maddie

I stopped into the ICU to get some supplies yesterday and saw my friend Suey, her face grim, drawing up medication in a syringe. Suey works with our palliative care team, so she's not usually on the ship, and definitely never in the ICU. She responded to my unspoken inquiry by cocking her head towards the side room. I peeked in to see a little form, still on the bed. Maddie.

Maddie is one of Suey's Burkitt's kids. She came to us first right after I got back to the ship after my honeymoon, and I fell in love with her. Her right cheek was swollen with the cancer, she was incredibly yovophobic, and her pregnant mama loved her fiercely.

Now months have gone by. Maddie's little brother, Abdul, is one month old, and her parents have fought so hard to get her the treatment she needed. Her hair is close-cut and her cheeks are even and smooth, with no trace of the cancer distorting their lines.

And yesterday, after fighting so hard for so long, Maddie died. It wasn't the cancer that killed her; it was meningitis. In the space of a few short hours her body gave out and she went to Jesus curled in her papa's arms.

Suey was, understandably, shattered. She's poured so much of herself into these kids, and to be blindsided by something like this, to watch a piece of your heart be torn out with no warning at all? It was more than we really knew what to do with. So we did what any pediatric nurses would do. I grabbed some sweet-smelling baby soap, and Suey washed her little body. We dressed her in a fresh, pink dress and wrapped her in a blanket that someone in a church far away crocheted and sent to us.

When we were getting ready to take Maddie home, the gravity of the situation struck us. This child had just died of an incredibly virulent illness, and her one-month old little brother might have been infected. So, for that matter, could any of the adults and children who lived in the same compound as them. I ran to pharmacy before it closed and got the end of a bottle of antibiotic tablets. We mixed an injectable form for the children and threw supplies in a brown paper bag; needles and gauze and alcohol wipes. Our weapons against death.

We wended our way through the streets of Cotonou, Maddie's papa holding her in his arms. I saw his shoulders tense, shielding her against the bumps, and when the car stopped at a light, he started to rock her gently back and forth, back and forth.

I have no way of describing what happened when we got to her house, no frame of reference to put it into. Relatives and neighbours crowded into a hot room as Maddie was laid on a couch. Her grandma stared me straight in the eye and told me there was no way it was true. That Maddie couldn't be dead. People streamed in and out while women clapped and sang and prayed for resurrection even as they made phone calls to plan for Maddie's burial. And somewhere in the midst of it all we found a quiet moment to explain about the infection and hold out our little packet of pills.

They lined up, hands outstretched to receive the pitiful solace we had to offer. And then we moved to the next room over where I sat on a concrete floor and drew up injections, handing them to Suey as she worked quickly to shield the babies and children from Maddie's illness. And through it all Maddie's mama sat on the couch, Abdul in her lap, her eyes empty.

I felt so small, so utterly insignificant in the face of it all. And that's when God reminded me of His love, of His concern with every single tiny little detail of what happened yesterday.

You see, in our haste to be on our way, when we threw our supplies in the bag and emptied out the bottle of pills, God was there. I had exactly enough pills for each adult in the compound, with one left over for Suey. I had exactly the right number of syringes and needles for the children, exactly enough antibiotic liquid that I drained the bottle when I drew up the final injection. In the midst of the overwhelming emotion and feelings of inadequacy, it was like God reached down and whispered in my ear, You see? I'm here. I won't let you fall. I know what's happening here. I know. Trust Me. And so, when it was all over, I walked back to the Land Rover with a light heart. Because Maddie is with Jesus, and He is there with her family.

Please pray for Maddie's family. Her mama and papa have been fighting for so long that they're not going to know what to do now that the battle is over. Pray for little Abdul, who has to grow up without knowing his big sister. And pray for Suey. Working palliative care, it's expected that her patients will die, but this one was hard.