Wednesday, March 14, 2018

I went with the students on a mobile clinic to Blue Creek today. It is named for the lovely azure creek gliding gently under the stone bridge wide enough for one careful passenger bus. Barely. Yesterday we got stranded at this clinic rather than our destination further down the road by the raucous water pouring over the bridge with impressive force. Yesterday we finally turned around and came home. Today we returned after hearing news that the bridge flooding was down since the heavy rains have stopped.  It isn't.

Getting to Blue Creek takes about an hour's ride in "the Mobile", a sturdy vehicle with rows of seats along both sides, seven of us in back with three boxes of charts, our backpacks and water bottles.  Two Belizian nurses in their white uniforms, four students from England and the U.S., and me.

When we arrive we find the water level identical to yesterday. Hmmm. Although Rudy is the one who knows what should be done, I am the doctor, which astonishingly imparts to me presumed knowledge and insight for which I am unprepared. Rudy and I look seriously over the river. I wade across, feel the strong tug around my ankles, and shake my head that it's a bad idea to cross in the Mobile. Let's eat, I suggest, which is welcome news for everyone.

After a simple meal the water level is unchanged. I recall that a little girl came by clinic yesterday breathing too hard and too quickly. Rudy knows her.  Their house is nearby and on our side of the creek, so my next pronouncement is that we can at least make a home visit. And maybe check on her sister, Maria, as she requested yesterday. "Is Maria sick?" I asked her patiently. "She can't walk." I look to Rudy, who quietly says Maria has Down's Syndrome, "not that I'm a medical person or anything." Understand here that Rudy is a man with much responsibility. He led teams that built many of the paved roads in the Toledo District of Belize a few years ago. Now he is the main driver for the mobile clinics--not an easy task on the rock-infested red clay roads which remain unpaved. Roads that toss and turn, are often more mud than road after a rain, and that not infrequently contain bridges that flood. He is serious about his responsibility to be sure everyone (and the precious vehicles that carry them) arrives safely.  But he doesn't want to go beyond his expertise.  Of course he knows what he sees, and knows that we are both aware of his wisdom and good judgment.

Off to the little girl's house we walk, less than five minutes away. When we arrive we see three wooden buildings.  The little girl, whose name I learn is Donecia, asks us to wait until her mom can come before we visit. She and her younger brother use their bare hands to dust off two rough wooden benches for us to sit in the shade, a welcome offering as the sun climbs.

We don't have long to wait. Mom comes, I watch Donecia's breathing long enough  to see that she's at least no worse than yesterday, and leave one of the capable PA students getting her story and exam. Would mom like me to see Maria? We are sitting outside the main house.

"Yes, please," says mom. "This is where Maria stays."   She indicates a square structure with a sort-of-roof, which looks like a large doghouse, maybe 12 feet square, with steps leading to the inside. It's made of deteriorating wood, weathered gray. I get a funny queasy feeling in my stomach.

Mom opens the door and I see Maria. She is thirteen, dark shiny black hair pulled into a high ponytail. She has facial features typical for someone with Down's. She sits alone on the wooden floor, both feet inturned by a deformity she was born with. Her blue nylon shorts are wet with her own urine--in fact, mom wants me to check an itchy rash she feels is from the Pampers Maria must wear at night. She smiles, sort of, and jerkily catches my hand as I am checking the rash. She makes noises but cannot speak--has never been able to speak. Mom scolds sharply at her when I want to check her leg and she rolls over onto it so I cannot, but no more sharply than any mom to a small child who isn't cooperating because she doesn't want to be poked around on.

I admit that I'm shaken by this child. It takes only a moment to glance around this tiny empty room. There are windows cut high in the north and south walls, which allow light and ventilation since the door is normally shut. The only thing besides Maria is a string hammock. The walls are all the same rotting-wood color as the floor and the ceiling. There are no happy pictures on the wall, no music player, no toys. Just Maria, alone, scooting around on the gray board floor, her useless legs and feet crossed in front of her. How can they bear to keep her here? How...sad. How very sad.

