February 15, 2010

• Goodbye is not the same as Abandonment

  Ba is almost always pleasant, courteous, thoughtful; rarely rude, never angry, never quick tempered.  (In Khmer culture, negative emotion is rarely expressed in public).  But he also never expresses his sadness, his sorrow, his regret.  Until yesterday.

  Before we left my my aunt's home, Ba grasped my aunt's hand and squeezed it briefly for a second.  "Jumreaplea, jai," (goodbye my sister) he said, through tears. 

  My aunt's eyes can't focus as well anymore, but I think she felt the sadness in his voice and in their separation.

  This may be the last time they see one another.  Next time Ba comes to Cambodia, will my aunt be alive?

  I've only seen Ba cry a few times in my life- I could probably count all the times with one hand.  But when he does, it feels like glaciers that once stood firm and strong are ripping apart and plummeting into a relentless roaring river, never to return back to their previous beautiful form again.  His sorrow somehow becomes my sorrow, and I begin to cry too.

  ~ ~ ~

  Time to start anew. 

  My 2nd cousin, only a year younger than me, was a country boy, born in the same village as my father, right beside the fruitful farmlands of the Mekong.  His mother passed away several years ago when she was giving birth to one of his siblings.  After that, there was no more future for him.  All he knew was raising cows, farming, and harvesting rice.  Would he be able to support himself and a family one day without any help?

  With kindness and generosity, one of my other relatives took him under their refuge and he now is able to work, have a safe place to live, and earn a living. 

  "Do you miss your home village?" I asked him.

  He didn't answer, but his actions said it all.  On one of his few days off in the entire year, he rushed back to his village to see his grandma (my grandaunt who talked about the neighboring monkeys).  I am thankful to witness how love transcends death, how goodbye doesn't end at the grave.  Despite his mother's passing, he remains faithful to his family, and treats his mother's mother as his own mother. 

  He now lives in the city, but hasn't forgotten the roots of where he came from.

  ~ ~ ~

  "Did you see those 2 small children on the unit today?" my coworker asked me this morning.

  I hadn't.  (I was busy trying to figure out how to help the nurses.)

  "Well those 2 children... their mother is dying with AIDS. And their father, who was here last week... well he left.  You know.. he escaped." 

  Huh?

  "Not escaped.  I mean he..." she struggled to translate the word properly,  "...ran away and left his sick wife and small children behind."

  You're kidding me.

  "No I'm not kidding... the first time I saw them, they were drinking water directly from the spout of the hand washing sink..." then she couldn't hold it anymore, and my coworker burst into tears.  "When we (myself and the social worker) discovered them, we asked the children- 'where is your father?' 

  The patient replied, in a weak voice, 'He abandoned us a week ago...'"

  As it turns out, those children hadn't eaten either, since their father left.  A WEEK AGO.

  Basically, their father left their mother to die at the hospital and abandoned his children without any food, leaving them to starve.

  My coworker continued crying for a good 5-10 more minutes, intermittently telling me about the complexicity of the situation.

  "We saved them some breakfast from the pediatrics unit.  But in the meantime what do we do with them? If the father takes them, what if he sells or trafficks them? Or abandons them elsewhere?  They're better off in an orphanage or at least living with an NGO,"  she sniffled and blotted her tears with pink tissue paper.

  When I left work in the afternoon, I saw two small kids riding off in a Tuk Tuk with a woman.  I dunno who she was, but hopefully, she's a representative of our NGO and is taking them to a safer place (because staying on an infectious unit ridden with TB and HIV is certainly not a haven for young children).

  God, grant me the serenity

  To accept the things I cannot change;

  The courage to change the things that I can;

  And the wisdom to know the difference.

   

  • 12:41 pm
  • 3 Comments