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.