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 Isabel
Legarda
Dear Oprah,
I am a second-year medical student and soon-to-be mother of two.
Until I read Robert Morgan's compelling novel Gap Creek,
I think I had absolutely no idea of how to imagine real hardship,
even though I grew up in an underdeveloped country and saw it all
around me and am now living an extraordinarily busy life as a physician-in-training,
wife, mother, and woman trudging along on a faith journey that has
many peaks and valleys.
Julie's faith journey, complete with its baptisms by fire and water,
and confrontations with human weakness in almost every person she
encounters, lead her to a renewed faith that reminded me so much
of the restored faith I have discovered in med school, despite the
expectations of others and the inability of many to believe in or
understand my choices. When people say to me, "I don't know how
you do it, being in med school with a family," I now feel like saying
to them, "Read Gap Creek. I have a dishwasher. I don't have
to kill, de-bone, gut, or de-fat any of the chicken, beef, pork,
or fish I cook. I can get great drugs and medical care when I'm
sick and clean, running hot water when I'm dirty. I have an extraordinary,
supportive husband who knows and loves who he is, is free of complexes,
and has unshakable faith. I have an amazing daughter who is the
most joyful person I have ever known. I have a mind and body that
work. I'm 'golden!'" I realized while I was reading this novel that
despite my efforts to be grateful for all the conveniences and blessings
of the day, I still take so much for granted. When I'm down to the
last egg in the carton I am peeved that I have to run next door
to buy more — for shame!
In medical school as well as in motherhood, sometimes it's been
easy to give in to doubt and fear, to loneliness, to the helpless
realization that there's so much pain in the world, and to the feeling
that our little lives might not mean quite as much as we think.
When Masenier died, Julie was filled with a sense of emptiness at
the way the world simply moves on and keeps turning; oblivious to
what is most precious and painful in our hearts. Yet she never lost
the sense of wonder in that harsh but beautiful world, and it is
this sense of wonder that can be a saving, healing grace that sustains
a trembling faith such as mine. Morgan wrote an almost mystical
passage describing Julie's dance among the falling leaves, in which
his repetition of the word leaves over twenty times brought to life
the very nature of what he was describing: a myriad of swirling
leaves circling all around, with Julie circling among them, uniting
her life and motion to theirs. I have had small moments like this,
when the sight of a mist-covered peak over a river, or a scattering
of stars in the sky over campus, reminds me that life is precious,
and we are precious, despite the passage of time, the anonymity
of our lives, and the vastness of the world.
The day after I read the chapters describing Masenier's tragic death,
the hog-killing, and Mr. Pendergast's horrible funerary preparations
— three occasions on which Julie was literally up to her elbows
in the most visceral and brutal aspects of life and death —-
I experienced something that might be considered the contemporary
equivalent. I was required to attend an autopsy at our school's
main teaching hospital. Like Julie, I had to confront a tragic death
that had occurred the previous night, witness some unsettling procedures
performed on the body, and face my own preoccupations about the
fragility and meaning of life, all while a new human life was just
beginning to grow inside me. I couldn't help staring at the face
of the woman on the table, placid and now free of suffering, almost
like the peaceful face of a child taking a nap, and thinking of
the tiny embryo still nameless and faceless within my body, whose
life, unlike this woman's, was just beginning. Watching the medical
examiners deftly use their skill to probe through the woman's organs
was both impressive and humbling. Bags of tissue and fluid are all
that we are; yet we are so much more than the sum of those parts
—- our eyes can see beauty in the world, our voices participate
in the telling of stories and sharing of laughter, our arms hold
lovers and parents and children tenderly and passionately.
I've learned through all my choices and mistakes that holiness,
healing and hope are never completely out of reach, although my
faith and trust constantly fall and need to be helped to their feet
again. Like Julie, I am taught and helped through what I love best
—- things like work, and family, community enjoyed over a cup
of tea, reading, writing, prayer, the music of many voices united
in harmony. Singing, like writing, is one of my favorite forms of
prayer. I sing alto, and alto harmonies sung alone can sound strange,
sometimes even distinctly unappealing. Together with other singers,
however, the alto line suddenly makes perfect sense, and the music
can be arrestingly beautiful, especially if we strive and choose
to sing our best. I have been blessed with some amazing "singers"
of life all around me, both in the real world and in the fictional
ones I have the privilege of getting to know.
Reading Gap Creek was a kind of spiritual song for me, in which
I could unite my thoughts, my experiences, and my voice to the heroine's
and lift them up to a higher plane. That is the great gift of stories,
the gift of communion, of sharing in the lives of others —
which is why I wanted to come to medical school in the first place.
Robert Morgan's novel opened a wonderful passage through time for
me, enabling me to enjoy that gift in a way I will not soon forget.
How vivid were his descriptions of human experience; no other person
has ever made me crave, and actually get up and make, cornbread
(and unfortunately, like Julie, we had no jelly!). How well he understands
how a woman falls in love, nurses anger against a matriarch, wishes
for her husband's sympathetic embrace, resents the sometimes incessant
slavery of keeping a home together, needs the company of other kind
women, and rejoices in her reserves of strength. How beautifully
he writes about gradual conversion, personal transformation, and
the healing power of prayer; the scenes in which Hank makes peace
between Julie and Ma Richards, and with Timmy Gosnell, and among
my favorite in the entire book. Thank you for introducing me to
this masterful writer's powerful, meaningful gifts. An artist's
greatest asset is compassion, and he is gifted with it abundantly.
Yours sincerely,
Isabel Legarda
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