Sister M: No Pictures

I wrote this a couple of weeks ago, but didn't post it yet.  Maybe it's too sad for this venue, but then, maybe not posting it is not real honest.  There are no photos, but maybe my words will paint picture enough.

Today sister M came to church for the first time in a while.  She is a tiny, elderly, emaciated, hunched-over woman with the look of death.  Her teeth are all but gone, her mouth black inside, her bones too sharp, too prominent, her flesh non-existent under her draping skin, under her drooping clothing. Her mouth stays open, of necessity: her breath comes shallow, with a tiny cough on every exhale, until eventually she gives in to a wracking, gurgling fit of coughing.  Her eyes, hollow and deep, reflect bull-dogged tenacity and echo desperation.  She shuffles, too weak to really lift up her feet. The Branch President helped her get treatment (arranged for rides to the clinic, church funds for appointments, medicine)  which she has been on for 6 months, for her tuberculosis, but her chest is not clear.  I have no idea how she stays alive. 

Today, as usual, she has a child (anywhere from 2-7--you can't tell by normal size or developmental cues due to malnutriton) with her—this one a granddaughter, you can guess by the pink shift she has on—sometimes it’s two or even three kids.  Last time I saw her, maybe a month ago, she had the same girl with her and the girl’s head and shoulders were covered with angry red and black scabs.  Back then, sister M had to take the child out of Relief Society because she was crying--sort of a moaning, high-pitched whimper--but she was too weak to pick her up, so she just pushed her along with her foot, till the lady next to her picked up the child and carried her out. Think of the risk involved in that act of unselfish kindness—the child almost certainly a TB carrier, and the disease that caused the scabs?  This week the girls scabs have healed, the shaved head covered with an ultra-short layer of hair, but the scars from them on her back are still visible.  She didn’t cry today.  Her big empty eyes and blank expression tell the story: she has learned that crying is futile. A sister translated for me, as we listened to Sister M tell of her most recent plight.  Her granddaughter had a baby recently, and after 5 days, left the child with Sister M and fled the island.  Sister M is left to care for yet another child she cannot carry or feed—an infant she will most certainly infect with TB.

Back in the flooding last year, Sister M and her husband ended up at the emergency shelter several times, each time rescuing from the flood waters the multiple kids whom I don’t even think are all related to them. We delivered rice and canned goods and water to them there at the shelter.  When we first met them, they lived in a hut near the mouth of the Amlan River, a hut that we later saw filled with sand and debris after the worst flooding, but which has since been rebuilt. Elder Cropper and I thought she had recently relocated to Dumuguete, but then here she was at church in Amlan today.

You needn’t ask the questions—Why? How? Who?  There are no answers big enough for a life this broken.

Some people are so close to this edge that precarious-ness is their way of life.  They teeter, grab a limb to steady themselves, wobble, regain their balance, catch a gulping breath, then slide a ways and grab hold again—maybe they are grabbing hold to a relative with a job who can give them a day’s rice. Maybe they grab hold to a lender who is willing to lend them more money (this time though they have to put up their ancestral home as collateral, even though the loan is for 1/1000th of the house’s worth). Maybe they grab hold by marrying their daughter off to a wealthy foreigner. Maybe they grasp a government program for the indigenous, or a free visit to the health clinic. Maybe they grab hold of a Branch President who gives them assistance not just of the material kind but an actual plan to get off the tight rope. Maybe.

We spend our time giving the most stability we can to the most receptive people we can, in the broadest path that we can.  People who are willing to grab hold of the Gospel, who experiment on Christ’s promises, who have the patience to hold on to the Savior even when their trials worsen during the process; those are the people who make it, who get strong enough to be the one doing the rescuing.  Somehow Sister M holds tight to her hope for a better life to come, and with the power that only that hope can illicit, she finds strength to rescue the little ones for yet another day. But when we go to bed, we are haunted by her face, her little ones, her tenacity. I wonder where the newborn is tonight.  I let out a sob, and pray that Sister M. will let go. Just can't she please let go?