how a fat baby taught me to hope

I saw Maomai yesterday. I had wandered down to the wards to drop off some papers, and the charge nurse greeted me with a smile. Maomai's here. Pelagie, her mama, had her back to me, so I snuck up behind her and threw my arms around her shoulders. She responded in her characteristic fashion; she jumped up and down, yelled some random English words, hugged me and grabbed my butt. C'est beaucoup! she assured me, in case I had forgotten in the time since I had last seen her. I looked around for the baby, and Pelagie caught my look. She grinned proudly and pointed across the wards to where another nurse was holding a little brown baby in what I assumed was a very big blanket.

It turns out I was wrong. It wasn't the blanket that was big; it was Maomai. I took her in my arms, startled by the weight of her, solid and substantial where she used to be all tiny bones and loose skin. Her hair is coming in all curly, and her cheeks are growing at an astounding rate. They're almost symmetrical now, with little pink scars the only reminder of the enormous tumor that used to distort her face. Her thighs are a mass of rolls and her fingers are dimpled and round. She's crossed over from death to life in every way imaginable.

When Maomai was just a tiny baby, her mama had a dream. In that dream, she recounts, I saw a person, who told me I should be quiet and pray; that salvation shall come. Yesterday, as I held her and felt my arms getting tired from the weight of her body, free from tumors and tubes, I knew that the salvation Pelagie had dreamed about had come. Not just for Maomai, but also for her mama.

She should have abandoned her baby, given her up for lost when that mass started to take over Maomai's face. Her culture told her that her child was worthless, a burden, better off dead, and for such a long time we were so afraid that her culture would win. We fought back our frustrations while we tried in vain to rouse a sleeping Pelagie for nighttime feedings. We watched in dismay as she retreated into herself, unwilling even to change her baby's diapers, and we thought we had lost again. Lost to a fatalistic system with roots far deeper than we can understand. Lost to a darkness that we so often feel so powerless to overcome.

And then, almost before we realized it was happening, the light came back to Pelagie's eyes. She took charge of her baby's life, patiently mixing bottles and learning how to manage a gastric tube and cooing back when Maomai smiled and gurgled.

In a place where we lose so often, where the darkness feels like it's everywhere, it's no wonder that I stood there with that fat little baby in my arms and I cried. I cried because hope is real, because love is real, because salvation, at least for this tiny family, is so very real. As real as the little baby who laid in my arms, staring up at me while I cried and laughed and danced with her mama.

And Pelagie, understanding my tears, came close to my side. In a rare moment of tenderness, she threaded her arm gently around my waist and kissed me on the cheek.

Thank you, she said, looking up at me with the same quiet expression as the one on her daughter's face. Thank you.