| Hanging on by a thread... |
An Ode To Some Pink Thread
(An Unusual Ode, To Be Sure)
(And not technically an ode at all)
(Except for the exhaltation part)
(Ahem)
When I was working in the Children's Home in Peru, my goal was to be as
little of a burden as I could. I tried to eat, drink, sleep, and use
next to nothing. Of course, the natural lack of things made this somewhat
simple, but I was determined that my presence wouldn't cost this
community any of their precious resources.
The grant-funded project that sent me there could only afford to keep me for a few
weeks, so I worked really long hours in an effort to get as much done
as possible. It's funny now, because people planning on travelling to
Peru will ask me about Machu Picchu , the Inca trail, and all
other manner of touristy things. I have to just shrug and offer to lend
them my guidebook, because I didn't have any time off to do that stuff.
I was there on a project and I couldn't, and wouldn't, walk away from
it.
In any case, I was welcomed with open arms into this
community of children and nuns comprising the Palace for Abandoned
Children (the name given to the home by the Peruvian government- should
be read with irony on the tongue). I had been brought in specifically
to work in the clinic and assist the lone social worker in planning
internal programs and services for the 624 kids who lived there. It
remains one of the best experiences of my whole life. Here I am with
Cristina. I know she looks a bit like a boy. It's because she just got
past the age in the home where they shave all the babies hairs off to
help prevent lice. Kids can grow their hair out when they are old
enough to take care of it themselves.
Though I knew the agency had given the home
money for my room and board, I still felt really guilty about eating,
drinking, using any sort of resource whatsoever, because everything is
a precious and limited commodity there. Unless you are looking for
dust, scorpions, and Hot. Those they have in no short supply.
Sometimes I slept in a spare wee child's bed, sometimes I slept on the floor, and
often I slept in the pew of the tiny chapel where the children went
through Sunday school in shifts. The kids do everything in shifts. When
you live with 623 of your closest friends, you learn to share.
From the moment I arrived, I fell just totally in love with the people in
the community. They had a ridiculously difficult life and had to
struggle for everygoddamned thing. Nothing came easy. For example,
while there I was assigned to look after a girl named Carolina who was
living in the home. She wasn't an orphan- she had both a mother and a
father, as well as 7 brothers and sisters. Carolina was in the home
because that was the only place where she could be looked after
medically. You see, she had been diagnosed with leukemia earlier in the
year and was on a steady and rapid decline while I was there. Her
parents were working two jobs each (and her mother sleeping on the
floor next to Carolina's bed intermittently during the day, in between
jobs) to try and scrape together enough money for pain medicine for
her. In this part of the world, chemo and radiation or whatever is status quo here was
never even on the table. The best her family could hope for is that she
wouldn't die in pain.
I'd never seen cancer go completely untreated. It's scary. And confusing. And fast. I found out later that Carolina had died the day after I got home. I'm really lucky I got to meet her and her family.
In any case, I was very grateful to even be there, and the people could not have been friendlier. In fact, from day one, when they wanted my attention, or wanted me to do something, they'd yell "Hermana! Hermana pequeña!" and I felt oh-so-flattered to be given the nickname " little sister." I speak spanish well enough, but it's not my first language, so it took me almost until the end of my first week to figure out that they were not calling me "hermana" in the congenial-we-are-soul-sisters kind of way. You see, they thought I was a nun.
I didn't put it together until one of the women was asking me how long I'd been married to Jesus Christ. And then I sputtered and my grammar flew out the window and I THINK I said something about how Mr Jesus he was the nice one man god but me, I was a spouse not of his- well not a spouse of the jesus and I was not today to be doing the worker of the church here in the country of Peru is lovely, I was doing the worker of the health and of the helping. But not with the church, no, not today or now.
The woman laughed, and then explained that I was the first white lady that she, and most of the community, had seen who wasn't a nun. I couldn't wait to tell my friends. Because if anyone is
destined to become a nun, it's totally me.
The nuns who did the cleaning (and their helpers from the community) were always asking if I needed them to wash my clothes. I always politely declined. Nothing will make you feel like more of a heel than having Sister Maria Flora do your laundry. Plus I'm okay with being dirty. I just washed my stuff in the sink. Eventually, though, they just decided to take my clothes from my bag and wash them anyway, then return them to me. I found out because I came back one day to find my favorite green pants neatly folded and set on top of some books.
The pants looked much the same (but without the telltale signs of having participated in Art Class with 40 five year old boys earlier in the week- they used to have little painty handprints all over the legs) with the exception of a pretty little pink bow that now winked at me from the pocket. The bow was made of lots of strands of pink thread, and was just whip-stitched through the top layer of the pocket.
I sat down and ran my fingers over that funny little pink bow, wondering from whence it came. I considered the possibility that it had always been there and I'd never noticed, but I eventually dismissed that. Maybe these weren't my pants? But I'm not sure many of the other people here
wore green ripstops from Old Navy. In any case, I had returned to my bags because I needed to change- I had baby barf on my current pants.
