“I did not go to Nicaragua intending to write a book, or write at all, but my encounter with the place affected me so deeply that in the end I had no choice. So: a moment, but I believe a crucial and revealing one, because it was neither a beginning nor an end, but a middle, a time that felt close to the fulcrum of history, a time when all things, all the possible futures, were still (just) in the balance.” Salman Rushdie, The Jaguar Smile, p. 5.
It is nearing the end of January, meaning I have just the same amount of time to go in my time here as the time that has passed. Like usual, it has gone by fast, and I reflect on what has come before.
Maybe this split of the year I find myself in is a little like being at the bottom of the hill on my common run a couple times a week: the way down, which is always in this case first, was less work, nonetheless much needed preparation for the way up, the more strenous part. But the way up, though once a grand feat, is now known, studied and experienced; pace intuitive, momentum steady, fear subsided. The amount of time is beginning to show more and more by my Honduran sister Diana, whose before mere bump is now a living being yawning, sleeping, stretching arms on their bed. Yes, 5 months, that is how long it has taken me to birth my own baby I’d like to call confidence and trust, in myself and in and from others and its still on its way. But I am constantly reminded, as being surrounded by the bible as a tool of reminders, that David wandered around for years in the pastures, attending to smelly sheep and killing bears and lions before slaying Goliath, and even that was just the beginning.
The outside living-ness of Nueva Suyapa such as children playing soccer in my path, donkeys going on their own and mothers bathing their children no longer makes me giddy like it did before. They now are everyday backdrops of the painting I’d like to call my life in Tegucigalpa.
Names, faces, children I’ve played with, promises I’ve made fly by like the buses going to their barns after a long day of hard work; too tired to really meet. That is something I’d like to change about myself and my situation, but with such a multitude passing through this community center each day, it is not always possible to invest, sometimes even to remember.
My expectations are beginning to lower, in a good way, it is making me happier and content, appreciative of the small things and small victories; me finally taking advantage of opportunities to joke around, understanding it all; a co-worker spending all day on a presentation for his bank meetings despite low turnout and finally giving my own presentations, and receiving positive results.
It is windier than usual here, making it cold this side of the mountain. I am finding myself robed much like those around me: everything looking nice but nothing really too practical for the situation at hand; hiding holes that expose goose bumping skin. No, it is not too cold here, but all things are relative, and when thin sweaters and blankets are all we’ve all got to keep us all warm, well, it feels cold. And how it feels really does matter, I’m beginning to realize.
Back in my house I’m led once again to decipher the difference between firecrackers, cars backfiring and actual gun shots. Though, hearing a real gun shot is much like the moment right when you’re going to throw up or faint, you just internally know it. I guess that is one of the many skills I am gaining while being here. I listen long to hear the after effects: children crying, fearful others or tormented participators running down the road; expectant individuals waiting to see what has really happened. I am convinced now; it is not so safe to walk around here at night. The fear that inhabitors possess, that multiplied x on the survey I am taking that says no these clients cannot live without fear of violence now also becomes a part of me. I now jump in fear when friends surprise me in the streets; an internal instinct of “watch out”. My eyes seem like they are only now beginning to open, my life now more a known part of the diffulculties every day Nueva Suyapans have had to live all of their lives. I always think about, how I will and can never fully know, for I have a way out, and access to more money; and it is in the end, only a year.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
A kind of Rebirth
…“And then,
we’ll go wake our own dead
with the life they bequeathed us
and we’ll all sing together
with concerts of birds
repeat our message
through the length and breadth
of America.”
~ From Until We’re Free
By Giocanda Belli.~
The next time I was in the hospital, though not the same graveyard public hospital, Hospital Escuela, was for the birth of my Honduran sister’s first born child. Though this one was a private hospital, it still had the third world detoriation and dirtier feel that Hospital Escuela had; bringing back memories of the last dreaded visit. I guess, the same thread that can take life can give it; the same waiting room that brings greif can bring joy; and they often come hand in hand, just like my full circle experiences of a child’s death piggy backed by a new child’s life.
