Last Sunday

"So please, don't spare your mercy
I need your love at every turn
I feel it when my heart beats
Every time my heart beats"
 - Heartbeats, by JOHNNYSWIM




Several rows ahead of me, towards the front of the church, a baby boy with Down's Syndrome was held high near his father's shoulder. His bright eyes, slanted in that signature way, took in the sea of faces around him. He clapped his hands to the music. He has no idea if people see him as 'different'. With any hope, he will always know when people see him as loved.

A few seats down from me, a boy I had met minutes earlier was weeping. If I didn't know that Jonathan was nearly 15, I would have pegged him for 11. He's small and seems so young, especially standing next to his cousin Daniel, age 17, one of the Casa Gabriel boys. All of those boys break my heart a little in thinking of things they've lived through, Daniel and Jonathan maybe most of all. Daniel's mom died several years ago, his father is in a nursing home, and he has two brothers who are dead and two in jail. It's just him, his little sister, and his two older sisters and their families who all live in poverty.
Jonathan's mother is an abusive drunk; he begged his aunt, Daniel's sister Margo, to take him in. Though Margo has four children of her own and a husband who also drinks and becomes violent, she couldn't refuse. But last week the violence once again became too much. This time, thankfully, instead of trying to end her life, she fled to Casa Gabriel, the only place she knew to go. She and the children are at a shelter while the Casa Adalia team child-proofs the home to take them in. Daniel and Jonathan went to visit Daniel's other sisters, before coming back to Casa G.

With all of this, Jonathan sat in church, weeping, because his older brother is in a coma from a gunshot wound. Alcohol, abuse, and violence seem so often linked with severe poverty. A spiral of demons rising from hopelessness.

When the church service was finished I looked through the crowd until my eyes landed on that little Downs Syndrome toddler, fast asleep in his father's arms. Ahead of me, Jonathan was being jostled good-naturedly by the other Casa G boys, who had quickly taken him under their wings like brothers. Back at the house, I pulled out a bag I had stashed in a closet, and beckoned for the boys to meet me upstairs before we all sat down for lunch. I explained that because yesterday was Valentine's Day, I had made a card and had candy for each of them. My plan was to give them each their gift, tell them, "Te amo, mi hermano", and give them a hug. I knew that they might think it was silly, or feel awkward. They didn't. They hugged me back, tight and long. Some of them wiped away mock tears, and we all laughed at the possible cheesiness while holding to a sweet moment.


I think that hopelessness, and seeming different, are feelings and not states of being. I can only pray for that to be so. I read an article yesterday about a mother who aborted her child because she found out he/she had Downs Syndrome. She gave so many justifications, but all I could think of was that that baby is another child who was never given a chance. There are already so many of those. Jonathan has been beaten and told he's worthless, but now I believe he gets another chance, a real one.
The baby in church, Jonathan, all the boys at Casa G and the rest of their families: they’re all so incredibly worth it.