We discuss how mom can care for the itchy rash, and I ask her to come over to clinic later to pick up medicine for Donecia's asthma.  Clinic is slow initially, so I sit with Maria's mom to be sure she understands how to use the inhaler. It isn't long before I hear more about their family. Her husband, who worked for a company of some sort, fell off a high ladder two years ago, and "has never been the same." He can do some farming but not "hard work" such as carrying Maria. She is brought back to the house for meals and to sleep next to mom at night. She has seizures, you know, and they are always concerned she will hurt herself. That explains the empty room and the closed door on her little house. Mom lifts her into a sort of chair to bathe her from a bucket, and to carry her back to the playhouse each day. She hopes someone can come help replace parts of Maria's playhouse where the floorboards have become rotten. Mom has to wash the floor often, and over time the boards have become rough, tearing Maria's clothes and skin as she scoots around.

I spend the ride back from clinic in a distracted fog, feeling irritated with a culture that doesn't--can't--provide support for these children and their families, irritated that poverty has consequences.  It's impossible not to wonder if this would be Maria's fate if, like my children, she had the great luck to be born in the United States, where deliveries are safe, where children get therapy and surgery, where families are supported in their stark need. I try to imagine if this mom and I  lived each other's lives:  she getting a great education and growing up showered with resources and options; me having neither and scratching out survival each day for my children.

In one way I can relate to this tired-out woman for whom life will always be a struggle:  I fiercely love my kids, even their weaknesses and their imperfections. I want the world's best for them.  I want them to be safe.  But I will never have to spend even one day of my life in a situation remotely like her daily existence. How helpless would it feel to be this mom? To see strangers look at your child with shock in their eyes? And what does God ask of me in my abundance?  I do not know.

When I am finally back and the mobile is unpacked I go home. I look at each of my children for a moment with a stranger's gaze, wondering how they are seen by eyes that don't love them. I see the miracle that allows them to speak, walk,  and miracle of miracles: LAUGH!!  The miracle that allows them to be whole, when a simple gene hiccup could have left them with feet that won't work, a brain that will never process speech or singing, hands that  will never draw pictures or do anything with glitter glue.

The wonder is not that things occasionally go awry as people are conceived, develop, and are born. The wonder is that the complexity of a human going from two half-cells into a fully developed body and person ever goes right. Every single one of the mitotic divisions resulting in our trillions of cells can glitch. But usually they do not. It's so easy to forget the astounding truth that each of us is a miracle, even when we don't get life quite right.

Deep in my heart I feel Maria's need calling to me, asking for a few moments of my abundant life.  Being here, I guess, is a beginning.

Thursday, January 12, 2012

It's About the Food

Seems it's so often about the food.  Affection goes only so far, and past that good food is what's needed.

For three weeks this holiday season all my kids were home.  I cleaned the house, tried to declutter--which is a process I expect to be complete as Teresa leaves the house in however many years--loaded up on necessities, then started thinking about the food. 

Eden likes Cinnamon Life.  Check.  Everyone else likes Reese's Puffs, and I only buy them for "special occasions."  Check.  Bread dough on hand, makings for hummus, plenty of ice cream and toppings just in case, extra popcorn, lemonade mix, milk, dozens of eggs and bacon--"ready" and "regular", chips, cream cheese and salsa.  I was ready for everyone to be home.

We don't all wind up in the same place at the same time very often any more.  It's precious, even when I see the big boys are really men now, anxious to be more independent even if that means they eat a lot of Ramen noodles instead of homemade bread with nice cheese.  I'm glad they are at that stage, but for this small space of time it is magical to sit up at night to visit, hear what they think, discuss future plans, and feed them. 

Fitting nine people into the house required a little give and take.  The girls shifted from their room to make way for the two oldest guys when Rebecca, Jacob's beloved, came.  Becca to the downstairs room, boys to the girls' room, girls to Mary's room.  Mary then moved to her hammock, which was an adventure but not actually very restful.  Teresa slept on a beanbag chair put on the lowerbunk in Mary's room--the one without a mattress-- predictably winding up with face sporting an imprint of wooden slats each morning.   Our being in the bedroom above Becca meant that she  was awakened each morning at 5 a.m. as we prepared to go walking, no matter how slealthy we tried to be. Not good when we are already two time zones earlier than her accustomed California. 

