The Surgeon's Cut (2020) s01e02 Episode Script

1
I was born
at the end of the railroad, literally.
We used to play this game
called "faraway,"
and the whole objective
was simply to get faraway,
as far as our imaginations would take us.
We had no idea where "faraway" was,
but just looking at the railroad,
they seemed to just go toward the horizon.
They were going to places
that, if I follow that trail one day,
I'll get to faraway,
and maybe one day I'll get to see things
that no one else has seen before.
Now, when I'm in the operating room,
I'm looking at the brain.
This unexplored frontier
that we understand so little
so in a way,
I am connected back to my roots
and I am seeing things
that no one else has seen.
I didn't have dreams
of becoming a brain surgeon.
I didn't even know
what a brain surgeon was.
And now, here I am at the Mayo Clinic
as the Mayo Professor of Neurosurgery
potentially the best hospital
in the world.
And that sometimes
makes me want to pinch myself.
My specialty as a surgeon
is to operate on any brain tumors
you can possibly imagine.
I think it is an amazing gift
that I am given every single day,
that my patients allow me
to use my hands
to be able to navigate their brains
and to use my own brain
to defeat their disease.
That, to me, is the beauty of what I do.
This morning,
I'll be operating on a patient,
Robert Hawkins,
who, after being evaluated extensively
by our multidisciplinary team,
is having brain surgery
to remove
a very large recurrent brain tumor.
He is a lovely patient
and I enjoy my interactions with him.
It's the second operation
that I will be doing in his brain,
the second time
that he puts his life in my hands.
The first time, he was young,
he was not married.
He had no children.
This time he's got a young wife,
two little children,
and the future of his family
is on his shoulders.
We're going to have to do an operation
because the tumor is growing again.
For me, is the last resort.
I had to take him back in.
I have to take this tumor out,
and this time,
I'm going to try to cure him.
All right, good morning!
Good morning, Dr. Q.
Is everybody ready to rock and roll here?
How are you, sweetie? So great to see you.
Good to see you.
I'm going to come right here,
join you right here.
All right, when was the last time
you had anything to eat?
- Last night.
- What did you have?
- Steak.
- Yeah? How big?
- A nice-sized New York strip.
- New York strip? Was it like a 14-ounce?
That's like my favorite meal.
All right, which side are we doing today?
There you go.
I'm just going to put my initials
right here
and we're going to use the same, um…
Incision that you had last time.
Did you cut your hair for us?
- You did! Look at this, right here.
- Always.
-Yep
-We go mano a mano.
We'll take good care of you.
You know that.
- Yep.
- Anything else while I'm here?
You're good. All right.
All right, we'll let Dr. Bechtle come in
and do his magic,
and we'll see you there
in about 30 minutes or so.
- All right.
- All right? Good.
See you later.
I cannot even imagine
what's going through his mind.
I mean, he is definitely scared.
But he has faith that we're going to take
good care of him.
Alrighty. Good morning, everybody.
So, Robert Hawkins.
The very first time,
when I did the surgery in 2006,
Robert was actually at the time
here in Florida.
He was a surfer,
and he presented because he was dragging.
His friends finally called his father,
saying, "Robert keeps surfing
but he cannot even move half of his body."
Because the tumor at that time
was the size of a grapefruit,
the very first tumor that we took out.
Luckily this time it's not as big.
But it's definitely, you know…
It wants to grow again.
So, this is the tumor in red.
Purple is old pathways
that connect the brain
for motion of arm, leg, hips.
And you can see how tight they are
to the tumor.
I always view any tumor
as a foe that I need to defeat.
It is…
Affecting what I consider to be
the most beautiful organ in the body,
which is the brain, the unknown frontier.
And it's being attacked by this monster.
- I love you.
- I love you, too.
- You'll do great.
- I know.
The challenge for me in Robert's case
is to cut out
as much as I can of the tumor
without damaging his brain.
You're doing okay?
- I have a pretty high pain tolerance.
- Oh, you do?
We don't want to invoke
the high-pain tolerance.
We want you to be comfortable
the whole time.
The only way that I can do this
is to keep Robert awake
during the surgery,
so that I can see
how what I'm doing is affecting him.
- Yeah.
- Okay.
So, we're going to come in.
I'm gonna need the special bipolars.
Not only the ones that are straight,
but also the ones that are angled.
