why i can handle my job

A few weeks ago at a talk about humanitarian work and microfinancing in India, I heard a story about Mother Theresa. The story was that some woman really wanted to meet her, so she traveled a long ways to talk to her. When she finally got to her destination, they told her Mother Theresa was at the orphanage. They gave the woman directions.

The orphanage was just a room full of tiny, orphaned babies, row upon row, hundreds. When the woman arrived, she saw that Mother Theresa was walking along the row picking out babies and giving them to the woman volunteers who then went to rocking chairs and rocked the babies. The woman went to talk to Mother Theresa, but instead of saying a word, Mother Theresa picked up a baby and handed it to the woman and walked out of the orphanage.

The woman stood there, confused, holding the tiny baby. She turned to one of the volunteers who gestured that she should go sit in one of the few rocking chairs where the women were rocking the babies Mother Theresa selected.

"But you can't possibly rock all of them!" the woman said.
"No," the volunteer responded, "But Mother Theresa can tell which babies will die tonight, and there are enough of us to rock those babies every night, because Mother Theresa believes that no human being should have to die without feeling love."

The woman took the baby and rocked it for hours in the rocking chair, and sure enough it died that night. She said that even though the baby died, she understood that she'd made a difference.

Now there are a lot of meaningful things that I get out of this story, including the reasons for humanitarian work with people as hopelessly ill as those afflicted with leprosy in India (after seeing The Motorcycle Diaries I understand, a little, how devastating leprosy really is, and how it's not just a disease in the pages of my Bible). I like that Emily Dickinson quote that says something like "If I have saved one life from pain, I shall not have lived in vain," which is saying something since I'm not normally much of a Dickinson fan. So I really do get a lot out of that story that you will consider more meaningful than what I'm going to talk about now (and I do agree with you, that it is more meaningful, but right now in my life this is my application).

I have mentioned before how difficult it was for me to take my job. I cannot express to you the pain I first felt upon seeing a rat crumple in a jar of isofluorine only to be put, numb and asleep, into a guillotine. The only thing that made it bearable for me to watch that first descent of the blade was to know that I could do nothing to stop it (my boss was performing the sacrifice), and though that was horrifying, in a way it was really comforting too. But I really, really, very strongly believe in the sanctity of life. There are two things that I find of penultimate amazingness about this world: 1. the simplicity and symmetry of physics and 2. the complexity and functionality of life. You can't be a biologist and not appreciate life with a really great respect. Or at least I can't. The same way you can't be a physicist and not appreciate the way that the universe is held together. Or at least I can't.

So here is what I do with the rats. People told me not to get close to them, not to name them, not to love them, but that is something I cannot help. I love them with all of my heart. I believe strongly that they have a soul, and I believe strongly in some Buddhist notion of the rebirth of their soul in another life. So I really can't help loving them, even unconditionally, the way that I love people. Even if one of them went berzerk and tried to bite me and gave me some lethal disease (very unlikely, given how screened lab rats are), I would still love it, even if it caused my death. I sense their innocense.

I talk to them. My boss has essentially pushed all of the rat-care duties onto me, because that is what undergraduate research assistants are for, slavery, of course. But I really don't mind, because I do love taking care of them. I love changing their cages and giving them warm new wood pulpy stuff; I love feeding the ones that are on food restriction. In a way that I could never grasp when I was young and always in trouble for failing to feed my turtle or change the bedding for my guinea pigs, I really love caring for them. And every day that I work I have to hold each of them in my arms. I'll confess I do have my favorites, despite everything that people warned me, and I'll confess that I really am attached to all of them. Every day as I hold them, alone in the animal holding room, I rock them, I talk to them. I talk to them about their lives. I talk to them about how they are going to be shocked, and it will hurt, but it won't hurt as badly as life hurts for human beings. I tell them that their pain, and ultimately their deaths, will not be in vain. I explain to them that their suffering will be used to alleviate this greater suffering. I want them to understand how noble their lives are, and how sorry I am that they have to go through terror to help us. I know that after being held for so long, they trust me. I feel better if I explain to them that I am going to betray them. Then it is not so much of a betrayal.

I know I probably sound insane, but I do believe that some part of them listens. I do believe that some part of the, their soul, really feels how much I love all of them, how much I care about them and the quality of their lives. Even if they sometimes aren't thrilled with being held and try to scramble away, I like to think that they can at least tell that I'm not trying to hurt them. I know given all of their instincts that they may never feel totally safe in my arms, but I want them to feel comfortable. Last week, for instance, my favorite rat actually fell asleep in my arms. Which is really a big deal for an animal driven by fear instincts.

When I am working on the days that they die, I sit in front of their cages beforehand and try to explain again to them what is going to happen, and why their lives matter. I ask them if there is anything they want. Of course they never answer, but I think they deserve the question. I put my hands on their cages so they are encased (the way I held my fish as he died this year but cupping my hands around the fishbowl, even when it was so painful to watch him drown- yes my fish drowned; his swim bladder popped, and betas need to breathe air; he couldn't get to the surface; it was the most terrible thing I've ever seen).

So what I'm saying is that the reason I can do this, love them and then watch them die, love them and then kill them, is that I really believe that they have a soul, and I believe that Mother Theresa's story applies to them too. I believe that somehow they will be happier in the life to come, and all of their lives to come, if they were truly loved, and not detested or run over or killed with rat poisoning. I believe it will make a difference.

I know most of the world will think that's absurd, but I know it's not. I see them every other day. I know how beautiful they are compared to many people. And I know that there's something in them that really deserves love the same way any baby deserves love. And that's why I can handle my job.