As of the time I'm writing this blog post, my husband and I have been together for 12 years. When we met, it was magic. We just have these two souls that truly coincide in beautiful ways and we share a very deep connection that has persisted all of this time.
So, it was a bit of a shock on one of our earliest dates when he told me that he has been applying to work with Doctors Without Borders. He had worked abroad previously before we met, but he shared with me that it had always been his goal to work abroad as a humanitarian. In high school, someone came to his school and gave a talk about doing work with Doctors Without Borders and something "clicked" for him. He spent the next decade learning French and going to nursing school all so that he could some day work with this amazing organization.
I was taken aback when he told me. I knew that meant that he would be going away for long periods of time, perhaps to dangerous places. I wasn't sure if I was ok with that (for me). My parents had rarely ever spent more than a few days away from each other and so my concept of a relationship was two people living with each other, spending almost all their free time together. It didn't take long for me to gain some perspective, however, and I was thankful that he gave me this information up front so that I could make the best decision for me.
A few months later he was offered a position in Haiti, not long after the massive earthquakes that had devestated the country. He was offered a three month contact which, at the time, seemed like an eternity. We weren't living with each other yet so we saw each other just once or twice a week, but even so this was going to be a huge adjustment.
One thing I've learned to appreciate about my husband is how he pushes things to the last minute. It used to be something I hated, because I am a planner by nature and I like things to be structured and organized and relaxed. The night before his departure we had to move him out of his room. We lived in New York City at the time and he had always rented a basic room in a shared apartment. So, the night before his flight I showed up to his room (which was painted Pepto-Bismol pink, a fact I'll never forget) to find that not only had be barely started packing, but that we still had to move all of his personal items out of the place. To top it off, there was a nasty snow storm happening and we were expecting a friend of hers to come by with her car to pick up his stuff and she was struggling to make the trip. So we packed and cleaned mercilessly until the wee hours of the morning in order to get him ready to go.
Finally, we were ready. He flew out of JFK Airport the next morning and I didn't know what to expect. Over the next 12 weeks, he told me about his work -- working with cholera patients and malaria, seeing the destruction caused by the earthquakes. I could tell he had caught the humanitarian bug. This would not be his last mission with Doctors Without Borders.
So much of being the partner of a humanitarian is helping them maintain a connection to home. When they're in places where there is so much turmoil and a lack of structure, one of the greatest contributions you can make is to remind them of home -- helping them realize that there is structure to return to once they've finished -- even if they often do this line of work because they're rebelling against this same structure and safety. It's always a good reminder that there is a home to come home to. Even just talking about your (admittedly) boring day-to-day life helps bring a sense of normalcy to the situation. This was the lesson I got during his first mission.
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