A smile. A giggle. A belly laugh that tips her over. His eyes looking straight through yours. A look of pure joy. A hug that enters your soul. A cry that scars your heart. A wail that only open arms can cure. A kiss that makes you feel at home. Two hands clapping for the first time. Babbles of “mama, mama.” The strength of a child. The heart of a child. The love of a child. Pure. Simple. Perfect.
I confess I don’t cry often. I feel as though I’ve been able to experience a lot of this world while at the same time feel I am still just beginning to witness the human experience. Call it what you will but a lot of the human experience that causes others to weep I find equally disturbing or joyous, however it takes experiencing something by surprise to cause me to cry. An overwhelming feeling of complete loss of control or experiencing a moment so pure you feel fortunate to have been witness.
This moment was just that. A moment that caught me completely off guard, tears began to fall down my face and before I knew it I was experiencing a miracle. The day began like many others before them. I dressed in clothes that would keep me cool, were respectable but comfortable so I could kneel, play on the ground, and have food drench them from neck to toe. I was on my way to visit a place where no matter the country, language or lack of basic human resources I felt at home – a children’s home. Today, I was visiting Missionaries of Charity in Bujumbura, Burundi. I arrived as promised, ready to provide two extra, loving hands to lift children from their cribs and two sturdy legs for children to rap themselves around. I was grateful that the Sisters so lovingly allowed me to visit every day. They were busy keeping children alive and as healthy as possible with the resources available to them. The two resources never in short supply were love and faith. They knew each child’s name, prayed for every child to survive another day and to someday have the family they longed for and deserved.
I walked into the Mission, I babbled and smiled into all the 42 cribs in the infant room each filled with an amazing little life. This walk is often one of the most difficult of the visit as you walk by all the children and make a decision of which child is in most need of your humble attention, your arms, your laughter, your voice in a language that they do not understand, and yet somehow suddenly awakes them into these lively, jumping, enthusiastic being who just moments ago were rocking back and forth searching for attention. As I was just about to check on one of the six infants on IVs that day, a little one awoke, crawled to her feet in her crib as it rocked back and forth, planted her hands firmly on the railing before her, and she stood there for a moment fixated on my gaze. I looked back into her beautiful black eyes as they radiated pure joy, her smile as big and as amazing as the continent of Africa. She began rocking in the opposite direction of her crib’s chronic swing. Rocking as fast as her little body enabled her, her expression just as radiate as before, and then, the laughter. Laughter so deep and precious it came from the very center of her being. Her enthusiasm, zest for live, and resilience had no bounds. She was invincible in that moment. It was then, that moment, witnessing her life, that I wept.
In that moment I was witness to this amazing child’s experience. I didn’t weep for this child as she happily swung herself back and forth. I didn’t weep in empathy at life’s circumstances. I wept for her mother. Somehow, for some unexplainable reason, I was given the gift to witness her daughter’s joy. Her daughter’s life. An experience her mother was never given the opportunity to take part in. I wept for all the memories she has missed since her passing and all those she will miss from this moment on. I wept. Her mom deserved the opportunity to witness her daughter’s amazingness, to take part in her joy and sorrow every day. I wept.