To realize that the same country, and the same amount though opposite emotive power can respond to and produce both life and death gives me hope that next to every story of sadness there is also a story of triumph, a story of overcoming obstacles, a story of one’s once dead spirit now living on in another. I guess that is what the resurrection story is about, and why, though He knew the eventual outcomes, Jesus wept deeply at the death of Lazarus, and to the point of death in Gethsemane. This shows me that Jesus’ example was that it is OK, natural and healthy to grieve losses in ones life, or grieve the loss, the profound sadness of a world full of things we cannot excuse, like the avoidable death of a ten year old child. And I truly believe that it is only in allowing ourselves to feel every one of our feelings, that sometimes unconsolable sadness and inquenchable anger for the backdrops of injustice that fill the skylines of our everyday lives that we can adversably feel true joy, and really rejoice.
That has been my experience here in Honduras; falling down to be picked up again by the beautiful people around me, but also to learn how I have the possibility, with help, to learn how to pick up myself; gaining slowly the self trust and confidence that sometimes takes. And now, after working to not stuff down but feel such grief, I am beginning to feel real joy at every day events like playing with children, going hiking and celebrating the successes of coworkers.
It’s Small steps taken gradually and at my own pace; and it’s not perfect; I thank God that he didn’t require that of us, but while in our suffering and struggle and what some call sin, well She had deep compassion on us, because we were like sheep without a shepherd. I pray for all of you, as you too, decipher this journey that is laid in front of you.
I saw the baby today, she’s a little chubby, blancita and beautiful, with big feet, just like the father they say. We waited up all night to see her, she was born at six in the morning, but we didn’t hear news of her birth till 9:00am. The family had an appointment to see her at 11:00am. It is weird to me that none of the family, even the spouse, can be with the pregnant woman while in labor. But, because there are over twenty women giving birth in the same open room, they have to allow privacy for every patient, meaning no strangers, who are family of one of the other 20, or nonmedical person present. I remember in a cross-cultural class in college having to study major events – like births or deaths in different cultures, now I see why, it says a lot about the values of a culture. For example, the husband slept all night while she was in labor while the parents and sisters waited up; he had work the next day and they didn’t give him permission to leave to be with his wife. That kind of behavior seems unheard of where my worldview comes from, but signifies a lot about the expectations about the role of the husband in a more machismo culture. However it is interesting to see, the power of such a small being, how she, by her mere presence, can transform these cultural norms; making even the more machista harder hearts soft, speaking in spanish baby language to the newborn. I look forward to seeing if she will change my own negative norms during the rest of my time here.
we’ll go wake our own dead
with the life they bequeathed us
and we’ll all sing together
with concerts of birds
repeat our message
through the length and breadth
of America.”
~ From Until We’re Free
By Giocanda Belli.~
The next time I was in the hospital, though not the same graveyard public hospital, Hospital Escuela, was for the birth of my Honduran sister’s first born child. Though this one was a private hospital, it still had the third world detoriation and dirtier feel that Hospital Escuela had; bringing back memories of the last dreaded visit. I guess, the same thread that can take life can give it; the same waiting room that brings greif can bring joy; and they often come hand in hand, just like my full circle experiences of a child’s death piggy backed by a new child’s life.
To realize that the same country, and the same amount though opposite emotive power can respond to and produce both life and death gives me hope that next to every story of sadness there is also a story of triumph, a story of overcoming obstacles, a story of one’s once dead spirit now living on in another. I guess that is what the resurrection story is about, and why, though He knew the eventual outcomes, Jesus wept deeply at the death of Lazarus, and to the point of death in Gethsemane. This shows me that Jesus’ example was that it is OK, natural and healthy to grieve losses in ones life, or grieve the loss, the profound sadness of a world full of things we cannot excuse, like the avoidable death of a ten year old child. And I truly believe that it is only in allowing ourselves to feel every one of our feelings, that sometimes unconsolable sadness and inquenchable anger for the backdrops of injustice that fill the skylines of our everyday lives that we can adversably feel true joy, and really rejoice.
That has been my experience here in Honduras; falling down to be picked up again by the beautiful people around me, but also to learn how I have the possibility, with help, to learn how to pick up myself; gaining slowly the self trust and confidence that sometimes takes. And now, after working to not stuff down but feel such grief, I am beginning to feel real joy at every day events like playing with children, going hiking and celebrating the successes of coworkers.
It’s Small steps taken gradually and at my own pace; and it’s not perfect; I thank God that he didn’t require that of us, but while in our suffering and struggle and what some call sin, well She had deep compassion on us, because we were like sheep without a shepherd. I pray for all of you, as you too, decipher this journey that is laid in front of you.