I do not generally give curfews to my kids who are in college, although my imagination occasionally gets uncomfortable with what they may be doing in the wee hours.  So they sleep until noon and there is some tension among the younger ones in trying to tiptoe and be quiet.  In the summer they have been yelled at for waking sleeping brothers before lunchtime, and they don't want to be on the receiving end of that during this break.

Despite this, and despite trying to figure out whose turn it was to use the shower, or the washer, or the screen in the basement for games, movies, or whatever, it was a gift to see everyone's face around a table sharing something tasty at night.  Becca was here several days, and the girls were (and are) thrilled with the near-reality of having a bigger sister.  It was good for the kids to see that Eden can match anyone in being funny and warm.  It was fun to listen to younger kids repeating conversations held with older sibs, knowing that they intend to follow every speck of their advice.  It was encouraging that the advice given was uniformly prudent.

The dishwasher was loaded and emptied as many as three times daily.  Mounds of Christmas gifts, laundry, food, dirty dishes, and toilet paper were required.   Glorious!

But when everyone had gone by Sunday evening, the house quieted down a bit, and the boys' clothes and gear had disappeared from various rooms, Teresa also got quiet.

"Mom,"  she began, "I don't think I feel very good.  My throat is a little sore.  I think my tummy doesn't feel right.  Do you think I have a fever?"  She always puts a hand up to lift her bangs so I can check.

I squint a little and look at her.  Teresa is the baby, the darling, the one sibling who everyone treats well.  She loved getting to see Rebecca, and making little gifts for her (literally "little").  She will miss Eden playing and chasing her around the huge dining table, Jacob picking her up and spinning around with her upside down.  She will miss hours sitting with Mary solving Nancy Drew game clues or watching James do computer stuff.  She will have less time with KK, whom she adores.  Maybe she hasn't had a lot of my attention, while I shopped, cooked and baked, picked up, replaced toilet paper rolls, and tried to find just the right combination of acne-fighting products for the teens. Just being sure that each child had presents from us and presents for each other was a logarithmic issue.  Maybe she, more than me, needs extra comfort as everyone goes their separate ways.

"Do you think you might need to stay home from school tomorrow?"  I ask.  She knows I'm lenient with taking "personal days", especially for kids in first grade.  How much can you miss in one day of first grade?  Not likely anything that will matter as you leave for college.  We can go over spelling words (boat, coat, rain, strain) and read snuggled up in bed with the electric blanket on high.  We can count it as a "school visit day", checking out how homeschooling might work for her next year. 

She ponders this.  Teresa likes to think about things before she answers a significant question, likes to have the necessary information.  She puts thumb and pointer around her chin, looks up to the ceiling, and is quiet a few moments.  Sometimes I wonder if she's really thinking or if she has simply figured out how that looks.  What exactly does she need to know that she doesn't know?  Warm bed, favorite books, popcorn, hot chocolate, ummm...??
 
"I think maybe I'm not going to feel good enough to go to school tomorrow.  But before I decide for sure, can you check the school menu?" 

Ah, yes.

Sunday, December 25, 2011

No more suggestions

KK and Teresa cannot be pried from their room.  It's clean, for one thing, inspired by the thought that Mema would want to see it when she came Friday to celebrate Christmas.  Poof!  Months' worth of clothing, precious drawings, and pieces of paper disappeared.  I'm still not sure where they went, but the floor is clean and vacuumed, and they love all that space.  Mema did, in fact, want to see it, and were they pleased with all her praise!  Their giggles have continued in a steady stream all day as they listen to Teresa's new Michael Buble CD and make up dance routines together.

Last week I wasn't sure we would ever be here again.  When I picked the girls up for Christmas break they were snippy right away.  Just the picking and snitty stuff kids do when they are tired.  After a few snarling exchanges between the two, I suggested, "OK, girls, when we get home you go straight to bed and don't get up for at least half an hour."  That's usually enough time for them to fall asleep and wake two hours later, cheerful and pleasant once more.

