I had one day left in NY before making the trip south to my final destination of Haiti. Something didn’t sit right with me, however. The winter storm warning called for 20” of accumulation, and I knew that if I didn’t get out of the northeast early, I may be delayed by weeks. Knowing full well that Len and Bernie had been working tirelessly to finish Brit’s Orphanage and wanted to get home for a much needed break before the big opening, I made my first call as Director: I moved my travel date up.
As I flew first from Burlington to Newark, then from Newark to Fort Lauderdale, I stared out the window and couldn’t help but think about Brit. For some reason, I even felt like I was talking to her in my mind. I had done that from time to time throughout the process of applying to and interviewing for this position. I remember sitting on my porch late one night in September, looking out at the sky over Lake Champlain the night before flying to Boston to meet Len, Cherylann and Chrissy. I looked up and said, “Hey Brit, throw me a bone tomorrow, would ya?” It would not be the last time I turned to Brit for a little help from above.
This time, from the window of my twice delayed airplane, I thought, “You better get me to Port-au-Prince today, Brit. This needs to happen. Your Dad and brother need to go home. We have things to do. Guide me, Brit. This is for you. This is for your family.”
So, quite a few hours delayed, complete with missing luggage and all, here I sit in Fort Lauderdale, awaiting my 1:05pm flight into PaP. I hope more than anything that United Airlines finds my bags before then and gets them on the American Airlines flight I’ve booked in. I suppose it’s no matter, actually; they either will or won’t make that flight. If they don’t, we’ll invoke the usual “it’s Haiti” excuse, and go for a plan C, or D, or whatever it takes. That seems to be a hallmark of this remarkable project: Whatever it takes.
I’m excited. Oddly, I am not scared at all. It’s not that I’m overly confident: That’s not something I’ve ever been guilty of. It’s just that right now, all of this seems so right. The timing feels right in my own life. The place feels right. The Gengels feel right; it’s like I’ve always known them. It’s a peculiar feeling when absolute strangers come into one’s life and it feels like they’ve been there all along. It all feels like pieces of a puzzle have come together and the fit is so perfect that it obviates the need for panic or anxiety or fear.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a realist. I know that there are many things in store for me that will likely scare the hell out of me, make me sad, make me angry, make me hate the decision to ever leave my comfy, cushy job at SUNY Plattsburgh and move to a developing third world country with security risks and health epidemics and a decimated infrastructure. I know all of this. And still, I’m not afraid. I want to go. I can’t wait to go. I can’t wait to see the hundreds of little brown-eyed faces that will become part of my life, a meaningful part of my life. I can’t wait to feel again what I felt in Rwanda; to feel what Brit felt in Haiti. I can’t wait for Brit and Be Like Brit to bring out all of our best selves, the way it has done for so many already.
So, I hope Brit doesn’t mind, but she’s my newest guardian angel. I will continue to look up to the sky, this time from the roof of the building built in her memory. Lake Champlain has been replaced by the Caribbean Sea; the familiar fields of home have been replaced by the mountains and hills of Haiti. I believe very much that Brit helped me to get here, and I believe very much she will continue to help us all do the work she so desperately wanted to do herself.
Thanks for reading.
Jonathan
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