Celebrating Keren’s life-day

Months ago the Dreamer said to me, “I’d like to do something special on the anniversary of losing Keren. Something that would celebrate her life, and all we’ve learned. Not a sad time, but a good time.” We brainstormed and it happened. A life-day celebration.

Sunshine blazes in the windows all across the back of the wide ranch, even though snowflakes are falling outside. It is bitter cold, but inside the warmth of celebration covers us all. An honorary auntie brings Mardi-gras beads and the Bear hands a bright string to each person as they arrive. “Cause Keren loved beads, you know.” Everyone comes bearing food and soon the kitchen counter is blanketed with a family-friendly brunch. By the time we all get there, I think there are 25 – family, friends, teachers, former classmates of Keren’s from Old Village.

There is no agenda except to talk and enjoy each other. With half of the guests under seven, it is not quiet – and that’s the point. Quiet solitude is for reflection but we are here to celebrate life.

Over in the big recliner the “other Poppa” holds court with the kids. Somehow he is a magnet for little people, and every one of the children seems to find his lap at some point. A year ago he and his wife came to help the day Keren died, friends in time of need. We were gone, but they were home. I can still picture him in his bright red sweater, following a little white casket born by young uncles. An honorary Poppa. By the end of the brunch he’s got the youngest child, a mere six weeks, draped over his shoulder, fast asleep.

I see the Engineer with the little guy who was Keren’s best school buddy. A year ago these two shared hugs and tears. Today they share smiles. The little guy’s wheelchair looks very familiar, and the Engineer keeps going back to touch what is familiar. At the end I see the Engineer carrying the small child out to his mom’s car, another flashback to the past.

The teachers circulate and talk. These women have all taught special needs children for 34 years. “Sometimes we realize we’ve got over 100 years experience in the classroom,” one quips. Listening to them I learn so much about how children communicate when they can’t speak. They are masters in lighting the match in each individual child. Conversations flow freely around the room as clusters change places.

A wave of small children dashes through the living room bent for the kitchen. Their very energy says life, and life is good. Looking forward, we find strength from the past year.

At the end of the time, a group gathers in the entryway. “We didn’t share what we learned this year,” the speech therapist says, reminding us of the Dreamer’s assignment to come with something to share that we learned this year.

“I’ll tell you what I learned,” she continues. “When we lose a child – and we lost three this year – the hardest thing is losing the whole family. Today was wonderful because we haven’t lost Keren’s family.”

“We’ll do this again,” the Dreamer promises. “There’s no reason to stop celebrating life-days.”

A letter to Leslie

Last week, Leslie's 25 year old daughter was killed in a car accident on her way to work. I was just with Leslie a few weeks ago.

Dear Leslie

I opened the email in my hotel room in Beijing and recoiled in shock. Reading out loud of Aimee’s accident and the extent of her injuries, we looked at each other and shook our heads. Hope against hope, I was reading a death toll. Hours later, when I got the final news that she had not survived, I was not surprised, but the pain we felt for you was intense.

This was Aimee, of the bouncing hair tinged with honey, the bright eyes, and most of all, the wide, wide smile. Your smile, Leslie, so much yours. It is not that I have known Aimee deeply over the years, but like so many of “our” shared kids, she’s walked through my life many times. A child, a teen, a college freshman, and an adult.

Our hearts ache for you and Scott. Words are totally inadequate. The loss is so deep and permanent. The hole will forever be there and no one can fill it. The edges will heal and you will go on, but the hole remains. Flying across the Pacific last night I thought and prayed for you again and again, knowing you had just made that trip two days before, returning to plan a funeral. What is it about Pacific flights that drive us to prayer?

It was just a year ago this week -- after another Pacific flight of my own -- that I looked up from a casket, my granddaughter’s, and saw you and Scott coming across the room. I didn’t even know you were in the country, scarcely remembered that Scott had come for meetings. It was a different situation, totally different, but the memories flood back.

Would that I could stand beside you as you lay Aimee to rest. Bitter cold of January is a terrible time to lose a child, any child, an adult child. We’re supposed to bury our parents, not our children.

It seems like years since we slipped away for a brisk walk up the Sai Kung Road in Hong Kong, but in fact, that was less than a month ago. That was a good walk, a sharing of life, a sharing of the road we both walk that isn’t stable and comfortable. We talked of our children, catching up on all of them, seven between us, and you told me how well Aimee was doing in finding her way as a young teacher. Who would have thought of today?

We talked of your mentoring of the women we both know across Asia. How to know their needs, how to touch their hearts, how to be a shepherd to them. How to live this life of constant transience, and yet be strong and stable. How to be on the move but keep a home base gives a compass to our lives.