While I was digging through my bag, one of the helper ladies who lived and worked at the home came in and started apologizing profusely. I had no idea what was wrong, and she was so nervous that I got nervous and again, grammar and syntax went the way of the dodo bird, and I asked her if sitting was going to be better now and she was not worrying and would she like waters? waters of bottles? I was so glad I was seeing! Seeing her in the face! She was so nice! Oh, and I was being so sorry myself, and thank you for your patience, my friend!
Eventually she told me that she was the one who had sewn a pink bow on my pants. Apparently my favorite green hardy pants bore a striking resemblance to the uniform pants of the pre-teen boys. They had learned this when they were trying to separate my laundry from the childrens laundry, and had to painstakingly look at the tags of every pair of pants to distinguish mine fro theirs. The bow would help them speedily figure out my clothes in the future. The women were worried they'd ruined my pants. I gave her a hug and said she'd only made the pants prettier. We both went our separate ways.
My projects in Peru were over far too soon. I still think of the kids and my experience there all the time, especially when I wear those pants. I kept the pink bow on them because, well, why not? It was fun and sweet and a pleasant memory for me. I developed a habit of worrying the thread between my fingers while in conversation or standing on the subway or whatever.
 
I wore the pants today, and I was standing in the hallway at work this morning, twisting the thread between my fingers when I felt a wee 'pop.' I looked down and the thread had thinned and frayed, and my tugging was just too much for it (eat your Wheaties, kids). The pink bow, or what was left of it, was now resting in my palm.
And you know what?
I'm sad about it.
And I know that's stupid. I'm sure I could sew it back on if I wanted to, or I could just be a grown up for once and realize that it's just thread, it doesn't take away my experiences or my memories. But I have had the thread on there for years now. I had gotten used to playing with it and noticing it briefly when I put on the pants. Sometimes people would ask me about it and that was always a fun story to tell.
Mostly, though? It was just a tangible reminder for me of some people that I care about very much and that I might never see again.
Good old thread.Labels: babies, boring, friends |
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| 20 Comments: |
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Why is it every time you tell one of these kinds of stories it gets dusty in my office? You've done/do some pretty amazing stuff lady. It's quite inspiring. Not enough to get up off my lazy ass of course, but enough to open my wallet for good people like you.
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1. Meg, you're awesome.
2. I'd be sad too.
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Impressive.
Just so impressive.
The whole damn thing.
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You're good peoples, Meg. We need more like you, breakables be damned.
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that was a beautiful read.
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Thank you for sharing, Little Sister. :-)
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thanks, i really enjoyed reading this. its always good to have a "don't take your life for granted" kick in the butt once in a while, even though i'm pretty sure that wasn't what you were going for. and those english to spanish back to english translations cracked me up.
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I *demand*, yes DEMAND you take the label 'boring' off of this post.
Ahem.
On a secondary note, now tell me again, why you don't work in the Pediatric wing?
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and p.s.
cause we care about your feelings and shit:
it ain't uncool to be sad.
sounds like a natural reaction to me.
embrace it, immerse yourself in it, along with all the wonderful memories that the emotion brought so sharply back. this feeling. this feeling right here, is what sits on the left side of the scale of our human justification, balancing out our species ability for horror. and everytime we care, we tip it further towards goodness.
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i second brazilian's demand to remove the "boring" tag
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I think you should sew the little pink bow back on. And when someone asks you about it, say that it is code to let those 'in the know' know that you like going to the mall. Then wink and sassily walk away.
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Wow... What a beautiful entry.
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Dammit, Meg. You're such a good writer. You tell the sorts of stories that people want to read, and you write them exceedingly well. You tell the funny ones funny and the sad ones sad and the ones like this, well...you tell them poignantly (I know that's a word one finds on the back of bad movies and by-the-numbers novels, but that's only because it's an undervalued word).
Good job. Damn good job. I'm a big fan of your blog because you're funny, smart, and a good, readable writer.
You are a cherishable little thing.
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Seriously, I'd sew it back on. And keep sewing it back on ...
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i'm so so so glad you told this story. and kept it up.
and i feel honored to be your friend. i mean seriously, not only do you do the bravest, most beautiful things for other people, but you write about them with heartbreaking clarity.
so good. and while i, too, would prefer the "boring" tag to go away, it's your call, so no demands. but do know that this is anything but boring.
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You guys are so wonderful. I get really nervous writing about things besides poop, or sex, or poopy sex, or sexy poop. I really wanted to talk about this, and you made it very safe for me to do that.
I'm a very, very lucky person. Thank you.
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Well, I'm going to have the phrase "Hermanita sexy poop" stuck in my head the rest of the day.
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Beautiful. So touching and amazing. It helps put things in life back in perspective.
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So, I'm back reading everything, it's what I do all day while I wait for phone calls, and I am consistently AMAZED by you. If I had to watch a child die of cancer with no chemo and no hope I would have fled that instant. I would not have had the strength of heart to give her the comfort she so badly needed. YOU can. What an amazing, wonderful, perfect person you are.
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Name: A Lover and a Fighter
Home: New York, NY
About Me: "It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information."
-Oscar Wilde
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Why is it every time you tell one of these kinds of stories it gets dusty in my office? You've done/do some pretty amazing stuff lady. It's quite inspiring. Not enough to get up off my lazy ass of course, but enough to open my wallet for good people like you.