The Hardest Day

"And its little comfort, I know

But it's raining all over the world right now

And it's little comfort, I know

But the worst will soon be over"

 - Cold Comfort, by Glen Hansard 

 

Of my five years doing mission work in Ecuador, this is the story of the hardest day.
 
First, there was Diego. Diego was a soccer-playing, sunglasses-wearing African Ecuadorian teenager whose Spanish I could swear had something of a drawl to it. He was constantly giving me side-eye, perhaps assessing my level of coolness, before breaking into a smile which was somehow both shy and confident at once. He was like an enigmatic little boy with swagger; a little larger than life, yet still just a little boy at heart. That was Diego, and like all the former street boys living at the ministry site named Casa Gabriel, I loved him like a brother.  
 
Diego had a couple of older brothers, and I don't recall if they were both in jail or had been killed in gang-related deaths. Either way, they weren't in the family picture. Diego's mother had died, and his elderly father was very frail. From a young age, Diego banded with his two older sisters, and they plus the youngest sister all took care of each other. But as Diego grew into a teenager, he ate all the food he could put on the table from the hours spent hustling in front of stop lights as an entertainer, hoping for change from sympathetic motorists. Even though he dropped out of school, working full-time to juggle or dance or sell candies for change, it was barely enough to feed himself, let alone help his family. Feeling as though he were more of a burden than a help to his sisters, two of which had begun to have kids of their own to care for, he decided to fend for himself on the streets. Eventually, he heard about Casa Gabriel, a home for street boys like him, and decided it was his best shot at finishing high school and having a future with more options. He’d been living there a few months before I arrived. I'm sure I was a curiosity to the boys; a half-white, half-Hispanic girl with imperfect Spanish who took over administration and bookkeeping and liked to bake desserts to share. Diego, like most of the boys, liked to test me out, seeing what buttons they could push in a friendly and interested way. Thus, the appraising side eye, which I did my amused best to give right back to him. 
 
I was on my apartment terrace one afternoon when Phil, the director of Casa Gabriel, called with devastating news. Diego’s sister Maria was dead. Suicide. I had met her, once, in the condemned home in which her family lived. I was getting ready to walk to Casa Gabriel (about a ten-minute trek) to see Diego, when Phil called a second time. The first news had been wrong. Maria was still alive.
 
The story came out in pieces over time. Maria had her first baby at age fifteen. By twenty-two she had four children. Her current boyfriend, father of her youngest (it's culturally common for an uneducated girl from a poor family to have children with multiple men), was a decent man until he drank. Which he did often, and heavily. He would become violent, and one night, Maria couldn’t take the beatings any longer. She fled to the home of friends, locked herself in the bathroom, swallowed rat poison, and waited to die. I’ve imagined the horrible scene, wondering: did the friends take the door off its hinges to get to her? Break it down? At any rate, the paramedics called it a miracle that she lived. 
 
“She’s in the ICU. Critical condition, but alive,” Phil told me. I was flooded with emotions, barely able to whisper to my roommate the good news, which somehow made me cry harder than ever. I made it to Casa Gabriel and knocked on Diego's door. He cracked it open, reluctantly letting me step inside the room he shared with a couple of other guys. I fumbled, telling him how sorry I was to hear the news, but how grateful that his sister was alive after all. The only time Diego met my eyes was when he first opened the door; the rest of the time, his chin was nearly resting on his chest. Out of things to say, I asked, “Do you want a hug?”
 
He swayed forward, straight into my arms. 
 
We stood like that for a long time; my arms around this athletic, sometimes cocky teenager who laid his head heavily on my shoulder. When he eventually straightened, there were tears in both our eyes. We didn’t say anything else, just nodded at each other before closing the door. 
 
So, that is some background for the hardest day. 
 
That day would come weeks later, after Maria was released from the hospital, after her boyfriend begged forgiveness and swore he’d change, and after he fell back into drinking and violence and Maria ran away once more. Yet this time, she took her kids with her to the safest place she knew: Casa Gabriel, showing up late one night and asking, on behalf of her brother, to be given shelter. For several days her kids terrorized the home before we moved them into Casa Adalia, a home for girls a risk. The kids were a terror there as well, but at least there were other kids of young moms in the home to distract them. In their old, condemned home, they had no reason not to further wreck the place, or to rowdily run as fast as they could from any punishment pending from their over-worked young mother. Soon I found that the kids were as unbelievably wild in their rampages as they were desperate for love and affection. As utterly tiring as they were, I quickly fell in love with them. 
 