God has just ramped up your ability to understand pain in the lives of others. It’s a terrible way to do it, but you will never be the same, and the women you touch will benefit from your brokenness. Like little Laina that final night in Hong Kong, wailing in the hall, “I don’t want to say goodbye,” we don’t want to say goodbye to Aimee. But in the brokenness of saying goodbye, there is healing for others.
This morning I stood singing among over a thousand young Chinese gathered in a church in Beijing. As they went on in Chinese, the English words washed over me and brought sense of justice to my mind:

No guilt in life, no fear in death,
This is the power of Christ in me;
From life's first cry to final breath.
Jesus commands my destiny.
No power of hell, no scheme of man,
Can ever pluck me from His hand;
Till He returns or calls me home,
Here in the power of Christ I'll stand.

Aimee stands in Christ, not by her own choice, or by the power of hell or the schemes of man, but by the Lord who loves her, and in whose power she was called home. In whose power you too will stand, broken and frail, saddened and sorrowful, marked and scarred by pain, but alive to know and share God’s glory and strength.

Mukha na mahirap

Mukha na mahirap, the face of poverty and hardship, has been staring at me for days. Slowly I am recognizing what I see.

The face of poverty is patient. When there are few choices, and poverty is defined by no choices, poverty waits for a slim chance. The old man who needs a nebulizer treatment waits for two hours while a missing part is purchased in town. The young moms with tiny children wait patiently in lines till their number is called. A visit to the medical clinic probably will take their whole day but they have no resources to go where they could be seen more quickly.

The face of poverty is accepting. At lunch time Kuya Steve makes an announcement that there will be a one hour break for the doctors and other staff to get lunch. Anyone with a number over 145 needs to come back at one o’clock. There is quiet acceptance and no complaining. Some wander home to get some food themselves, but others simply sit and wait till the doctors return. Babies are nursed, children play back and forth to the beach, men sit and talk in the shade, teens banter.

The face of poverty is resilient. One young mom brings her little son who a week ago was covered with boils. He still is not healed, but last week the team was able to start him on some mild antibiotic. Today the doctor starts him on a much more intense antibiotic. Meanwhile the little guy is happy and cheerful.

The face of poverty trusts. Moms, dads, teens, and children listen patiently time after time to the instructions given by the nurses in the pharmacy. Scabies, for example, is rampant. The treatment is lengthy, and must be done carefully. Face after face watches the nurse carefully as he or she walks them through the treatment plan, how to store the “pretty” purple poison jar high above little hands, how to wash bedding and air it out in the hot sun. There are few questions. A nurse in a uniform, a doctor with a stethoscope, a public health specialist, surely they know what they are talking about more than mukha na mahirap. And because the people sponsoring the clinic have lived and worked here for years, they have earned trust.

The face of poverty is wary. Medicine is needed, medical help is welcome, but there’s a wariness in some eyes that says, “Do you have any idea how hard my life is?” No, we inherently don’t, but standing in the middle of your community, we get a good dose of reality.

The face of poverty is gracious, at least in these desperately poor communities. Every package of medicine is received with a warm smile and a deep thank you.

The face of poverty is beautiful. It is not what we have that makes beauty, or ugliness. It is God who creates beautiful people and puts them in this paradise, even if they are mukha na mahirap.

The Village Clinic

The day begins before light with a few roosters crowing, a quick breakfast of cereal, fruit, and yogurt, and the packing of vehicles. By 7 AM we are on the road to run a medical clinic an hour to the north of the city. About 25 staff are involved -- long term, short term, and volunteer medical personnel who are giving their time three days this week to clinics.

Arriving at the site, we find the clinic almost set up already by those who arrived first to the community center. There are four small rooms around a square and a platform with cover where we set up the pharmacy. One room is for health lectures, a second for counseling to determine needs broader than simply physical, a third houses the doctors, and a fourth will be the afternoon dentist’s office. Registration takes place outside, and men of the village have erected a multicolored tent that gives shade to plastic chairs underneath.

Everyone has a job, even the students who are visiting. One takes blood pressure for the first time and finds she can handle it. Another counts pills in the pharmacy, a third moves people in and out of the counseling center, and the final one helps with the health lectures even though she can’t understand a word that is said. Her smile radiates her joy.

In the shade of a large tree are a cluster of heavily armed military men, borrowed by the village leader to ensure calm. The crowd of nearly 200 who pass through the gates seem far more interested in getting medical help than in any kind of incident. Most of them are young women and little children but there are elderly sprinkled among them as well. It’s only in the afternoon that their husbands come by, perhaps having worked in the morning, or maybe because it took till then to get up the courage to admit to illness.

Once registered, a patient goes to a health lecture, to the counseling center, to the doctor and then to the makeshift pharmacy to get medications. All is free, time and medications donated or purchased by the generosity of others. The order and patience of the crowd attest to their grateful thanks for the day’s opportunity to see competent doctors.