This can be bloody, of course,
or something can change
when we put in the tubes
so the patient can encompass it quickly.
The heart can fail.
That's why I like to have
the bipolars ready.
The moment you give him
to someone else, you know,
that's it.
Like, you can't do anything.
Good morning!
It's literally everything.
My kids, my family,
our marriage, everything.
It goes through your mind in an instant
and it's the thought of…
You know, the day can end differently.
It's tough.
But, you know, you just remind yourself
he's in good hands.
Robert.
You ready to rock and roll, bud?
Right on cue!
Right on cue!
You ready to rock and roll?
- I am. Are you?
- Gonna take good care of you.
I go in with the objective
of giving them hope
when they need it the most.
They already know
they are fighting an uphill battle.
You've got the best team in the world
taking care of you.
I know. That's why I'm here.
I know.
And that, to me,
is the most challenging part of what I do,
because when you do that,
you also have to give yourself
emotionally and physically
to that patient and that family.
We're giving you some medication
so that way you can just relax
and not hear too much noise.
You're in great hands, okay?
You're in great hands.
We'll take good care of you.
Good job.
A little pressure here, my friend.
All done and secure?
- You happy?
- Yeah.
Neck's a little tight?
Yeah.
- Doing great.
- Which part?
Keeping Robert awake during this operation
does increase the risk
if something were to go wrong…
But it also gives me the best chance
of removing as much of his tumor
as I possibly can.
Being afraid
is probably one of the greatest strengths
that I have.
But not because I…
let it paralyze me.
But if anything, I let it turn me into…
The most aggressive lion
you can possibly imagine
at that precise moment.
I'm watching the patient right there,
right now.
Everything is good.
We're putting a little extra local
on the skin right now,
to make sure that he is
absolutely 100% comfortable.
And this is the moment
where your adrenaline is already…
Almost at its peak.
When I dance
into those lights in the operating room,
it is the moment of truth.
But that fight has been brewing
for a long, long time.
Every time I walk into the operating room
and I listen to the sounds
and I listen to the heartbeat
and I listen
to all the different equipment,
plus the instruments being moved
from place to place
When you listen to all those sounds,
it's like the most beautiful orchestra
that you can possibly imagine.
But you have to listen.
span style= "style2" Check ten,
stand clear.
And you have to let it
penetrate you, go deep down in your heart.
That stimulates the limbic system,
and the limbic system is driven by smells,
by memories,
by things that happened in your childhood.
I was born in a small little town
outside of Mexicali, Mexico…
Which is right on the border
between Mexico to the south,
and to the north is the United States.
And they are divided by a border,
a fence and a physical barrier
between the two countries.
So, I grew up as a little boy
in the shadow of this barrier.
The threshold of a new frontier for me…
Although I didn't realize it at that time.
I left Mexico when I was 19 years old.
And now, 33 years later,
I come back to Mexicali.
This area remains hanging in time,
as if it was waiting for me
to come back and say hi.
We are in the place…
Where I lived before I left for America.
This…
Is the porch, right here, of my house.
I used to have a punching bag right here,
and I am about to take you to my bedroom.
Well, it was the bedroom.
This little room right here
was for actually four of us,
this little room right here.
And right here, we had a little shower.
My mom and I…
Decided that we were
going to build this walkway.
Just like when you think about America
You look at my house in America,
I have a huge walkway.
So, what we did is we built this walkway
and we used to park the cars over there.
So that way we pretended that we had
a long parkway to get into our house.
But this is how my mom was imaginative,
always making us believe
that we can do more.
I do have memories of the times
where we were beginning to get
a little bit more hungry
because we couldn't make ends meet.
Yeah, there was some sadness
and sometimes we had…
Next to nothing,
but, at the end of the day,
we had a lot of love
and… a lot of hope,
and… you know, a roof.
Just think about this.
A roof that doesn't exist anymore…
But the foundation is still there.
It was extraordinarily hot,
and inside of our house was an oven.
So, what my mom used to do
She used to take us to the roof.
I would go out with my mom
and my siblings and my father…
And we just looked up at the stars
and I used to wonder
what would it be like one day…
To be able to navigate…
That universe.
I have my slingshot
and I'm throwing rocks
and imagining that one of them
is going to hit this star and that star,
and I'm looking up
into this sea of darkness
and little stars,
where you can easily get lost.