I saw the baby today, she’s a little chubby, blancita and beautiful, with big feet, just like the father they say. We waited up all night to see her, she was born at six in the morning, but we didn’t hear news of her birth till 9:00am. The family had an appointment to see her at 11:00am. It is weird to me that none of the family, even the spouse, can be with the pregnant woman while in labor. But, because there are over twenty women giving birth in the same open room, they have to allow privacy for every patient, meaning no strangers, who are family of one of the other 20, or nonmedical person present. I remember in a cross-cultural class in college having to study major events – like births or deaths in different cultures, now I see why, it says a lot about the values of a culture. For example, the husband slept all night while she was in labor while the parents and sisters waited up; he had work the next day and they didn’t give him permission to leave to be with his wife. That kind of behavior seems unheard of where my worldview comes from, but signifies a lot about the expectations about the role of the husband in a more machismo culture. However it is interesting to see, the power of such a small being, how she, by her mere presence, can transform these cultural norms; making even the more machista harder hearts soft, speaking in spanish baby language to the newborn. I look forward to seeing if she will change my own negative norms during the rest of my time here.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Melissa
“Cada alud de tristeza tiene su historia y su intestino”
“Every avalanche of sadness has its story and its intestine.” ~ Diana A. Espinal Meza (Honduran Poet) ~
“All too many ministers found themselves more cautious then courageous, and remained silent among the safe security of stained glass windows.” MLK – Letter from a Birmingham Jail.
“The oppressor is solidary with the oppressed only when he stops regarding the oppressed as an abstract category and treats them as persons who have been unjustly dealt with, deprived of their voice, cheated in the sale of their labor---when he stops making pious, sentimental and ritualistic gestures and risks an act of love.” ~ Paulo Freire; Pedagogy of the Oppressed p. 35 ~
“I asked you a question, I didn’t need you to reply;
is it getting heavy?
And then I realized, is it getting heavy?
Well I thought it was already as heavy as it can be.
Is it overwhelming; to use a crane to crush a fly?
A good time for superman to lift the sun into the sky
Is it overwhelming?
Well I thought it was already as heavy as can be.
Tell everybody waiting for superman,
they should try to hold on as best they can.
He hasn’t dropped them, forgot them or anything,
It’s just too heavy for superman to lift.”
Flaming Lips --- Waiting for Superman.
The last line of this song came into my mind as I walked to the hospital, bringing my never to be used by Melissa’s cd player to her last seen hospital room. I guess I didn’t realize how severe it was, or more accurately, didn’t want to believe how severe it was. I had been warned after all of the possible nearness of death in the moment when, holding her hand, out of my mouth poured “You see those angels, they’re singing for you, they’re singing.” I guess God has Her way of preparing us for the deaths of those we choose to love even when we are in denial about it.
It just didn’t seem to make sense, yes she had HIV and yes she was malnourished, and the terrible mix of the two was dangerous; but what she had at that moment seemed curable, and that is why I expect this situation to haunt and drive me for quite some time now.
The hauntedness coming from the idea of the third and fourth quotes, realizing the cautious route is the one I decided in this case, wondering if I risked more acts of love, if others risked more acts of love if it all would have turned out differently. But I will never know, and as David James Duncan says in the Brother’s K, it’s not my job to know. That, in the end will only keep me up at night and possibly keep me from more acts of love in the future. However, what my job is now, regardless of what I did or didn’t do in the past is to tell the story that she was not able to tell; and that is what I would like to do now.
Liz needed to go to the bathroom with her buddy, Diana, so she passed Melissa, who was sitting on her lap, over to me. We were watching a very strange and over the top middle aged musical, however Melissa was not noticing the strangeness or the over the top-ness. When I looked over at her, her eyes did not seem to be following the characters the way one’s eyes usually follow TV. Maybe that was a good thing, I have watched one too many children’s eyes stolen by these images flashing and dancing that maybe I’d rather any child be anywhere else in their mind. But not where I came to understand this child probably was in hers; I would rather her enjoying anything silly or fun even if it was a temporary, in this case, healthy escape.
Melissa was one who was taught very early on, as I was taught early on, not to trust virtually anyone, but especially adults. Her parents died when she was young and she lived with her grandmother who abused her, when the director of the orphanage rescued her from her horrible living situation. I do not know all of the abuse Melissa had to endure, but based on the dent larger than a fist on her head, and her flinches when children would play fight with eachother, I reckon it must have been severe.
