I’m at home now, in bed, writing intensively on a laptop for nearly 34 hours now. So many papers to write; so much work to finish; so many worries to free one’s mind from. Sigh. I wish I could take a real vacation. The last one I had was way back in summer of 2007. It sure feels like a lifetime ago.
How’s Palestine? How’s your heart breaking with compassion—or, is it rage?—at the face of her people’s plight? I may not know just yet how “compassion fatigue” assails the heart, and I’m just guessing you must have had some knowledge of it—what with your travels and volunteer experience—but I want you to know I believe in what you do. And I appreciate the wisdom of why you do it. It can never be too futile finding meaning in one’s life, even more so when you’re not alone in searching for it. May our friendship make you feel that it is so. As warmly as the sun embraces the earth with morning light. As beautifully as Spring adorns the trees with bright fragrant blooms. As gently as the sea smoothes away the wrinkles of the still gray shore.
As fondly as I close this email—
Il fratello tuo nel cuore e lo spirito, Jeprox
(Drawing courtesy of my meager visuo-spatial intelligence)
*Jeroen, 26, has just earned his MD at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. He visited Negros Island last March for some medical missions (in which I served as his interpreter.) He is currently doing research in Palestine.
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