Karine's Story

I found him curled up in the corner of the double-sized walk-in closet in my bedroom. My 5-year old son, who even then was tall and slim for his age, with long lanky limbs, sat huddled and sobbing. When Daniel cries there aren’t tears, just heaves in his body, a scrunched up face, and flushed angry cheeks.

My heart flooded with compassion and concern. Of course, I’m determined, with the determination of a mother bear, to rescue him and fix whatever is wrong.

As I hunch down and curl my body around him, I plead quietly, “Daniel, Daniel, honey what’s wrong?”

With big brown eyes, he looks up at me with a mixture of frustration and shame written on the scowl of his face.

“Why can’t I do it!? Why can’t I do it?!” he screams.

“Shhhhh sweetie. Shhhhh. Its okay.” I lie.

“What do you mean? What happened?” I ask. Daniel sits anguished and crying. So, with more urgency, I gently rub his back, and with my blood rushing through my veins in desperation, I prod, “Tell me honey.”

He screams again as his eyes roll up into his tipping head, struggling to get the words out, “W-w-w-w-w-why c-c-c-c-c-c-can’t I do a j-j-j-j-jumping jack?!”

With overwhelming grief I look down at his palsied body, with loose raggedy-andy muscles that are uncontrollable to him. I know that Daniel has been playing downstairs with his cousins and in that moment I’m acutely aware that Daniel is realizing his own differences. He can’t do a jumping jack and I can tell you 7 years later, he probably never will.

He was diagnosed hearing impaired at 6 months of age and with cerebral palsy at 18 months.

But knowing, well, that comes over and over again in waves. The knowing pain of the differences, the poverty of a body that just won’t cooperate. It comes with each new season, as surely as the changing leaves or the lengthening days.

There are no easy answers, simple platitudes, or assuaging words. In that moment of knowing, there is only ‘being with it.’ Being with the truth, dignifying the truth, the human being. Being together.

Of course, at the time I tried to fix with words, encouragement, cheering, but really, it was useless. Now, I can’t even remember what I said. But, I honour that moment and am proud that we shared it.

The clock speeds forward, and jumbo jets rush me into the hot heavy air of equatorial Africa.

In a tiny corner of Uganda, a little country of sub-Saharan Africa, tucked right between Rwanda and the Congo, I am visiting a little village of Rwebisengo. Back in the hotel of Kampala, the friends from the lounge had laughed as they warned me about how they will grab your forearm and bow low to the ground to greet you in this place.

The trip into the village had been long and trying, as I grabbed my straw hat and held it down over my head as the wind and dust from the dusty road and down-turned windows of the Jeep wreaked havoc with my hair and skin.

The heat was suffocating.

But, my heart was moved to see the village medical clinic serving mothers with dying babies, hemorrhaging women, and AIDS patients. We intelligently and thoughtfully discussed the issues with the community social services worker.

Our meal was planned for the “Uncle’s” house. Everyone in the village called him “Uncle” and they took pleasure in telling me how they were related. When I got to Uncles large compound with many plastered and mud huts, I was received with much pomp and circumstance. Feeling foreign and awkward, I gratefully greeted my hosts.

The orphans, praying silently in their hearts for sponsorship and support, were lined up in the courtyard in a Sound-of-Music line up…to greet ME?! I had little to offer but some pencils and candy. I proceeded slowly down the line, introducing myself to each child through a translator.

Swahili is beyond me.

When I get to the end of the line, I am greeting the littlest ones. And, I squat down, taking the child’s hand and cheerfully announce, “Hello, my name is Karine! What’s your name?” I’m aware of the heat and my loud voice; I look forward to sitting down again.

I wait though, holding the little girl’s hand and gaze as my hostess is translating for her. The girl shrugs. The question is repeated with a hint of frustration as the girl shrugs her shoulders again. In this moment, there are some nervous giggles from the adults and a couple of the children present.

They have my attention.

They look at me, as I am quickly looking around and trying to sense what is going on. I look back at the tall lean girl, obviously from the Congolese tribes. I’m sure she is about 6 years old, but she hasn’t started losing her teeth yet. Nervously, my host grips my shoulder and whispers, “She doesn’t know her name. She doesn’t know the name of her family. She is an orphan and she doesn’t know.”

I rage inside. Who has called this girl over to them? How does she know where she belongs? How can I fix this?! The futility of the pencils and the candy! DAMN! This child who is about 6 has no identity, name, or place. She isn’t just wearing a stained and torn pink party dress; she doesn’t even have her name!

I look into her eyes.

With a rush of conviction and inspiration I declare, as if I can change something, “You are Precious! From now on, and forever, you will be known as Precious.”

What happened in that moment? Was something profound or simple? Did anything change or move?

What gives me comfort is that we were together. Just together. Present. Connected. Sharing a moment. We dignified each other’s humanity and existence just by being together. There was nothing to fix; only two little girls affirming each other.

Dignity is “being with” in the moments of sheer and utter poverty and helplessness. It is important to be together.