As I held her already delicate body and scarred arms, overwhelming sadness overcame me. I imagined myself as a child, being held in my parent’s arms, realizing that whatever pain I experienced as a child was nothing compared to what this child had to go through. I held her tight as I cried over these things.
I remember the first time I met her; it was with a group of other children at the orphanage. She was more a normal skinnyness size then; dark black hair with twinges of brown that fit nicely with her bronze lightly rounded cheeks. Always interested yet always shy and in the backround. At this point though, she was involved in more childlike play things then she would be later. She was wearing a glitter lipstick that must have been gifted to one of the other girls at the orphanage; indicating her possession of a little dress up curiosity at the least.
That moment in the movie theatre when I held her, I noticed her experimenting with pushing my extended hand away and then asking for it back. She did that with many adults, and with my presence that night; going back into her room to be alone and then coming back out to be held again. I would wait and I noticed in the waiting would give her the chance to decide when she wanted touch as the touch she was used to was so often tainted or so far away from positive.
Back at the orphanage, after a long bout of being alone in her room, Melissa came out for her medicine, and to say hello. I will always remember her standing there, wanting attention but not able to ask for it in the way many other kids do so naturally. Maybe she felt she didn’t deserve it; maybe she thought her burden too large for anyone to take away from her; maybe she just wasn’t used to it, unsure she even wanted it. So she just stood there, gave me a “yes I am suffering” look and I walked over to her and asked how she was doing. She said she would like to sit down with me. I grabbed a chair, walked outside with her and sat her on my lap. We watched and talked about the stars and the other children playing duck-duck goose. Maybe she wished she could enjoy playing, maybe she was enjoying just wishing her wish that night.
It is hard to know if that came true.
After she was tired she had the courage to ask me to walk her to her room and stay with her as she went to sleep. I read her and the other children around her a story as she curled up as close as possible; smiling the only satisfied smile I had seen on her side of the tracks that day.
She slept in peace that night.
The next and last time I saw her, I held her hand that same way I did before and she curled up that same way she did before. She was frail and delicate this time, bones just holding together skin and failing organs, lifting up her near lifeless hand to ask for a drink or to try to move the IV counterfeit that was stuck in her arm. It was hard to hold that hand; experiencing first hand the effects of neglect and abuse.
She, I firmly believe, slept in peace; for good this time.
I say neglect and abuse and not HIV because I know that Melissa was receiving the treatment she needed to survive. However, not the intensive dose of acts of love that she needed. Because of that, she would walk around, weighted by her internal nightmare, would refuse to eat or play or commune at all with others, until her body began refusing food and treatment naturally, making her incerasingly sick, speeding up the effects of HIV and AIDS. I do not know specifics, but this is what I understood happened. In the end, her body shut down and she could not breathe.
“Osprets eat fish. Deers eat foliage, change their diets and they’ll die.” David James Duncan, The Brother’s K p. 282.
It was her much regimented diet of medicine that was changed which caused her to die. However it may have been a change of environment as well. Melissa had been rescued from her abusive household around seven months before to the children’s home where my friend Liz worked. It is hard to say, if bringing Melissa to the children’s home extended her life a few months later, simply allowed her to die knowing she was loved or was such a shock, though positive, still a shock compared to the hell she was used to, another kind of diet change. It is said that children used to abuse and neglect crave it because it is the only thing they have been shown as something like love in their life. Coming into an environment where she was shown a kinder variety of love may have been hard for her. In addition, with so many mouths and souls to feed it may have been a morsel compared to the intensified attentiveness and patience she needed to survive. There was one psycologist who just began at the orphanage for thirty five emotionally drained and needy children with HIV or HIV AIDS. I am not blaming any one, just trying to come to terms with the situation while noting the reality that exists in Honduras and so many other developing country orphanages around the world. Though I usually stray from eternity oriented religion, I couldn’t help but think of her death as one of God’s backwards ways of removing her from “a world’s worth of things I can’t excuse.”(Ani Difranco)
Nonetheless, whatever perfectly poignant insight we can get out of this inexcusable situation, it is still and will always be inexcusable. I have heard statistics of so many such deaths, and yes this was my first in person encounter with such a statistic. The fact that one ten year old dies of lack and malice personified tears me up inside, but the fact that the statistics tell me of thousands, millions of such deaths deflates all of those insides. And yes, this was one I loved, and yes that caused me to weep.
