person of God

She's smaller than he was, but her tumor was bigger. It jutted out from the side of her tiny jaw, as big again as her head and wrapped inside around bone and blood vessels. She was the kind of baby whose mother Dr. Gary sits down with before surgery, trying to explain, often through several translators, that this time it might not work. That we might not be able to fix it, and that she might not get her second chance. Invariably, the mamas sign the forms anyway, pressing their thumbs hard into the pad of ink and mashing them onto the page, their eyes steely and determined and sometimes a little hopeless.

So Maomai went into the operating room yesterday, and I took care of her today. Fitting, that in this land of French speakers, the phrase thrumming through my mind all afternoon was deja vu. It all felt so much the same that I half expected the crew nurse to appear through the door and give me some more bad news to top off my day. I wish there was some way to explain how surreal it all felt, using the same instruments, seeing the same numbers, hearing the same things. Haven't I been here before, bent over a tiny, brown bundle engulfed in blankets and tubes and surrounded by the hum of machinery? Don't I know that sound all too well, the sound of a baby who can't quite get enough air into his lungs. No, wait - her lungs. This isn't Baby Greg. This is Maomai, whose name is a lilting song on her mama's weary tongue. Maomai, a person of God, as the translator explains while I curl my body over hers, stroking her tiny, fuzzy curls in an effort to calm her cries.

I'm sitting in my cabin right now, tired and happy and perilously close to tears. Maomai is doing well. Her mama trusted me enough to leave her side and sleep this afternoon, the first sleep she's gotten since her little one went into the operating room almost thirty-six hours ago. Maomai's breathing is calming and she's starting to tolerate some milk through the tube that leads to her stomach. (Just like Greg, we're cutting out the middle man, letting her devote all her energy to that ever-important task of getting air into her lungs.) I should be happy. I should be elated that, at least this time, everything seems to be going well.

But all I can think of is that night, almost a year ago now, when I sat in a dark, hot room and saw grief all around me by the light of a single candle. Because I can't do it all again; I'm just not strong enough.

So either my little person of God keeps getting stronger and eventually goes home with her brave mama, or I'm going to claim Maomai's name as my own. In this place where names mean so much, I'll claim to be a person of God, and He will not let me fall.