Midday we take turns in shifts riding to a home nearby where several of the staff have prepared lunch of chicken adobo, rice, mixed green beans and carrots and asparagus, pineapple and mangoes. It’s a welcome break from the heat and intensity of the clinic and a chance to mingle and chat with others who are working the clinic. I find myself with a middle aged Filipina who gives me the scoop on the family issues she learned counseling that morning. The women often have had arranged marriages at 14 or 15 by twenty may have several children. The hard work of life falls to them – house, food, children, survival.

Afternoon brings the dental clinic and more doctor visits. A slight glitch keeps the dentist from extracting as many teeth as he planned – the Novocain he brought isn’t the full strength marked on the packaging, not unheard of in this part of the world. He triages those waiting and, disappointed, has to send away the more severe cases.

As we wrap up the day in a slight drizzle, the military guys gather around to help carry boxes and equipment back to the trucks. They pull out their cell phones to take pictures of the doctors and staff. We were well protected all day by their broad smiles. The village leader is delighted and wants more clinics for his people.

Heading out, we agree to all meet back in town for a chicken dinner, but as we leave the area, one of the vehicles develops a clutch problem. Plan B emerges with chicken dinner nearby at Naty’s Chicken House for all of us while the clutch is repaired. An hour later we’re full of roasted chicken, rice, hot chilis, and kalamanci juice and the vehicle is ready to go. We head back to the city, dropping staff along the way as we go.

Home again, we unload quickly and hit the showers to wash off the dust and perspiration of the day. Tomorrow is another clinic and we’ll be up and crowing with the roosters.

Life on foot – Philippine style

We leave the gate and head to the market, opting to walk the few blocks to see the town. I’m quite accustomed to being stared at, but here we are a genuine novelty. I tower above even the tallest men, and furthermore, I’m “old” and out walking with young people.

The side street where we are living is lined with multi-family wooden houses set on lots, most surrounded with fences and gates. We look through the fences to yards where women wash dishes, men squat to talk, and children are running everywhere, calling out to each other. Chickens scuttle under banana plants at the side of the road but glossy roosters are tethered by one foot to a bush or pole. These are treasured fighting cocks and don’t get free roaming privileges. They are also the raucous voices we hear day and night, not only at dawn.

Little sari-sari stores are positioned every few houses – a mere front room on the street with open bars selling tiny amounts of food and toiletries. Neighbors gather in front of the sari-sari stores, and we are the topic of conversations as we pass. I lift my eyebrows in greeting and get quick smiles and lifted brows in return.

At the corner there is a series of furniture makers selling rattan chairs, tables, beds, and cribs. Across the way is Chooks Roasted Chicken. We turn the corner and the market begins with the informal outside vendors selling a wide variety of vegetables and fruit. My companions ask about things they don’t recognize: tiny purple fingers of eggplant, wrinkled bitter melon, bright orange kalabasa squash, papayas, mangoes, durian fruit, and more. The smells of this part of the market are a delightful mix of onion and garlic and fresh vegetables. Each vendor has their own stash, often identical to the vendor squatting beside them.

Pushing into the formal market, we are surrounded with hundreds of stalls divided by narrow paths. Big bins of rice and dry beans are beside dishes and clothes and shampoo. There’s a loose organization, but it’s very loose. Claustrophobics wouldn’t do well in this market, especially since we are again the novelty of the day and comments about us are all around. There’s a lively fun to it all, and the comments are lighthearted but I’m a little glad my young companions can’t understand it all.

Deeper into the market we hit the “wet” stalls of chicken, beef, and fish on white ceramic tile counters with hoses keeping things fresh and flies at bay. The floor is slippery and wet as the water moves toward drains. The smell, amazingly, isn’t bad – or maybe I just have learned to breathe lightly. It beats the stalls of dried fish!

Our host stops at his chicken “suki” and she cuts whole chickens into pieces for him, tossing the necks and wings into trays for purchase by those with fewer pesos in hand. His chicken legs and breasts are tossed into a clear plastic bag, weighed on a hanging scale overhead and handed to him. He’s also picked up papaya, pineapple and mangoes on this trip.

We’ve reached the deepest stalls and turn to go back out, winding our way through row after row of family owned stalls. The amount of goods seems limitless. At five in the afternoon I ponder what and how all this is kept overnight.

At the end of the market, we wander back through the open vendors, smiling, greeting, and enjoying the slightly cooler breeze of late afternoon. We pass Chooks and the furniture makers. We walk the dusty street back to the house and let ourselves in the squeaking gate.

Entering the living room, clean and very western in the midst of this neighborhood, we leave our shoes at the door. The noise of the street follows us through the open windows, but we are off the street. A cooler of water stands on the sink in the dining room and we get cold drinks.

Tomorrow we’ll hit the streets again but for now, it feels good to be out of the bustle.

