As 2006 came to an end I was reflecting back on the year and thinking of events of the previous months. I was thinking about things and people that impacted me. Circumstances that contributed to me being here right now. One of the people who impacted me the most although she will never know is a young Hatian women named Maria who I helped care for the day before she died of AIDS. She is part of the reason I am now working in the area of HIV/AIDS. The afternoon I spent with her, although I didn't know it at the time, changed my life. I wrote the following essay a couple of months ago...my tribute to Maria.
The young boy standing by the casket is her oldest son. We were able to participate in Maria's funderal. She died the morning after we cared for her.
Maria
A bare concrete floor in a one- room cinder block house lying on foam mattress dying. No one sees, no one knows. She is invisible. Maria is her name, has anybody heard her story? 33 years old with three children, who will care for her children? I have not recorded her story. Why? I told her story for the first time last week. It was months ago but still it was so fresh. I can still see her skeletal frame lying on the thin mattress on the hard floor, her emaciated face. Dim sunlight lit the room through the shuttered window and open front door. I have never smelled death before that day. It was death and something else—isolation, alienation, fear, abandonment. She was too weak to even smile, her eyes were lifeless, knowing, before her neighbors did her certain death. Her neighbors said she got an infection from going down to the river too soon after giving birth. Maria said nothing, her throat was almost swollen shut, she could barely sip small amounts of liquid. She had been lying exactly where we had found her for 10days and had not eaten anything for 7. I wish we could have given some kind of medicine to ease the pain but we had nothing but rehydration powder…and a caring touch. She was lying in her own feces, her cotton gown soaked with urine.
We were appalled. Shocked. Why wasn’t anyone caring for her? Where were her neighbors? Wasn’t there a church in the village? Where were the members of her church? We stopped many times while bathing her as painful bouts of diarrhea seized her weakened frame. We lifted her onto the chamber pot and held her there as she used the toilet. I don’t know what broke my heart more the absence of any family to care for her or the fact that strangers, foreigners, woman who couldn’t even speak her language were now lifting her from her undignified position on the chamber pot and cleaning her raw backside. No gloves, hardly clean water. There were a few neighbors who had come in by this time, involved in caring for Maria but not really. They hung back as we drew near to clean her making sure they weren’t in arms length so that we wouldn’t ask them to assist us as we bathed her with soap and water, gently pulled a clean gown over her head and moved her to a clean mattress. Somehow the ladies managed to find a clean mattress, sheet and nightgown. Numb, we couldn’t stop the tears from running down our faces. We sat by Marias bed and took her frail hand in our own.
“Oh Maria, my friend Maria” Michelle repeated over and over again as we finished cleaning her. We sat all afternoon stroking her face and her arms. Holding her hands and singing to her. At one point Michelle scooted close to Maria’s head and started stroking her cheek as tears ran down her face and trickled off her nose, with her own thin hand Maria reached up and started stroking Michelle’s face. Two women, from two different worlds, with two different stories , and two different futures comforting one another. Maybe they were more alike then I thought. Could it be theirs were the hearts of two mothers who ached for the children who would never know the comforting touch of their mother…who ached for the wholeness that will not be our until eternity? I wish I had recorded the entire afternoon shortly after it happened but I didn’t. I couldn’t. The image of Michelle gently stroking Maria’s face and Maria hers is forever burned into my memory. I thought I could forgot that day with Maria, her last day, but I can’t. I shouldn’t. There is beauty in death, I believe that, but there was very little beauty in Maria’s death. I told her story to a roomful of Ghanaians to inspire them with a real life story of love and comfort. To communicate to them that caring for someone who is dying is a privilege. I hope we were a comfort to her in her last hours. But I wonder how comforting is the touch of a stranger? How meaningful the caress of foreigners? I did not know Maria but I loved her. I did not know Maria but I cried for her. For the her three young children who would never grow up because two of the three were already infected with HIV, the same disease their mother now lay dying of….
Oh Maria, your story lives on in my memory and in the memory of those who spent your final day with you.
“I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will revealed in us. The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed…We know the whole of creation had been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up into this present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we are saved. But hope that is seen is so hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.”