Maybe it takes one personal relationship to make the statistic mean something, maybe numbers just become numbers to so many. Maybe she died so that many more may live. I hope so, I hope there is some significant meaning. If nothing more, she will always be in me the rock that cries out regarding the grand injustice of the state of HIV AIDS and domestic abuse in this world and country. I guess I write this in the hope that her story will inspire you to do the same, and you will not get bogged down with the statistics, numbers and need. Realizing, that some will and do die, but if you fight courageously, if you fight with love, and favor that over fear motivated self protection, well, maybe many more really will live to be Honduras’ and Zimbabwe’s and Cambodia’s Martin Luther Kings.
“Every avalanche of sadness has its story and its intestine.” ~ Diana A. Espinal Meza (Honduran Poet) ~
“All too many ministers found themselves more cautious then courageous, and remained silent among the safe security of stained glass windows.” MLK – Letter from a Birmingham Jail.
“The oppressor is solidary with the oppressed only when he stops regarding the oppressed as an abstract category and treats them as persons who have been unjustly dealt with, deprived of their voice, cheated in the sale of their labor---when he stops making pious, sentimental and ritualistic gestures and risks an act of love.” ~ Paulo Freire; Pedagogy of the Oppressed p. 35 ~
“I asked you a question, I didn’t need you to reply;
is it getting heavy?
And then I realized, is it getting heavy?
Well I thought it was already as heavy as it can be.
Is it overwhelming; to use a crane to crush a fly?
A good time for superman to lift the sun into the sky
Is it overwhelming?
Well I thought it was already as heavy as can be.
Tell everybody waiting for superman,
they should try to hold on as best they can.
He hasn’t dropped them, forgot them or anything,
It’s just too heavy for superman to lift.”
Flaming Lips --- Waiting for Superman.
The last line of this song came into my mind as I walked to the hospital, bringing my never to be used by Melissa’s cd player to her last seen hospital room. I guess I didn’t realize how severe it was, or more accurately, didn’t want to believe how severe it was. I had been warned after all of the possible nearness of death in the moment when, holding her hand, out of my mouth poured “You see those angels, they’re singing for you, they’re singing.” I guess God has Her way of preparing us for the deaths of those we choose to love even when we are in denial about it.
It just didn’t seem to make sense, yes she had HIV and yes she was malnourished, and the terrible mix of the two was dangerous; but what she had at that moment seemed curable, and that is why I expect this situation to haunt and drive me for quite some time now.
The hauntedness coming from the idea of the third and fourth quotes, realizing the cautious route is the one I decided in this case, wondering if I risked more acts of love, if others risked more acts of love if it all would have turned out differently. But I will never know, and as David James Duncan says in the Brother’s K, it’s not my job to know. That, in the end will only keep me up at night and possibly keep me from more acts of love in the future. However, what my job is now, regardless of what I did or didn’t do in the past is to tell the story that she was not able to tell; and that is what I would like to do now.
Liz needed to go to the bathroom with her buddy, Diana, so she passed Melissa, who was sitting on her lap, over to me. We were watching a very strange and over the top middle aged musical, however Melissa was not noticing the strangeness or the over the top-ness. When I looked over at her, her eyes did not seem to be following the characters the way one’s eyes usually follow TV. Maybe that was a good thing, I have watched one too many children’s eyes stolen by these images flashing and dancing that maybe I’d rather any child be anywhere else in their mind. But not where I came to understand this child probably was in hers; I would rather her enjoying anything silly or fun even if it was a temporary, in this case, healthy escape.
Melissa was one who was taught very early on, as I was taught early on, not to trust virtually anyone, but especially adults. Her parents died when she was young and she lived with her grandmother who abused her, when the director of the orphanage rescued her from her horrible living situation. I do not know all of the abuse Melissa had to endure, but based on the dent larger than a fist on her head, and her flinches when children would play fight with eachother, I reckon it must have been severe.
As I held her already delicate body and scarred arms, overwhelming sadness overcame me. I imagined myself as a child, being held in my parent’s arms, realizing that whatever pain I experienced as a child was nothing compared to what this child had to go through. I held her tight as I cried over these things.
I remember the first time I met her; it was with a group of other children at the orphanage. She was more a normal skinnyness size then; dark black hair with twinges of brown that fit nicely with her bronze lightly rounded cheeks. Always interested yet always shy and in the backround. At this point though, she was involved in more childlike play things then she would be later. She was wearing a glitter lipstick that must have been gifted to one of the other girls at the orphanage; indicating her possession of a little dress up curiosity at the least.