Probably my neurons were
beginning to make connections
and all this kind of fancy stuff
that I now understand,
and they were trying
to make sense of the universe.
And I think that's probably where
this imagination,
and this scientist in me, was born.
You're doing a great job, bud.
We're about to make an incision.
All right, so Dr. Q
is going to start his incision.
Let's get the RANEY clips ready.
Robert, you're not gonna hear
any loud sounds or anything like that.
I'll let you know
when that's gonna happen.
If you feel any pain
All right, Robert,
let me know if you feel anything.
Sometimes you may have a little bit,
but if you do feel something
we'll immediately pause.
- All right?
- Okay.
Alrighty, bud.
- Incision.
- Doing great.
I saw your wife
before we started and I said hi to her.
She's doing well.
Do you feel anything, Robert?
- No.
- Excellent.
We're already cutting,
so that means that you are nice and numb…
And we are going to be in good shape.
You're gonna feel
a little pressure, Robert.
Yeah.
You feel a little pressure?
That's me, working right here.
Remember, you have a lot of scarring.
We're gonna clean all that up.
Okay, we're cutting the skin
right here… very nicely.
Good job.
Is your mouth still dry?
- Robert?
- Can I have some water?
Yeah, absolutely.
There you go.
- Thank you.
- Those are the medicines we gave you.
They kind of dry your mouth out.
All right?
The brain wasn't meant to be opened.
It's not natural, what we do.
It's us, defying nature.
Opening the skull is sacred.
Then cutting through the dura,
the delicate membrane
that is like the final gateway
into a secret temple.
These are magical things
that I don't take for granted,
that connect me back
to my Mexican roots as a little boy…
Where going to Catholic Church
existed alongside
the Day of the Dead celebrations
of my indigenous ancestors…
And gave me the belief in magic…
Miracles…
And the unknown.
The brain is a mystery.
No question about it.
We understand very little about it.
But it is also exciting and fascinating,
because it's got so many…
Paths that need to be discovered.
And in some ways,
it reminds me of what my grandfather
used to do with me.
I do have vivid memories
of my grandfather, Tata Juan,
who would take me with him
to the mountains near Mexicali.
My grandfather was not educated.
He was not well-traveled,
but he would always encourage me
to go off to a little trail
and just take the path
that no one has taken before.
That might have been dangerous,
but it was also exciting, I tell you.
I was not the first grandchild.
I was not the last grandchild.
I just was one, out of over 50,
that he had,
and I was not the best-behaved.
As a matter of fact,
I was the worst-behaved,
and somehow,
he just took me under his wing…
And began to guide me,
you know, in small, little steps.
When he was battling with lung cancer,
he asked my father
to bring me from school.
I was 16 years old.
And I remember him asking me
if I remembered…
Those days that we spent together
in La Rumorosa.
And I would just call his name
as a little boy,
run and run with him, and I…
And I did remember.
And he had his smile
and then just closed his eyes.
He was in a lot of pain that day.
Later that day he passed away,
and I think that was a symbol to me…
And a calling
to continually explore the world
and places that are…
Challenging.
There's no question
that sometimes,
when I am in the operating room
and things get really complex
and dangerous
and I have to keep my composure
because that patient could
potentially die…
I imagine that my grandfather
had his hands on my shoulders
and he just squeezes them and tells me…
"Steady.
Remain calm,
and just follow your path."
We have the bone off already,
Perry, David.
Everything looks good. The brain is nice.
So that means
that you can wake him up right now.
I'm about to put local in the dura
and he'll be comfortable.
Hey, Robert.
Uh, we got the bone off,
and your brain looks really good.
Okay? I know you're felling
a little tired and groggy.
I want you to start trying
to wake up for me a little bit, okay?
You're doing awesome.
I'd like for you to smile for me.
Good. Stick your tongue
straight out for me.
Excellent.
Can you purse your lips a few times
like we practiced yesterday?
Good!
And blow your cheeks up
with some air for me?
And don't let me
Good. All right.
You can see the tumor already here.
Robert, we're right on top
of your tumor already.
So, what we're going to do
I think in a few moments
is do that probe I told you about
that Dr. Q has.
He's going to touch
different parts of your brain
and do a little stimulation.
We're gonna be looking to see if you feel
anything or if anything moves, okay?
- Okay.
- Okay.
Robert's tumor is absolutely welded
to the parts of his healthy brain
that control his speech and movement.