This didn't go over well.

"I'm NOT tired!"  "It's just that she...."  "Why do I have to go to sleep?"  etc.
Then I shot straight.

"OK, you don't have to go to sleep, but you DO have to stay in your bed at least 30 minutes.  I think you are tired from all the fun we've been having and from staying up late, but whether you are tired or not, I am tired and I WILL get a nap without anyone disturbing me."  They know I mean business when they hear the nap speech.

I went straight to MY room when we got home, with Teresa coming in after a few minutes to join me.  She argued a bit that being tired wasn't the problem.  It didn't help that KK, across the hall in their room, kept running down the hall to do this or that before she got to the "staying in your bed" part.  I really was tired, which means I was cranky, and it didn't take long for Teresa's wheedling to wear me thin.

"Teresa, here's the deal.  You don't have to take a nap.  Just leave so I can, but when I get up I don't want to hear one unkind word."  Silence.

"OK, fine.  I will take a nap."  She turns over on her side.  More silence.  I'm just about asleep when her little voice says, "Mom?" 

"Whnnn?"

"I'm just checking.  If I do take a nap, that means I CAN say an unkind word? "

Silence on my end.   Now I'm not sleepy.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The next morning Teresa was the first child downstairs.  I was enjoying my first cup of coffee, and she sat on the steps and put her chin on her hands.  "I just can't figure out what to get KK for Christmas."

"What do you want to get her?"

"Well, something she would like."  Now, KK is nothing if not enthusiastic.  Very easy to buy for, thrilled about most everything.

"Teresa," I suggest, "pick anything you think.  KK likes everything!"

Teresa ponders a bit.  "She doesn't like pineapple." 

It's not even 8:00 on school break.  "Yeah, she doesn't really like pineapple, or me sometimes, or baths.  Well, actually it's me who doesn't like baths and she does if there are bubbles."

Trying to be helpful here, I look at the new bracelet Teresa just made me.  "Would you want to make her a bracelet?  We could get beads the color you think she'd like."

"That's not big enough."

"Well," I say in my wisest mom voice.  "You know, dear, Christmas isn't about getting big things.  God became a little tiny baby at Christmas, so it's not about getting her something big."

To which she replied,  "Jesus was bigger than a bracelet."

Yes, yes he was.  I'm going to stop giving suggestions.

Saturday, May 21, 2011

A Shrew, a Mouse, and a Chicken Sandwich

As you might be aware, we have had some recent dramatic, traumatic experiences with  family pets.  Namely, Teresa's chicken, happily minding its own business in its new lidded cage, was abducted and presumably consumed by something evil in the night this week. 

The funeral was Kennedy-esque, minus the face veils.   It was raining, so big brother James provided an umbrella for the bereaved Teresa, who carefully held the only feathers we could find.  Roy, KK, Mary, Teresa, James and I slowly walked to the cemetery out where strawberries used to grow.  We  found an empty baking soda box in the recycle bin to contain the feathers.  Roy had prepared a deep hole, and it was Teresa's job to place the "remains" in the hole, then cover it with the first shovel of dirt.  We stood in a circle around the hole looking very serious, then Roy filled in the rest of the dirt and led us in prayer. 

The walk back to the house was noticably easier.  Teresa had a spring in her step.  We realized she wasn't carrying a lot of grief when, a couple of hours after the funeral, she and KK happily shouted to us, "Hey!  We found the chicken's head!"  Roy and I weren't sure whether this was the beginning of a tearful meltdown or simply the glee of successful detetective work around the cage.   Apparently it was the latter, because right after that they started singing and playing on the swings just like any other happy day.  Whew!