That moment in the movie theatre when I held her, I noticed her experimenting with pushing my extended hand away and then asking for it back. She did that with many adults, and with my presence that night; going back into her room to be alone and then coming back out to be held again. I would wait and I noticed in the waiting would give her the chance to decide when she wanted touch as the touch she was used to was so often tainted or so far away from positive.
Back at the orphanage, after a long bout of being alone in her room, Melissa came out for her medicine, and to say hello. I will always remember her standing there, wanting attention but not able to ask for it in the way many other kids do so naturally. Maybe she felt she didn’t deserve it; maybe she thought her burden too large for anyone to take away from her; maybe she just wasn’t used to it, unsure she even wanted it. So she just stood there, gave me a “yes I am suffering” look and I walked over to her and asked how she was doing. She said she would like to sit down with me. I grabbed a chair, walked outside with her and sat her on my lap. We watched and talked about the stars and the other children playing duck-duck goose. Maybe she wished she could enjoy playing, maybe she was enjoying just wishing her wish that night.
It is hard to know if that came true.
After she was tired she had the courage to ask me to walk her to her room and stay with her as she went to sleep. I read her and the other children around her a story as she curled up as close as possible; smiling the only satisfied smile I had seen on her side of the tracks that day.
She slept in peace that night.
The next and last time I saw her, I held her hand that same way I did before and she curled up that same way she did before. She was frail and delicate this time, bones just holding together skin and failing organs, lifting up her near lifeless hand to ask for a drink or to try to move the IV counterfeit that was stuck in her arm. It was hard to hold that hand; experiencing first hand the effects of neglect and abuse.
She, I firmly believe, slept in peace; for good this time.
I say neglect and abuse and not HIV because I know that Melissa was receiving the treatment she needed to survive. However, not the intensive dose of acts of love that she needed. Because of that, she would walk around, weighted by her internal nightmare, would refuse to eat or play or commune at all with others, until her body began refusing food and treatment naturally, making her incerasingly sick, speeding up the effects of HIV and AIDS. I do not know specifics, but this is what I understood happened. In the end, her body shut down and she could not breathe.
“Osprets eat fish. Deers eat foliage, change their diets and they’ll die.” David James Duncan, The Brother’s K p. 282.
It was her much regimented diet of medicine that was changed which caused her to die. However it may have been a change of environment as well. Melissa had been rescued from her abusive household around seven months before to the children’s home where my friend Liz worked. It is hard to say, if bringing Melissa to the children’s home extended her life a few months later, simply allowed her to die knowing she was loved or was such a shock, though positive, still a shock compared to the hell she was used to, another kind of diet change. It is said that children used to abuse and neglect crave it because it is the only thing they have been shown as something like love in their life. Coming into an environment where she was shown a kinder variety of love may have been hard for her. In addition, with so many mouths and souls to feed it may have been a morsel compared to the intensified attentiveness and patience she needed to survive. There was one psycologist who just began at the orphanage for thirty five emotionally drained and needy children with HIV or HIV AIDS. I am not blaming any one, just trying to come to terms with the situation while noting the reality that exists in Honduras and so many other developing country orphanages around the world. Though I usually stray from eternity oriented religion, I couldn’t help but think of her death as one of God’s backwards ways of removing her from “a world’s worth of things I can’t excuse.”(Ani Difranco)
Nonetheless, whatever perfectly poignant insight we can get out of this inexcusable situation, it is still and will always be inexcusable. I have heard statistics of so many such deaths, and yes this was my first in person encounter with such a statistic. The fact that one ten year old dies of lack and malice personified tears me up inside, but the fact that the statistics tell me of thousands, millions of such deaths deflates all of those insides. And yes, this was one I loved, and yes that caused me to weep.
Maybe it takes one personal relationship to make the statistic mean something, maybe numbers just become numbers to so many. Maybe she died so that many more may live. I hope so, I hope there is some significant meaning. If nothing more, she will always be in me the rock that cries out regarding the grand injustice of the state of HIV AIDS and domestic abuse in this world and country. I guess I write this in the hope that her story will inspire you to do the same, and you will not get bogged down with the statistics, numbers and need. Realizing, that some will and do die, but if you fight courageously, if you fight with love, and favor that over fear motivated self protection, well, maybe many more really will live to be Honduras’ and Zimbabwe’s and Cambodia’s Martin Luther Kings.
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