Values

Yesterday Kuya James taught us Filipino values like pakikisama – or getting along with each other. The values of hospitality, of sharing space, of taking care of each other. The value of addressing our elders with terms of respect, like Kuya or older brother. He taught well, and today we watched those values in action.

Leaving the guesthouse in the morning, our driver is Ed, a man who owes us nothing, but as a friend of a friend, is willing to drive us for the day. His English is impeccable, and his driving even better. Driving in Manila is a skill, a culture, a value. It’s probably the only place where a Filipino is culturally allowed to be aggressive. And if one is not aggressive, one is lost. But if there is space, it is to be shared – that’s a value.

We head south through traffic, through squatter villages, through beautiful subdivisions that shriek money, and eventually arrive in a community given to the minority people of the south. Here we connect with anotherman, G, who gives us a summary of his organization that exists to give micro-loans and help people in this community of abject poverty.

After a quick lunch, we walk with G through the community. At one door he checks to see if the family is home, and finding them there, we are invited inside. We leave our shoes at the door and crowd into the tiny sitting room/kitchen that is the entire first floor. Seven people live in this home of about 300 square feet. Ate Jura, the mom, makes us welcome while her grown son and his new wife tell us about their work abroad.

We see Ate Jura slip out the back of the room, purse in hand, and know from James’ talk yesterday that she is going for snacks. The students give each other knowing glances. They are getting savvy to culture. Soon she returns with two bottles of cold soft drinks and finds enough glasses for all the visitors to have a drink. Not to serve guests a drink would be unthinkable. We carefully leave a half inch at the bottom of our glasses to show we had enough, and refuse the seconds proffered. Later we see the younger children slipping a glass of soda too – a real treat for them that would not have been had we’d drunk seconds.

After much discussion and a prayer of blessing on the newlyweds, we head out again, walking the streets with G as he introduces us to shopkeeper after shopkeeper who are his clients. Everyone knows Kuya G. Two little girls attach themselves to my husband, and he gently takes them with us, chatting in a mix of Tagalog and English.

As the afternoon wanes we bid G goodbye and head north through the city. Our goal is to see the American Cemetery before it closes, and we barely make it. So much has been built in this south end of the city that we struggle to find it. A breakfast discussion on WWII had piqued the interest of the students, and now they walk the wide marble monuments with huge mosaic maps of the Pacific Theater. Across the gentle grassy hills are white crosses, shadowed in the falling sunlight. A little slice of America, polished and sparkling clean, but a reminder that those who lay in the graves and who are named on the walls fought anything but a clean and polished war for our freedom.

Quietly we leave to find our way back to the guesthouse. A full day, a day of exploration, a day of learning. A day to look ahead and a day to look back. A day of history, and a day of community.

Pakikisama.

Grant us peace

A child’s voice echoes down the hall in a plaintive, “I don’t want to say goodbye…” By tomorrow night she and her best buddies in the world will be in three different countries. Ten days of connection and fun have crashed to a close for this child, and a gaggle of other little ones who have few playmates where they live who speak their heart language.

I’m with you, little Lanna, I don’t want to say goodbye either.

This afternoon at the country park I sat by a fire with Lanna and her little friends, roasting sausages and German bread, a small green oasis in the midst of a huge city. Beside me was a young Chinese woman who lives in the far north and across from us an American who commutes back and forth to handle finances. At each fire pit the gathering was a veritable stew of cultures -- English the primary language, but sidebars of Cantonese, Tagalog, German, and Mandarin crossing into the conversations.

The children took off to play in the open glade and woods while the adults gathered with a guitar. Then a hike up into the hills, over crests, through bamboo forests, and finally down to the car park where the bus waits to take us back to the conference grounds. New Year’s Day in Hong Kong, amidst good friends.

I don’t want to say goodbye either.

Tonight we gathered for communion, for presentations of thank you gifts, for final connecting thoughts. Looking around the room my eyes washed over the faces of new friends, and of other friends of decades. Families with little ones, couples whose children are grown, singles.

Bright, vivacious Ruthie holds my hands and tells me her dreams. The three young American moms each hug me in turn and tell me how much they appreciate having someone older come to join them. “We have no older models,” they say. “Thank you for being with us.”

Later I help two friends clean up the snack area, chatting companionably as only women do who have years of history. We too go our separate ways today, three countries by tomorrow night. Helma presses bananas and granola bars into my hands. “You leave early to travel. You get no breakfast. Here, something to eat. You have coffee in your room?” Ever caring, ever the German Frau to all of us, no matter I’m her senior by many years.

We end the evening singing a blessing.
“May the peace of the Lord be with you, my friends.
Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world,
Have mercy on us, grant us peace.”

We separate, but not forever. I don’t want to say goodbye, so I will just say, “until the next time.”