"Crash course in a breaking heart."

The first time I was ever explicitly called a racist was April 9th, 2014. Her accusation stilled me in that moment, and I quickly collected a handful of things I wanted to say in response as we were sitting in my clinic's 4'x6' consultation room.

"I'm a nice guy!"
"I'm not a racist!"
"How am I racist?"

These were only a few of the substantially inadequate retorts that I could bring to mind. I was hurt, my sense of self was challenged, and my ego fractured.

But then I paused. I took a step back and looked at this person - really looked at her - and realized that none of this was about me. A day, a week, maybe a lifetime of frustration and trauma had antedated and precipitated her statement. AmeriCorps isn't about me - it is about the patients that I serve. This is an easy revelation when things are smooth. But in these ephemeral moments of perceived strife, the emphasis needs to to be placed on the self - a lesson packed with gravitas and humility. The acuity of my intervention cannot be overstated, and in the scope of a patient's life, I am but a speck on the windshield of a long, drawn out trip. So, I centered myself. I have just been called a racist while alone in a room with this person. What does one do in response to such an absurd situation? I still don't know.

In sum, we spent three hours together in that room. Over the course of that time, she told me where she attended college, her neighborhood growing up, her relationship with her mother when she was younger, and she gave me a more than adequate description of her senior thesis: a commentary on the importance of community-based families. She was an astoundingly brilliant person, and I reveled the time we spent together.

I also learned that she had been a single mother to an independent, driven young woman. Recently, however, her daughter had been involved in a tragic accident that left her incapable of taking care of her children. This, of course, necessitated her full-time reacquisition with single-mother parenting to not only her daughter, but her three wonderful grandchildren. Money was tight. "It always is," she said. Her ability to both work and parent full-time, an unimaginably precarious balance, was being challenged by her immediate medical needs. With all she disclosed to me, I could never have demonstrated her resolve given similar circumstance.

My heart breaks every time I hear a story like hers, and, truly, that's all they were to me once - stories. Surreal anecdotes of those I didn't know, would never know. Now, this is a ubiquitous trend among the patients I hold most dear. Sometimes it's hard to know how to react to all this, so, just like that fateful Wednesday afternoon, I don't. I just listen.

More often than not, listening feels wildly inadequate to that which I want to do: spring into action, right the injustices that I witness and are confessed to me each day. I realize, however, that I am but one person, and my impact is best served in those consultation rooms. AmeriCorps has shaped me into a student of the world and taught me to tune into the lives of others. So, too, I urge you to lend an ear to the stories of others - they will become so much more than that. And it might just break your heart.

This post was written by PHC member Nolan Anderson.
Nolan serves at the Family Practices and Counseling Network - Abbottsford Falls as a Health and Benefits Advocate.