Romans 8:18-19; 22-25
A bare concrete floor in a one- room cinder block house lying on foam mattress dying. No one sees, no one knows. She is invisible. Maria is her name, has anybody heard her story? 33 years old with three children, who will care for her children? I have not recorded her story. Why? I told her story for the first time last week. It was months ago but still it was so fresh. I can still see her skeletal frame lying on the thin mattress on the hard floor, her emaciated face. Dim sunlight lit the room through the shuttered window and open front door. I have never smelled death before that day. It was death and something else—isolation, alienation, fear, abandonment. She was too weak to even smile, her eyes were lifeless, knowing, before her neighbors did her certain death. Her neighbors said she got an infection from going down to the river too soon after giving birth. Maria said nothing, her throat was almost swollen shut, she could barely sip small amounts of liquid. She had been lying exactly where we had found her for 10days and had not eaten anything for 7. I wish we could have given some kind of medicine to ease the pain but we had nothing but rehydration powder…and a caring touch. She was lying in her own feces, her cotton gown soaked with urine.
We were appalled. Shocked. Why wasn’t anyone caring for her? Where were her neighbors? Wasn’t there a church in the village? Where were the members of her church? We stopped many times while bathing her as painful bouts of diarrhea seized her weakened frame. We lifted her onto the chamber pot and held her there as she used the toilet. I don’t know what broke my heart more the absence of any family to care for her or the fact that strangers, foreigners, woman who couldn’t even speak her language were now lifting her from her undignified position on the chamber pot and cleaning her raw backside. No gloves, hardly clean water. There were a few neighbors who had come in by this time, involved in caring for Maria but not really. They hung back as we drew near to clean her making sure they weren’t in arms length so that we wouldn’t ask them to assist us as we bathed her with soap and water, gently pulled a clean gown over her head and moved her to a clean mattress. Somehow the ladies managed to find a clean mattress, sheet and nightgown. Numb, we couldn’t stop the tears from running down our faces. We sat by Marias bed and took her frail hand in our own.
“Oh Maria, my friend Maria” Michelle repeated over and over again as we finished cleaning her. We sat all afternoon stroking her face and her arms. Holding her hands and singing to her. At one point Michelle scooted close to Maria’s head and started stroking her cheek as tears ran down her face and trickled off her nose, with her own thin hand Maria reached up and started stroking Michelle’s face. Two women, from two different worlds, with two different stories , and two different futures comforting one another. Maybe they were more alike then I thought. Could it be theirs were the hearts of two mothers who ached for the children who would never know the comforting touch of their mother…who ached for the wholeness that will not be our until eternity? I wish I had recorded the entire afternoon shortly after it happened but I didn’t. I couldn’t. The image of Michelle gently stroking Maria’s face and Maria hers is forever burned into my memory. I thought I could forgot that day with Maria, her last day, but I can’t. I shouldn’t. There is beauty in death, I believe that, but there was very little beauty in Maria’s death. I told her story to a roomful of Ghanaians to inspire them with a real life story of love and comfort. To communicate to them that caring for someone who is dying is a privilege. I hope we were a comfort to her in her last hours. But I wonder how comforting is the touch of a stranger? How meaningful the caress of foreigners? I did not know Maria but I loved her. I did not know Maria but I cried for her. For the her three young children who would never grow up because two of the three were already infected with HIV, the same disease their mother now lay dying of….
Oh Maria, your story lives on in my memory and in the memory of those who spent your final day with you.
“I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will revealed in us. The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed…We know the whole of creation had been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up into this present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we are saved. But hope that is seen is so hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.”
Romans 8:18-19; 22-25
3 comments:
How can we respond to such things with rational or reasoning? We can ask God when we meet him in Heaven, as we will never understand fully why God allows such suffering on earth.
However, the impact that you and your colleagues made on the women in that room and probably the entire neighbourhood, will be huge!
I am reminded of Paul’s analogy where he likens us to ‘Little Jays of Clay’ - fragile and hard pressed from all sides, and yet each of us carries the great treasure of Jesus Christ who is manifested in us (2 Corinthians 4:6-12).
Nic,
Why the Lord allows these things to happen, I don't know, but what I do know is that He is God and is with us even in the most painful detail. He draws near to the crushed in spirit and He understands our grief and pain. What you wrote about Maria was absolutely beautiful. What a privilage to be one of her nurses! Take heart dear sister.
~eliz
Nic,
We often dont know what our presence means to others..just like you dont know what you taking her of her meant to her. But, the lord sees and He knows.
luv, nis
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