a visit

In all my excitement about my startling pink pedicure, I forgot to tell you that Baby Hubie's family came to visit yesterday.

Shortly after my polish had dried and it was safe for me to wander around the wards again without smearing pink everywhere, I headed over to the office to pick up some papers I had printed. I saw Suey and stopped to say hello when I noticed the small family clustered around her. Mama, Papa, Pauline and their oldest child, a serious boy of six. The mama's face lit up when she saw me, and I went to give her a hug. As soon as I was within range, Pauline reached for me. I gathered her into my arms and her little hands threaded around my neck while she nestled her head into the corner of my shoulder. We gathered up all the nurses we could find who knew them and had a little reunion right there in the hallway. Mama's eyes were still a little shattered, but she leaned into our hugs and threw her arms around us and held on tight.

As I was getting ready to head back into the ward to finish my work for the shift, Hubie's papa grabbed my hand one last time. Through a translator he told us thank you. You are blessed, you people. You are blessed because you took care of my son. We will not forget what you did for our family. Thank you. I smiled to myself, realizing that it was the first time I had heard him refer to Hubert that way. My son, he had said. My son. A child unmarked by the scars that carve mirrored gashes in the cheeks of his other two children, but his son nonetheless.

And then we unwound Pauline from around our necks and she went willingly back into her mama's arms, snuggling in there just as comfortably as she ever had with us, and I knew that we had won. For all the days that I wondered whether or not we were making a difference for that family, yesterday I saw the truth.

So if the only reason this ship came to Benin this year was so that Hubie could come to us and die with us, I think it's enough. It's enough because a papa speaks of his son, not the boy. It's enough because there's a little girl who can rest her head on her mama's shoulder and know that she's going to be okay, a little girl who can climb into those arms and trust that she will find love there.

And love is enough.