I need to navigate his brain
and try to work out where the border is
between the tumor and his healthy brain.
Nice and quiet. One, two…
Han…
I want you to squeeze my fingers
for me, as tight as you can.
Would you smile for me real quick,
gimme a big smile?
Show me some teeth, okay? Good.
Stick your tongue straight out for me.
No motor, no sensory.
- Here we go.
- Keep your mouth open like that.
- Feel anything?
- No.
Negative. Open your mouth.
As I continue to test
the parameters of the tumor…
I need to make sure
that I am not removing
any of Robert's healthy brain tissue.
That would leave him paralyzed
or unable to speak
or to understand.
Find me the letter "M" as in "Mary."
Good.
Are these the same or different?
These are the piano tones.
- Same.
- Okay, those were different.
- That's fine.
- I thought so.
You thought so?
Are these the same or different?
The red and green segments.
- Same.
- Good.
If Robert gets the answer wrong,
then I pause to check
if I am about to remove tissue
that could permanently damage his brain.
You got a good-looking brain, Robert.
Have you ever heard somebody
say that to you?
I saw a little smile there.
Are you doing all right?
When I was at Harvard Medical School,
I walked into an operating room
with a brain surgeon
that was world-famous.
He saw me, in a very late Friday night,
walking the hallways,
going to the library to study,
and he asked me if I would love to go
into the operating room.
And as I came around the corner,
I see the brain…
Dancing,
moving up and down with an amazing rhythm.
And I felt that my knees
were about to buckle.
I had never seen the human brain
with such beauty…
With such an amazing ability…
To dance with the heart
and to imagine that that organ
held the secret of humanity,
that that organ allows us to move…
Allows us to speak,
allows us to see, to smell,
to understand, to dance, to sing, to love.
That was the key of the universe.
And I felt something grab me.
Every time I go into a patient's brain
to remove a tumor,
that brain is dancing.
It is moving with the rhythm of the heart.
My two hands are inside of that brain
moving in time,
and I am dancing with the brain.
I'm also dancing with the microscope,
with my two feet controlling
about 14 different motions…
And I am dancing with the mouthpiece
to control the focus
and the magnification.
So my entire body…
Is connected to Robert's brain,
and I feel, at that precise moment,
connected to his soul.
As a kid…
I did have this extraordinary ability
to figure out a way
to move around obstacles.
And the first obstacle
I had to encounter was this big fence,
this big border between Mexicali
and the United States.
So, at a very young age,
to be precise, around age 14,
I began to practice different maneuvers…
That would allow me
to physically jump that fence.
Oh, look! Look at this, right there!
There's the immigration patrol.
And he's got a Chevrolet.
Back then it was a Ford Bronco.
I don't know, maybe it was my imagination,
but it was an SUV, just like that.
A four-by-four. Look at that.
There's the border patrol.
They're doing their rounds.
Right there. Do you see that?
So maybe nothing has changed.
Maybe he's got the same patterns.
Definitely the cars have gotten
a lot faster over the last 30 years.
I don't remember the cars being this fast
last time.
You guys better be ready to rock and roll.
Check this out. So, this is it.
I think it's gonna be
much more challenging.
At the time,
you could put your hands right here.
There was this kind of…
Uh, a fence that had holes in the wire
you could actually put your fingers.
But now, I think it's going to be
really tough for me.
I don't think that I can hang on to this.
So, imagine…
This is it, right there.
Imagine coming across,
using that speed,
coming all the way across right here,
coming all the way across right here,
using the speed
of tremendous physical abilities
when I was 19, of course,
and grabbing onto this, right here,
propelling my body
over those barbed wires,
and landing on the other side.
Then realizing the first time
you're about to get caught…
And that's exactly what happened.
They caught me.
They put me in the detention facility,
you know, for that night,
and I remember,
the next day they let me go back.
Many times life will put you down
on your knees.
And the greatest challenge that we have
is to get up and try again.
As a boxer,
which I did when I was a teenager,
I learned that you don't stop a punch.
You deviate a punch, you dance around it.
You move.
You move your head, your body,
and you begin to throw punches back,
and it's through that exchange of punches
that you begin to conceive the idea
that you can defeat an opponent
that may seem to be undefeatable.
And that's exactly how I feel
about brain surgery.
