaid peacoat, smiling broadly. We hugged tightly, shaking our heads, amazed that Janel was actually here. She set a chocolate croissant and a bottle of soda in front of him. I thought I saw the faintest suggestion of a smile at the corners of his mouth, but I wasn’t sure if I was imagining it.
Michelle asked Janel if he’d like to try the croissant. He didn’t respond. She broke off a piece and gently fed it to him. Janel chewed it for a few moments and then closed his eyes and made the subtlest hint of a grimace.
Michelle laughed. “W pa renmen’l?” (“You don’t like it?”)
He closed his eyes, frowned slightly, and raised one tremulous hand a few inches off the bed.
“I’ve been striking out on trying to figure out food too,” I told her.
She laughed again.
The door opened and Hermide entered. “Hellooooooo!” she exclaimed gleefully with a flourish of her hands as she came through the door with several friends. Hermide was in her late sixties, but her luminous eyes and radiant smile made her look much younger, as did her stylish wig—a light brown, face-framing, chin-length bob with angled bangs. The deep creases around her mouth and under her eyes were the only clues to her age.
“This must be Janel,” she said with the slight lilt of a Caribbean accent, pronouncing his name softly and deeply, with reverence. She moved toward him with a serene smile and wide-open arms. He didn’t react. She converted what was intended to be a hug to simply putting her hands gently on his cheeks. It looked like the scene of a mother reuniting with her reluctant long-estranged son: love and anticipation on one side, aloof ambivalence on the other. This didn’t seem to bother Hermide. She excitedly began unpacking containers of Haitian food she had made for him, naming each dish as she put it out: diri ak sos pwa (rice with bean sauce), poule (chicken), legim (vegetable stew). She opened one container and began feeding him, dabbing his mouth gently and lovingly with a napkin between bites.
The room was filled with the sounds of Haitian Creole as Michelle talked to Hermide and her friends. I struggled to pick up bits and pieces, laughing when they laughed even if I didn’t understand. Janel stared straight ahead while Hermide fed him, not speaking or interacting with anyone. Eventually we decided we should let him rest, and we departed. We waved goodbye. He didn’t react, continuing to stare at the television, where Spider-Man was playing.
Michelle and I rode the elevator down to the hospital lobby. “You did it!” she said and smiled.
“Come on, we did it!” I said.
We high-fived, beaming.
“This has been like a second full-time job,” I said, shaking my head. “I had no idea . . .”
“Welcome to my world!” she said and laughed.
The elevator doors opened, and we stepped into the high-ceilinged lobby, empty at this late hour. We looked at each other, smiled, and shook our heads.
“It’s so crazy to see him here in Boston and think about where he came from,” she said. “That area in Haiti where he lives is so poor.” She looked away for a moment, and I thought I recognized the look in her eyes that I imagined I had when I thought about Haiti from afar.
I was starting to have that movie-happy-ending emotion somewhere between wanting to cry and wanting to laugh. “It feels like we just had a baby or something,” I said and chuckled.
“About as much struggle and about as much joy to see him on the other side, right!?” she quipped back.
We hugged, said good night, and went our separate ways. I drove back up the same street I had driven down in a panic a few hours earlier. Now I felt elated. Janel had gone from rural Haiti—without even a birth certificate to prove he existed—to a Harvard hospital for care by a renowned neurosurgeon by way of an air ambulance. I couldn’t believe we had pulled this off.
When I arrived home, I found I had received an email from the flight nurse with pictures attached, some aerial views of Haiti and a picture of Martineau giving a thumbs-up from the tarmac as the plane took off.
Please extend my deepest gratitude to the donors that made this possible! I was so moved! Thank you for the opportunity to serve this family and your team. Please let me know his condition if you have time. My family and I are praying for him.
P.S. I spoke with my mother via text telling her why I would not be home for Christmas and it was the best Christmas ever! This is what she sent. . . .
“The two most important days of your life are the day you are born, and the day you find out why.”—Mark Twain. You are one of those rare people who discovered what your “why” is . . . a blessing to many. Stay safe.
She is right: we are so blessed!
It was inspiring to see her and her mother so touched by Janel and his story. After months of negotiating, worrying, strategizing, and questioning, somehow it all felt right—so right others could see it too. No talk of cost-effectiveness or sustainability here. The flight nurse and her mother saw what I saw: A young man with a debilitating neurologic disease who had every right to healthcare but no access to it. The poverty and suffering in Haiti just a short flight away from our shores. And how working together, maybe we could do something about it, one patient at a time.