The auditorium erupted in applause. People stood, some crying, some cheering. Marisol stood at the podium, no longer invisible, no longer silent, carrying her grandmother’s legacy forward into a future where traditional knowledge and modern medicine walked side by side. 3 years after that night in the delivery room, the Abuelus Foundation had funded 47 traditional birth worker training programs across the United States.
The traditional birth wisdom center model had been adopted by 23 hospitals. Medical schools were beginning to include modules on traditional obstetric practices in their curricula, and Marisol had trained 89 doctors in the manual rotation techniques that had saved Maxwell Whitfield’s life. She still worked at Manhattan Memorial, though she made more in a week now than she used to make in a year.
She’d brought her sister and two nieces to New York from El Salvador. She’d bought a small house in Queens. She’d established a scholarship fund for young women from her village who wanted to train as midwives. But her favorite part of her work was still the simplest. Being in the delivery room, putting her hands on a laboring mother’s belly, feeling the baby move, whispering encouragement in Spanish or English or whatever language the mother understood, catching babies the way her grandmother had taught her with reverence and joy and that sacred
knowing that passed from one pair of hands to the next. One afternoon, Marisol was leaving the hospital when a young woman approached her. She looked about 25 with kind eyes and nervous energy. “Are you Marisol Vasquez?” the woman asked. “Yes, I am. I’m starting medical school next month at Colombia. I’m going to specialize in obstetrics.
” And I, she paused, gathering courage. I just wanted to say thank you. I read about what you did about how you saved that baby when the doctors couldn’t and it made me realize that I want to be the kind of doctor who listens, who learns, who respects all forms of knowledge. Because of you, I’m going to medical school to become a bridge between the old ways and the new ways.
So, thank you. Marisol felt tears prickle her eyes. This was what she’d hoped for. Not just to save one baby, but to change how an entire generation of doctors thought about birth, about knowledge, about who gets to be an expert. What is your name? Marisol asked. LSE, the young woman said. My name is LSE.
My grandmother named me. She was a midwife in Mexico. Marisol smiled through her tears. Then you carry a sacred name. LSE means light. Your grandmother knew what she was doing when she gave you that name. She was telling you to be a light forothers. I hope I can be lu said the way you were. You will be Marisol assured her.
And when you graduate, when you become a doctor, come find me. I will teach you everything my grandmother taught me. And you will teach the next generation. That is how knowledge stays alive. We pass it forward. One pair of hands to the next, one light to the next. The young woman hugged her, thanked her again, and walked away. Marisol watched her go.
This lose who would carry light into the medical world. Who would honor the old ways while embracing the new, who proved that Marisol’s grandmother’s knowledge would not die with her. She looked up at the evening sky over New York City. The same sky her grandmother had looked up at in El Salvador.
The same stars that had witnessed seven generations of births and deaths and the endless cycle of life. I did it, Abuela. Marisol whispered. I kept the knowledge alive. I made it matter. Somewhere in whatever place grandmothers go when they leave this world, Marisol believed that Abuela was smiling. Thank you for following Marisol’s incredible journey from invisible custodian to respected healer.
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