Sticks and Stones
In twenty seven years of nursing, I have mostly worked for non-profit or university hospitals. It has taken me a long time to realize the non-profit hospitals are more interested in serving the community at large and even in enacting safe and prudent protocols and procedures. I do not think the way I was trained would ever have been reconciled to the "for profit" mentality of providing healthcare. So, after almost seven years with a for-profit hospital, I have switched back to a non-profit.
Unfortunately, I left my last job on a sour note. Besides my over-all concerns with the functionality of a for profit hospital, there was a problem with some workers thinking they were funny when blatant discrimination was obviously being played out.
One day I came in extra to help and my supervisor said, "Nicole, you know how your family is socially awkward, kinda like mine? It's that Asperger's thing?"
This was bad enough, but I nodded and tried to walk away.
The word barrage, however, continued,"Well, ____ and I were talking and we think it might be a "Mormon" thing". So now I am really really not liking what she is saying. She has insulted my family AND my religion in the same conversation right out in the open at the nurse's station. Families were walking by, my personal doctor was charting at the desk. I felt the anger swell in my throat and the redness spread across my cheeks.
"Mormon thing? I asked. "What in the world are you talking about?"
"Yes, you know, all the inbreeding that took place because of Polygamy?"
I was shocked. I said that no, there was not a lot of inbreeding going on in my family or in my religion and that perhaps it was nuclear fallout in ground water that caused autism to be present in 1:68 kids! I then walked away with tears in my eyes, remembering all the theories our family had been assaulted with over the years. In two different states and two different church congregations, we had been approached by young leaders who thought "exorcism" might help cure our family of our neurological troubles. One time one of my best friends , whose husband was an ER physician, was worried that it was "incest' that was causing my girls to be like they were. This a vicious rumor circulated around the small hospital where I worked as a nursing supervisor and where my husband was doing clinical rotations to try to finish up the requirements for his PA license. We left that small town as soon as we could. Many days I think I would have preferred to stay closer to my extended family. My kids could have stayed closer to their friends, I could have had the support of my mom. I adore my nieces and nephews and it kills me I am so far away from them. However, we left hoping a more metropolitan space like Las Vegas would be more accepting of us. The problem, I am finding, is there is discrimination and bullying everywhere we go.
Later, while we were out for a walk, I told my husband, "Why do we have to be the ones that keep hearing these kinds of crazy theories?"
He said,"Maybe because the theories are everywhere. Even our US President was accused of making fun of a disabled person".
My husband, a much more forgiving person than this mother bear said, "I don't know, but we have to keep forgiving and not lose faith in the world. We have had countless miracles in the lives of our kids and it really doesn't matter what people say. God is with us and he is with our children. I would not trade anything we have been through. Not one thing!"
I squeezed his hand a little tighter and a smooth round stone, surrounded by leafy debris caught my eye. This stone reminded me of the Savior and the time he was asked by the Pharisees about stoning a woman, John :8
"And early in the morning he came again into the temple, and all the people came unto him; and he sat down, and taught them.
3And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst,
4They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act.
5Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou?
6This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not.
7So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.
8And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground.
9And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.
10When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee?
11She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more. "
I kicked the stone away with my foot and walked away, arm in arm with my man,the greatest blessing of my life, and mused, "sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me...if I continue to let it go".
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