That afternoon Roy brought in a tiny furry animal with tail and whiskers.  He found it in the garden.  It was clearly a baby thing, and given the recent sadness I was not anxious for the girls to be disappointed by another death in the family.  We went over our "babies need their mothers" speech, not  unlike the one I recited when they came home with birds.  I might just as well have been speaking Chinese.  Since Teresa thought it was a mouse, and since Mary has been baiting our humane mouse trap with peanut butter, Teresa smeared several spoonfuls of peanut butter on a paper towel for it to eat.  Like, enough to trap its tiny little feet if it had been strong enough to walk.  Then into the plastic bin it went, lid on just in case Sophie the cat wanted to help "take care of it."  The next morning, not surprisingly, it was huddled into a little rodent fetal position.  Mary realized there had been no water, so carefully gave it a drink with drips from her fingers.  It was difficult to tell whether it was drinking or whether it was choking.  Either way, it was dead by the time we identified it with Google images as a baby shrew.

The glad news was that we had a resident in the humane mouse trap.  The official plan was that Roy would take it across town to work, and let it loose there to live a full happy life in the surrounding fields and forest.  The girls made other plans.  Before I knew it KK was scooping peanut butter into a feeding dish and putting the mouse into a spare aquarium.  Is this a little girl version of maternal instinct?   So we have a mouse we lured into the trap with peanut butter now getting all the peanut butter he wants.  There was uncertainty among the girls about whether the spoon went back into the peanut butter jar after the mouse had touched it.   If you come for lunch I promise not to serve peanut butter and jelly.


Apparently Teresa is still thinking about the chicken, though.  She announced today, in the context of a possible road trip to Chillicothe during which a stop at Sonic in Carrollton for lunch would be in order, "I am NEVER going to eat chicken again!  Except the chicken sandwiches at Sonic, because, well, they actually look like fish."   : )

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Teresa's Story

Teresa loves to write stories.  Stories about school, about her sisters and brothers and mom and dad and how much she loves them.  Sometimes just listing all the people in our family takes up half or more of the story. 

She and KK both love to draw elaborate wedding pictures, where my hair falls to the floor and Roy and I are kissing with lips larger than our heads.  The lips always look like sideways hearts glued on top of our faces.  Sometimes I even get a tiara. The royal wedding will never be so enthusiastically remembered as ours, at least until they have little girls who love to draw.

When we got back from Mary's trip I looked forward to seeing school papers, etc.  Riffling through a whole stack of stuff, here is one of Teresa's, complete with an original illustration of two ladybugs with very large lips.

I am LoveD By Teresa Elfrink
 A grl Coms up to me    she is hot    I Love her    We kissD   we got marYD    we haD kiDss    the Boy is the wun Wat has spots the grl is the Wun wat hass no spots
Okaaaaaayyyyy.  "She is hot"??!!!  This child is six years old (which, as she patiently explained to her Papa last weekend, is the reason she hasn't REALLY learned anything this year in kindergarten.  Because she is six.  You know.)

Now let's be clear that I don't often hear people described in our house as being "hot".    "Cute", "sweet", "adorable", yes.  "Hot"?  um...no.

Priests are bound by a "Confessional Seal" or something like that, ensuring that they will never EVER discuss with anyone--even the individual who made the confession--what they have heard during sacramental Confession.  I'm thinking all kindergarten teachers should be bound by something similar.  In the meantime, I'm waiting from a note from the teacher asking us to come in for a conference. 

Thankfully, Teresa's teacher has two older children who likely spilled their family secrets during kindergarten.  I'm hoping she's sympathetic.

Monday, April 18, 2011

Paris Miracles

Mary and I arrived safely in Paris, and since I'm still on Missouri time and am wide awake at 2 a.m., or whatever time it is, thought I would blog a little about the trip so far. We are finding all sorts of miracles this week, of varying significance. Now, I define "miracles" the same way I translate French, which is rather loosely. What I mean by miracles is, things that are pleasant and unexpected--unlike the things we were expecting that could have been not so much fun.

Here they are in temporal order:

1. The weather is terrific. Weather Underground warned me before our trip that the last several years this particular week in April has been rainy and in the 50's. We even got matching raincoats, because the motto for every (even old ) Girl Scout is: Be Prepared. So we came prepared. Maybe that's the reason it's sunny and upper 70's. It does, however,cool off enough to need a coat in the evening, which is frankly about when our day begins. But the coats look great, I must say.