When I feel that this is a dragon
that I'm fighting with a little toothpick,
you know, I look back at my patients
and suddenly I feel that
that toothpick in my brain
becomes a sword.
And suddenly I see myself as a samurai
that is going to be able to fight
this extraordinary monster.
Here comes a big chunk of tumor.
This is a pearly white tumor.
These are the pearls
that I was talking about.
So, he's pulling out
a huge chunk of that tumor right now…
Robert.
I feel that these tumors
are like supernatural killers.
Like a bad dragon,
where you take one head
and two other ones come out.
And I have to keep fighting it,
and fighting it, and fighting it,
and I cannot afford to get tired.
This is where I planned my second jump.
That was more challenging
than the first one
because I knew, "Holy guacamole.
They caught me already once,
they can catch me again,
and I don't think this time
are gonna be as kind as the first time."
At this point I actually laid down first
to plan, to understand the timing,
the sort of the rhythm
that these immigration, naturalization
service patrols were doing.
So that way I understood their schedule.
And I timed them
and I figured I had a window and…
Charge!
It was about speed.
It was about being determined.
It was about your heart
palpitating 140 beats per minute
and welcoming that adrenaline
going through your body.
And just… Boom! An explosion.
And I feel like
I'm just flying through the sky,
going over fences,
getting chased by dogs,
until I found myself in safe terrain.
I think that fence was symbolic for me,
and I kept doing it.
Every single surgery that I do,
I feel like this is an obstacle
that we have to overcome.
You're doing great, Robert.
We have a part
that is connected to one of the vessels
that we need to be careful with.
Rod six, please.
In every surgery,
there's a crucial moment
when things can change very quickly.
In Robert's case, it's dangerous
because the tumor
is welded to a very large artery
that supplies
his entire half of the brain.
The part of the brain
that would allow him to walk,
to move,
to eat…
To see…
And potentially also alter his memories.
It is like disconnecting a landmine,
and you have to make it so precisely.
As the tumor is coming off
and the blood vessel is being stretched…
You've got to make sure
that you don't avulse
one of these little blood vessels
because it's like disconnecting
the wrong wire.
And suddenly
That patient
is going to have a massive stroke
and can potentially die.
Occasionally…
I do lose patients.
And that weighs heavily on me.
It makes me reflect
about my own mortality.
So when they leave me,
they take a little piece of my heart,
and that is not easy to deal with.
It's never been a challenge
to stay humble,
because I'm an immigrant in this country.
When I first came to the United States
and I was working
as a migrant farm worker,
I didn't have documents.
I do remember that hunger.
I remember being homeless
and living in a small little camper.
My very first job was to pull weeds
from the fields where cotton
was being processed.
So you would
walk up and down these corridors
of rows and rows of plants.
Hour after hour from sunrise,
you know, to sunset.
And by the end of my first day,
I just had raw, you know, skin.
You know, raw hands
that were absolutely damaged
by this extraordinarily hard work.
When I look back at those days,
they were full of mixed emotions
and I had to keep imagining
that the world was going to be better.
I remember one day I told my cousin,
who had, unfortunately,
just like many Mexican immigrants,
abandoned school to work in the fields,
that I was thinking about
going back to school to learn English.
And he looked at me and he goes,
"What are you talking about?"
What do you mean you wanna go to school?
This is your future.
All of us have come to this country.
All of us have come as span style= "style2" braceros,
as migrant farm workers,
and we work here
and we're blessed to have a job.
And this is your future.
You're going to spend
the rest of your life
"working as a migrant farm worker."
And I got to tell you,
I felt like someone just put a dagger
in my heart
and just twisted it.
I made a very conscious decision
at that point
that I was not going to look back
into this moment,
that from then on
it was going to be forward.
The same day, I left the fields
and I got a job as a cleaner
in a railroad company.
Then I become a welder
and eventually a supervisor.
And at the same time,
I was learning English at night school.
And right around that time,
there were legislations
in the United States
that allowed migrant farm workers
to begin to work legally.
And eventually, by the time I went
to Harvard Medical School,
I was already in the pathway
towards submitting all my paperwork
towards becoming an American citizen.
And that's exactly what I did.
I went from harvest to Harvard
in less than seven years.
When you think about it,
these are the same hands…
That now…
Take tumors out of the brain…
From people from all over the world.
They were the same hands…
That were picking tomatoes not long ago.
All right.
That looks good. The vessel is reserved.
We are done with the tumor.
