My favorite part of my internship was the “Fit Club,” an after school program for primary school students that FNS and COLLY (County of Leslie Lifting Youth, a local nonprofit run by one of our Courier Program heads, Anna Carey) coordinated upon. The elementary schools in Leslie County had not had any nurse or clinic before COLLY installed them a few years ago, and they had no health education program until we started this pilot “Fit Club” for the students. Its purpose was to teach at a young age the basic concepts of exercise, nutrition and physical well-being; we also brought them healthy snacks to try, vegetables and fruits and granola bars. We taught them basic exercises that they could do on their own without much equipment or teammates necessary; jump roping and calisthenics and running. We taught them about calories and the food pyramid and dental hygiene. And one cold, sunny afternoon in October, while the World Series was on at night, we taught them how to play baseball. The smallest little kindergarten girl hit the biggest home run.
Me and the other couriers also went into the schools to teach dental lessons, how to brush and floss and take care of their teeth, and passed out toothbrushes and toothpaste and floss. We demonstrated the importance of flossing using peanut butter and gloves and read them stories about going to the dentist. It was important to encourage this healthy behavior early, because there is a high percentage of children in Leslie County who have urgent dental needs– 4 or more abscesses in their mouth– not to mention children who just had a few cavities or rotting teeth. I also went into the schools to mentor and tutor some of the children in reading. Tim and Tom were fifth graders who I read “Danger Guys” with, and practiced vocabulary and comprehension every week, while Mandy and Britney and I read “The Year of Miss Agnes”; they were so bright, and could recall the meaning of words, and summarize the story as though they had memorized it. They always remembered me, too. Some of the children probably relished the extra attention; some had problems at home.
In my time in Kentucky I witnessed the full range of human life and development– birth and death. I watched a mother give birth to her first child; I sat by the bedside of another mother, actively dying, to allow her middle-aged children who had come to see her a chance to grab something to eat. Both experiences were wonderful, in different ways; somewhat scary, in different ways; and beautiful, too. I remember a patient, in their nineties, small and frail, as they lay there on their deathbed; and yet the patient had served in the Marine Corps in WWII and had been a parent to 8or 9 children. The staff there called the patient a “spitfire” and a “wildcat.” The patient still had lovely eyelashes. The Hospice volunteer coordinator and I sat by for an hour, sitting by thier side, listening to the labored breathing. It was peaceful in that room, and country music was playing, and it was sad, but it was not so deeply sad as I had expected it to be. It somehow reminded me of a story I had read a long time ago, called “The Garden Party” by Katherine Mansfield. In the story, a little girl from a rich family goes to give the leftover food from her mother’s garden party to the poor family of a workman who has just died in a horseback riding accident. On her way out the door, the young man’s sister-in-law shows her the body of the young man who has just died, and somehow Mansfield’s description of death was the one that came vaguely to my mind, when I was sitting in that warm sunny room. I recently looked it up again-
There lay a young man, fast asleep - sleeping so soundly, so deeply, that he was far, far away from them both. Oh, so remote, so peaceful. He was dreaming. Never wake him up again. His head was sunk in the pillow, his eyes were closed; they were blind under the closed eyelids. He was given up to his dream. What did garden-parties and baskets and lace frocks matter to him? He was far from all those things. He was wonderful, beautiful. While they were laughing and while the band was playing, this marvel had come to the lane. Happy ... happy ... All is well, said that sleeping face. This is just as it should be. I am content. But all the same you had to cry, and she couldn't go out of the room without saying something to him.
