I was petrified, to be honest.
Going back to school as a new mom in a foreign country after having moved across 3 countries and had a baby away from home within 6 months was unnerving, to say the least.
Would people think less of me as a mom? Would I cope? Would I constantly struggle with guilt.
I wasn’t sure if this was do-able, much less if I could do it.
Some people said we were crazy to care for her full time without daycare. Some said our marriage would undergo yet another major strain, what with our roles being reversed with Cliff being a stay-at-home Dad and me, a back-at-school Mom.
Looking back at the first month of school gone past, however, I’m filled with gratitude:
For the professors and staff who let me to bring Sarah-Faith to school for Orientation and lunchtime seminars, for the friends who constantly offered to help me with my bag or lunch while I cradled her or had to scoot to the nursing room, I never envisioned school to be the loving, supportive family for ours.
One day, I had a wish- to take a photo of the few angels I’d met in school who’d loved on Sarah-Faith, just so we could take a photo again at the end of our school year, and compare the two.
How precious these memories would be, I thought, for these angels to be a part of the year she would learn to crawl, and walk, and say her first words.
As time went by, the people who shared their love with us grew.
Never in my wildest dreams did I expect more than a hundred classmates to show up for the photo, with my program director and the MPH office joining in too.
Such has been the love and warmth of this amazing class of global health leaders from all over the world- from Syria to Peru, from Iraq to Cameroon, from USA to Macedonia. They inspire me with their big dreams to impact the neediest and poorest (sometimes in life-threatening settings), but more so, with their big hearts.
To all of you who have made a difference to our lives in our first month of school, whether it was calling Sarah-Faith our Class Baby or going gaga over her cheeks, whether it was telling me how being a grad-school mom wins instead of discounts your respect for me or asking me in-depth about my aspirations to impact the poor through health systems and policy change, whether it was smiling at us when she joined a lecture or asking me whether she ever cries, thank you.
For making this unthinkable dream not only possible, but one kind of memorable.
Thank you Cliff,
for being the awesome super Dad you are,
and God,
for making what I was certain to be impossible,
possible.