We're just double-checking everything
to make sure that we don't leave
anything behind, like this right here.
We're going to start closing.
- He looks great.
- It's really good.
He looks great.
He did beautifully.
Hey, there you are! You did great!
- You got everything?
- Yeah, we got everything.
We dissected all the vessels,
so I'm very happy about that.
- Good.
- All right?
I'm very proud of you.
- Thank you.
- We're closing.
I have Dr. Clifton right there,
closing the skin,
and he's doing a beautiful job.
- Thank you.
- All right?
Very good.
Thanks.
Good. Very happy.
All that adrenaline, it just drains you.
You can imagine when it's a six-hour case.
It's all that adrenaline.
So my ring just begins to fall off.
You lose a lot of water.
So, it's not just mental,
but it's also physical.
And it's mental and physical for them.
His family's outside.
I'm just very happy
that everything went well.
After you finish,
you just have this moment of…
And all that adrenaline goes down.
And then you have to recharge
and go back in.
So…
When we leave that operating room
and we have touched that brain,
we just don't know if that patient
is going to wake up
able to write, able to read,
able to see,
able to recognize their loved ones,
and you carry that burden quietly.
Even after you take out these tumors,
there's always the possibility
that that tumor is going to come back.
So my role is to make sure
that I give them hope
so they get to fight that fear
with all their heart and all their might.
There you are. Look at you guys!
He looks great.
I'm so proud of you.
That was one of
the more difficult things I've done.
It was a lot to deal with.
Yeah. Emotionally,
physically, in every direction.
The pain, and then, you know,
obviously, going through the questions…
Mm-hmm. Well, the questions were tough.
I was listening to them.
Dr. Savsevitz
wasn't taking it easy on you.
I was failing the exam.
I was like, "Oh, God."
He was asking him about melodies.
"Is this the same melody?"
I guess because they're, like…
Some of them are close,
and you think it's different,
and I don't want to sit there
and answer them wrong
- and everyone get worried, you know?
- Yeah.
I was about to close,
and then there was a little pearl hiding,
like a little pearl that big,
and it was hiding right under the brain
and we were able to get it out.
So, as far as I can tell,
I don't see anything behind.
But I always tell you, you know,
it's going to be a matter of time.
Did amazing. I'm so proud.
I'm very proud of you.
And of you, too, Amy.
It's not easy to be outside,
waiting and putting your loved one's life
in someone else's hands.
- I know that.
- It's tough.
You know, but make sure
that you FaceTime with the kids.
Let them know that everything is good.
All right, let me feel it.
Let me see it.
Thank you so much.
If you need anything, send me a text,
- but my team's going to be here all night.
- We're good.
One of the greatest challenges…
That I had to conquer…
Was figuring out that I needed
to believe in myself.
When you have someone, like myself,
from humble beginnings
with a thick accent,
you encounter moments…
That somehow make you feel inferior
to the rest of the world.
I remember, for instance…
When I was at UC Berkeley…
Sitting at the table
with my teaching assistant.
She says to me,
"So, where are you from?"
And here I am with the long curly hair,
the earrings,
and I am so proud of myself
and I say, "I'm from Mexico."
And she looks at me,
and everybody looks at me,
and she says to me, "You're from Mexico?
You can't be from Mexico.
You're way too smart to be from Mexico."
I do not know…
How to explain this to people…
But that had such a significant…
Effect in my life.
For years, I would avoid…
Answering the question
of where was I from.
And to be honest with you,
sometimes I would even lie about my roots.
I can't change who I am.
I can't change the fact
that I grew up poor,
that I grew up in Mexico.
I can't change the fact
that I came as a poor immigrant
and I worked in the fields.
I have never been able
to get rid of that weight on my shoulders,
and I never will.
I just embrace it and I work with it.
Hello.
How are you?
Very good. Where do you live?
- Over there.
- In that house in the corner?
Let's see if any of you
can do wheelies or anything.
That's it!
There you go!
Have a good day!
Goodbye.
- Isn't that great?
- Remind you of anyone?
Of course.
As I played with my grandfather…
I always came back to him.
Even though I would go and explore,
eventually I would come back to him.
And, 33 years later, I come back
and I realize that "faraway"
has always been inside me.
That it's been in my brain,
that it's been in my heart,
that it's been in my soul.
And, faraway,
I have carried it with me
all through this journey.