In loving memory

Twice a week, Preston goes to the children's hospital with our friend Rodrigo to pray specifically for children with cancer. I went with them once on August 19th.

It took us a long time to get in. The part of the hospital we wanted to get to was guarded. To get in, we needed to walk up to guards, explain what we were doing, get interrogated about our business. There was a very good chance that we could've gotten turned away. But after a while, they had us sign in on a clipboard and allowed us access. Rodrigo knew his way around--he led us through a garden, down hallways, twists and turns. Eventually we made it to a specific ward, and found ourselves in a green hallway. We began knocking on doors, asking to pray for the children and their family members. It was a little difficult for me because yet again, the language barrier rendered me unable to understand everything that was being said. Preston interpreted for me the best he could in a whisper.


The first room we went into was very dark and very hot. There were four beds, all of them occupied with a sick child. We went to all of them to talk and pray, and I took pictures of everyone--the sweet little girl, the older girl who had no hair, the tired-looking boy who smiled big for the camera, the small child who slept the entire time. The next room was smaller with only two beds. One of the boys there had the most swollen, largest belly I'd ever seen on a child. Interpreting his family's words, Preston told me that everything had already been done on him and there was nothing else to do but wait.


Strangely, I felt very sleepy the entire time. I wanted to wake myself up to really concentrate on what was happening, but I just felt so tired. It was very odd. I'd had a good night's sleep and everything. Preston felt the same way--he figured it was the heat in the hospital. I think it was that and the fact that everything felt wan and dead.


I felt so tired that I nearly groaned when Rodrigo beckoned us into one last room. He let me go ahead to take a picture, and I squeezed into the small, barely lit room. I found myself looking at someone with only one leg. Their hair was so short that I had to ask if it was a boy or a girl. It was a girl. I angled myself the best I could, and took a picture of her stretched out on her bed. Rodrigo said "Take a picture of her face," and so I did that as well. I leaned over and showed the girl her picture, and she gave me a quiet little smile. Then we left the hospital.

I'm going to cut myself off here to post a link to the Kolbs' blog about this topic... read (it's pretty short) and watch the video.

http://bigpicturemissions.wordpress.com/2011/09/19/la-moscota-childrens-hospital-nicaragua/

See the girl, Scarleth Altamirrano at the end of the video? That's the same girl at the beginning with only one leg, and yes, those are my pictures of her. She died about two weeks ago.

Last week Carrie was sitting at the table and I was doing dishes when Preston came home from the hospital. He flopped heavily into a chair, telling us that one of the girls Rodrigo had often visited had died. He and Preston had asked to visit her, but a nurse said "Oh, you didn't know? She passed away last week." They hadn't known at all, but it wasn't very surprising. She had cancer in her leg, and the doctors decided to amputate it before it could spread any further. So they went ahead and amputated her right leg... only to discover that they were too late and cancer had already spread to her lungs. She lost her leg for nothing, and she was only twelve or thirteen.

I washed the dishes, listening to Preston talk when it suddenly hit me that this girl only had one leg. I ran to get my camera, went through it until I found my hospital photos, and showed the picture of the one-legged girl's face to Preston. He looked at it and said "Yeah, that's her."

The huge sense of loss began to really sink in. Her story was sad enough, but it suddenly took on a much heavier meaning to me because I had seen her just weeks before she died. I had been in her room, taken pictures, spoken to her, showed her the picture of herself. Carrie and Preston had used my pictures of her in their video because there were no other pictures of her.

I'm slowly realizing everything as I'm typing it down. Honestly, this entire post is like an epiphany that I never knew I had in my heart until my fingers began hitting the keyboard.

And you know what, I don't know how to end this post. I've been sitting here staring at the screen for several minutes, and I'm completely lost. How do you end something like this?

Might as well end it the way it started.

                                                              In loving memory