Held

"If I can stop one heart from breaking
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain."
 - Emily Dickinson 



J is two. He is more shy than wild, from what I've seen. He runs around with the other kids, all tousled hair, short legs, and chubby cheeks. He is a beautiful boy, part Ecuadorian and part African Ecuadorian, so that he has his mother's rich dark skin while his wavy brown hair must have come from his father, who is long gone.

I first met J's mother when she was 14. We (myself and the other mission workers) had a sense about her, or more accurately, about what might happen to her. Her older sisters were looking out for her as best they could, but she wasn't in school very much. Instead, she would watch her sister's kids while they tried to earn enough money for the basics. I spent a Saturday with the Casa Gabriel boys, trying to clean up the sister's homes. The homes have been condemned, that's how dilapidated they are, yet still, we could drive several hours to clear the rocks and debris out of the front yards. We could carve earthen steps into the steep slope leading down to one of the homes. So we did.

They are all the family of one of the boys who lives in Casa Gabriel. Family has always been of the utmost importance to him. In fact he left Casa Gabriel for a time so as to once again live with them and try to help them out, even putting himself through basic army training to try and give himself an edge with work, before returning to us so as to graduate high school. It makes such a difference for one's future, the simple and yet too often illusive act of graduation.

We worried for J's mother when she was just 14, but she was too young to enter Casa Adalia. Fast forward two years and she was pregnant, with only a grade school education. Fast forward another two years and we talked to her brother about her coming to stay at Casa Adalia at last. She wanted to come, but one of her sisters was firmly against it. Perhaps the sister feared that losing her would mean losing help with her own children, an understandable concern yet short-sighted in light of a family member getting an education which could greatly improve their futures. So, in the end, she came. She came with her meager possessions and her beautiful dark-eyed son. I greeted her warmly, but of course, she didn't remember me. I was a stranger, even though I'd known of her for four years and had awaited the day of her arrival with hope.


Lately, when I've been at Casa Adalia, I've been training someone else to take on my role as bookkeeper. The past couple of weeks, I've sat back and observed and coached while a fellow mission worker has taken the reigns. Two weeks ago, little J came clamoring up the stairs and into the office. He leaned against my chair and was soon in my lap, where he shrieked with giggles as I tickled him and held him upside down. Last week, he came up the stairs only to stop at the top, sit, and begin to bawl. I went and sat down beside him, asking if he wanted to tell me what was wrong, but he only cried harder. Gently I pulled him towards me, giving him space to either come close or get away, whichever he needed. He leaned sideways, his whole body collapsing against me. I scooped him into my arms.

I carried J into the office and sat down. He continued to cry while snuggling closer against me. I wrapped my arms around him tighter, leaning my chin on the top of his head and splaying my fingers over his knees and shoulder, as though cocooning him, as though I were becoming his armor. I spoke in soft Spanish and soon his wails faded away. He played with my long necklace, twirling it around in his hands. Then he laced his small fingers through mine again and again, not saying a word. I kissed the top of his head.

J's mom hurried in with papers to copy. She smiled our way, yet there was a nervousness to her glance. In her I saw something I had observed with other young mothers: the tendency to ignore their crying child mostly because of being overwhelmed, though partly in being unsure of how to show comfort. Recently, another young mother who lived in the home had been caring for her infant and four-year-old daughter, when in desperation her four-year-old cried out, "Mommy, I love you. I love you!" This profession startled the young mother, because she realized it was something she hardly said to her daughters, because it was something she hadn't heard from her own parents. In a moment of bravery mingled with despair, her daughter showed her the strength of those three words. It was different from those same words which she had achingly seen shift and fail in friends and boyfriends and their broken promises. It was genuine love, family love. She hadn't known how to give what she had never received, not until her four-year-old took it upon herself to do so.

Holding J and looking at his young mom, I thought, "She is so young. She is probably very often afraid. She's known hunger and heartache. She lost her mother when she was tiny, so how frightening must it be to unexpectedly become a mother when you hardly had a mother of your own?"

Eventually, little J straightened up, slid from my lap and ran off to play. Over him and his mother I prayed, "Know that you are loved. Know that you are safe. Be well. Learn and grow and heal and be. You are loved."