old man maurius

I'm sad right now. O'Brien's going has left a bigger hurt in my heart than I thought it would at first. I keep thinking about him, about his poor, broken mama going home with empty arms. I can't stop replaying those last few moments of his life while he slipped away and we just watched him go. I still have the photos of him on my computer, and I keep stumbling across them and a wave of pain just washes over me again.

And then yesterday. I heard my name shrieked from the ward where they were doing a surgical screening, and I stuck my head in to see Antoinette, a patient from last year in Benin. I sat down to talk with them, as far as we can talk with my few words in Fon and her few words in French. We hadn't been there long when mama beckoned over a translator. We usually muddle along just fine without one, so I wondered what she needed to tell me.

She spoke a short sentence or two, and the translator turned to me with no preamble, nothing to prepare my poor, bruised heart. She says that baby from last year died. I think the one named Maomai? No explanation, no other information. Just a baby who was fat and happy and smiling in my arms the last time I saw her, and now for some unknown reason, has died.

I don't even really know what to write. I'm sad and I'm discouraged, and I can't see my way forward through all this. I know I won't stop loving; that's not an option. But if loving means I get hurt like this, I have to be honest - it's hard. It's hard to know that giving my heart to a baby here in West Africa means there's something like a thirteen percent chance of that child dying before it reaches its fifth birthday. (To put it in perspective, in the States, it's more like 0.78 percent. Not even close.)

How can I love in the face of all that? How can I just open up my heart and invite the pain that's almost certain to come?

I guess it's because Maurius went home yesterday. Fat and happy and smiling in his mama's arms, and before he went, we stood in a circle and we prayed over him. Prayed that he would be the one to prove all those statistics wrong. God, not another Maomai. Not another O'Brien. Let this one live. Let him live.

Last night as I was falling asleep, I saw an image of an old man, sitting on a wooden bench, children scattered at his feet, asking him for their favourite story. And so Old Man Maurius smiles and tells them the story all over again, the one where God saves his life and he grows up fat and happy, smiling and holding his grandchildren in his arms.

I don't know if that's really what God has in store for Maurius or if it's just the cry of my own selfish heart that can't bear to hear more bad news. I do know that it's what He wants for Maurius, for each one of these precious children of His. And I know that He's entrusted me the task of loving them while they're here.

So I guess I won't be stopping any time soon.