2. Everyone in Paris actually speaks English. It's true! I'm coming to realize that this is a closely-guarded secret, only used after the second or third sentence in French. Or at least in my French. It goes something like this typical cafe conversation:

Bonjour, Madame. (Hello young, beautiful woman. --- I warned you about my French translation.)

Bonjour, Monsiuer. Je veux bien un croissant amande. Et ma fille veut un crepe avec fromage et jambon. (Hello, Sir. I want an almond croissant, and my daughter wants a crepe with ham and cheese.)

Do you want coffee?

(Wait a minute....awww. The fun French speaking is over, I think.)

(He thinks, maybe if I smile she will speak English rather than make French sound that bad.)

(He smiles.)

3. Everyone we have met in Paris is very kind. They smile all the time. Mary thinks it's because they assume we are Irish rather than American (maybe a result of our matching green raincoats?). I think,...well, you know what I think. (see #2, above.)

Friday, April 15, 2011

Saying Good-bye

We have a tradition in our family that when you turn 13 you get to choose an exciting destination and go there with mom.   I love to travel, having inherited the traveling bug from my dad.

As a kid, I always wanted to go along on dad's annual fishing trip to Canada.  Every year he'd say, "You're not quite old enough.  Maybe next year."  I heard this when I was eight, and again every year until I turned eighteen.  I suppose he realized then that I was about to leave for college (and if I recall my attitude, he might have been glad about that), and surprised me by saying that THIS year we were going to Canada. 

We didn't go all the way to Reed Lake in Manitoba, but compromised by just driving to the Boundary Waters in MinneSOHta.  It seemed like a great idea.  The ride up I think we had lots to talk about.  We stayed a week, saw hardly anyone.  Hardly anyone. It wasn't long until I found myself thinking how very nice the trip could be if I was, instead, with a nice boy, all alone.  For a week.  Pretty soon the heat, headwinds, and the biting flies took their toll, and I got--shall we say--crabby.  I don't remember a lot of conversation on the long drive home.  I do remember that we eventually agreed that we had waited a few years too many to travel together.  I always regretted that.

When my own children came along, then, I hoped to travel with them while they still thought it was a good idea.  Before the adolescentsies got in full swing, when it's still OK to hug them goodnight, stuff like that.  The three oldest are boys, and we have taken some terrific trips together full of nice memories; I've enjoyed them all:   Ireland, Disneyworld, Greece.  Now my first daughter is 13 and it's her turn.  She, too, loves to travel, and so tomorrow we head off to Paris.  Paris!! 

The trips have a similar rhythm.  We plan, try to learn things about where we're going, pack for the week in a backpack (it's a personal challenge).  Then the reality hits of leaving other sweet ones home, missing out on the stories and reports from kindergarten about who is still friends with whom (and who is not!), hearing about the lunch menu and how much fun they had in art class.  For several days I won't hear that with someone sitting on my lap.

The day before the trip, then,  I'm pretty teary-eyed as I print off the itinerary, see beautiful photos of the places we'll see, and tick off each item on the packing list.  I know we'll communicate with everyone at home, thanks to the internet.  And the first few days I will love being able to have grown-up conversations without interruptions, doing things the little kids would be perfectly bored with.  Mary and I are about to see beautiful cathedrals in Paris, go to the Eiffel Tower and eat ourselves silly with real Parisian croissants.  We're even planning to go to daily mass so she can truthfully report that she enjoyed French wine every day.  But I know that in about five days I'll start noticing little children whose tired parents have about had it, thinking how precious they are and wishing a high-pitched voice was giving me a breathless narrative about getting the swing closest to the fence at recess. 

This has been a week full of tender good-byes.  Good-byes,  final or only temporary, are full of change and separation and not being able to touch.  I feel such a thin veneer separating this life from a real, active, and living world of saints and angels who can almost be seen out of the corner of my eye on occasion; being part of that is what I hope for my beloveds when the time comes.  Which will be a very good thing, for them.  BUT... not being able to hug my parents or my children,  not being able to feel Roy by me in the night, or my sweet little girls snuggled close--that's what keeps me grounded and tearful when I know a good-bye is coming.  Is here.