Casa Adalia is the sister ministry to Casa Gabriel. While the boy’s home was founded by Phil about a decade before I arrived in Ecuador, the girl’s home was opened by Phil’s wife Debbie a mere month before I came. The couple worked as a team to run both homes, and I found my time increasingly split between them as well. On the hardest day, Phil was away in the US. I was at Casa Gabriel when Debbie called. Her voice was fairly calm, but higher pitched than normal. As evenly as she could, she told me, “Maria’s counselor just told me that Maria looked her in the eyes and said, ‘I can’t go on. There’s no point. I’m going to kill myself, and my children as well. I won’t leave them all alone, so I’ll kill all of us. I have a plan. I know how I’ll do it, and where. It’s the only way.’”
My blood ran cold. Debbie continued, “I need you to go to Casa Adalia right now and watch over the kids. Maria should be back home in the next couple of hours. I’m at the doctor with one of the other girls and will be home as soon as I can. Sonnet, you’re a neutral presence: Maria likes you. You help watch her kids. We don’t know for sure what she might do, but I don’t think she’ll  get angry at you, or suspicious. Go watch the kids and I’ll be there as soon as possible.” 
 
I hailed a cab, berating every stop light until I reached the front door of the home. The usual house-mom wasn't there, just a volunteer for whom I took over. The kids surged forward when they saw me, tackling me with their small selves, ages two to eight. They played and I prayed, watching the door and the clock and wondering: when Maria came home, would she try to take the kids and leave? Would I have to pull them from her, fight her? What terrible trauma for those kids, if they had to see that. 
“Please, no,” I thought. “Please, help.” 
 
The possible scenarios played out in my head for the next couple of hours. I was on high alert, straining to hear the sound of the metal outside door opening, or of approaching footsteps. I didn’t know what Maria might do, but if she tried to take the kids, I knew what I would do. I would gather them up and run. I would lock us in a bedroom. I would wrestle her to the ground. I would fight her with everything I had. I would do anything. To protect the kids? My god, I would do anything. 
 
When Maria arrived, she ducked her head low, escaping to her room, yet I was still on high alert. Debbie arrived, and just as it was growing dark, so did Aaron. Aaron was the head director over several ministries, including both homes. A former rugby player, he’s a large man who can exude an intimidating presence, until you realize he’s more of a big teddy bear at heart. In lieu of Phil, Debbie called on him to come be mediator, and possible bodyguard. Aaron and Debbie sat down and explained their concerns to Maria, who stared off into space, a glazed look in her eyes. 
“But I have to do it,” she stated, dully yet firmly. 
Debbie called the police, Aaron kept an eye on Maria, and I put the kids to bed. 
 
Over an hour and more than one 911 call later, the police finally arrived. It was the hallmark of a developing country: yes there’s police, yes you see them driving around with lights flashing all the time, no you don’t know when they’ll arrive when you call for help and no, they refuse to do anything unless they see violence happening directly in front of them. Stalemate. 
 
With blue and red lights flashing outside as Debbie tried to reason with the police, I stayed near the door of the kids’ bedroom. Aaron continued to try and gently talk with Maria, but at this point, her stone-like demeanor was slipping, and she was becoming agitated. The police left and Debbie came inside, exhausted. I don’t remember what, if anything, she said to Maria. What I recall is Maria letting out a stifled cry before hurtling herself at the bedroom door. I clung to the handle, keeping it closed with all my might just as Aaron stepped forward and blocked it. Maria pounded her fists on Aaron and the door, shoving against me. Her shoulder ground against my own. Then, her efforts subsided. Weakly she gasped, “My children, my children,” before falling back. She was exhausted, too. 
 
She fell asleep on the couch. It was somewhere around 1:00 am at this point. Debbie and Aaron concluded that the danger had probably passed for the night, though we stayed in that doorway for a long time, nonetheless. Aaron had called his wife earlier in the evening, preparing her for the possibility of them sheltering the four children for the night or longer. When Debbie said she would stay and we could go, he called her again to say that they seemed safe, for now. Then, he drove me home. 
 
 
I can still conjure up the feeling of pulling on that door handle with all my strength, and of Maria’s shoulder shoving against mine as she tried to get past. To physically keep a mother away from her children was never something I would have foreseen, yet there I was. I remember Aaron and I looking at each other, agreeing without words that we’d do anything to keep those kids safe. I remember reaching out to Debbie first thing the next morning, the relief in hearing that things were still calm, yet the worry-wrought, fight-response tenseness in my body which didn’t subside for some time. 
 
Maria kept going to see the counselor, and she never tried to carry out the suicide pact. She decided there was hope, and another way, after all. 
 
Eventually, Maria moved her kids to a small place of their own. She worked and took classes, and Diego visited when he could. They have a fierce determination which I admire. The attempts at and talk of suicide was rash, and in the end, Maria abandoned it. She had people who believed in her, more than ever before in her life. I think of Maria, and I think of her sassy slow smile which is nearly identical to Diego’s. I think of both of them, and of course I think about Diego falling forward into my arms, and of Maria trying to push past me through the door, but I also think of the good things which happened afterwards. It was the hardest day, yet how thankful I am that it wasn’t the end of the story. It was only a chapter. 
 
For Maria and Diego, each of their stories continued to be uneven, though forward moving. However messy, forward is still forward. This, on every day, is a mercy. 
 



Note: The names Diego and Maria are pseudonyms. 
Links the ministry websites:
Casa Gabriel
Casa Adalia