Hero

Nurse Ali Chandra is back after some time in England where her husband Phil received more training for his position on the ship.  I've re-blogged what she wrote for "Five Minute Friday":

We stood in the hallway together, a translator passing our words back and forth between us like an imperfect offering. I was explaining to her that we hadn't done the surgery we'd promised, that her little boy, already so broken, would come back to her with the roof of his mouth gaping just as wide as when she surrendered him into our hands.

Her gaze never faltered, clear and strong and confident, as she took my hand and told me that this, too, must have been God's plan. That if we could understand Him, He wouldn't be God anymore.

A lifetime stretched out in front of her, a lifetime of caring for her child who would never speak, never walk. A child who, I'd just finished telling her, would choke on his food and spit water out his nose forever, as if the rest weren't enough. And she just held my hand there in the hallway outside D Ward, unwavering as she reassured me that everything was going to be okay.

These are the quiet heroes, the mamas who will never have their stories trumpeted from the front page of a newspaper, the ones just going on with their lives in the face of pain and heartbreak that I can't begin to understand. They are everywhere; Nathanael's mama is just one of many that I've met and a myriad more whose paths I will never cross.

They cling to life in the face of a culture that speaks death over their babies, sheltering them from the stares and glares of the ones who would call them worthless. They tie their children to their backs for two or five or fifteen years, trudging through dusty streets to their place in the market where they pray a passerby will buy from them despite the curse they carry on their strong shoulders. They stand in line for days in hopes that we can help, and when we turn them away they hold their heads high so their children can't see their tears.

These are the heroes.