Love until it hurts

I’m exhausted. Physically, mentally and emotionally. I can’t decided if I am tired because I had one too many Irish carbombs and green beer at karaoke last night in celebration of St. Patrick’s Day or because I am so overwhelmed by emotions on such a consistent basis that my body is in perma overdrive. Everyday I feel so many emotions. There are moments of insane happiness followed by sheer sadness. I get stressed out and anxious and frustrated and mad. A lot of the time I’m thankful and appreciative, optimistic and content.

South Africa makes you feel. Experiencing so many emotions in such close proximity to each other makes me tired.

Today I was in the car from 6:45 am until 2:30 pm driving patients to various hospitals and clinics. My emotion, besides exhaustion was annoyance. As I walked into the Respite after what seemed like hours and realized it was only 10 am all I could think about was getting out of there, getting into the car with the girls (having someone else drive) and eating whatever delicious lunch they had made me.

As I entered the ward I found myself standing face to face with a very young, very sick child. She looked at me with the most terrified hallow eyes I have ever seen. I did the only thing I could think of I pulled her into me and cradled her for what seemed like forever. When I released her a single tear fell from her eyes and in eloquent English she said “That is the first hug I have had in a very long time, longer then I can remember”.

Six hours. SIX HOURS is all I got to spend with her. A blink of an eye, but I have never been so transformed in such a short amount of time.

I brought her to Bothas Hill Clinic to get an X-Ray. She looked terrified and all I could think about was how scared I would be to be alone in a hospital I'm 24...and she is just 14. While we waited I tried my best to console her with simple silly stories and telling her about me. Mid conversation I got the overwhelming desire to stop talking at her and instead really reach her.

I told her how scared and lonely I sometimes feel being away from home and that those are okay to feel. I told her how sometimes there are so many overwhelming feelings inside of you that just need to be released. I told her I was a good listener and as if those were the magic words she opened up.

Our conversation lasted the entire afternoon. Her name is Nokuphiwa Ndlovu. Shes the most gorgeous 14 year old I have ever seen; her skin is creamy black and her big brown eyes are encircled by the longest eyelashes I have ever seen. She lives with her Gogo (grandmother) in Inchanga. She is an orphan. I made her a journal just like I made Sibu and on the cover she wrote “My OWN book” and looked at me and said "I’ve never owned one of my own before."

She told me about the pain of loosing her parents to AIDS and how she misses them every second of every day. She told me that at her Mothers funeral her aunt ripped her cross off of her neck and told her to stop praying. She asked me if I thought she would have the opportunity to see her parents again. I told her that I firmly believe in the goodness of God and the perfect reuniting of loved ones in heaven and until that day of meeting, our loved ones proudly look down on us showering us with love. Love that may be unseen, but is ever present. At which point she smiled for the first time all day.

She told me that she loves school, but is took sick to attend and that her little ten year old brother will borrow books from his teacher and together at night by candle light they copy page by page each word. She memorizes the words and when she can’t figure out their meaning her brother will walk around asking everyone in the community until he gets the answer. She told me that at school people call her "Little" because she is so frail and sick.

As we together looked at her chest x-ray which showcased the worst TB I have ever seen she told me she is HIV positive. She tested negative as a baby and does not know where she got the AIDS virus from.

She told me that most days she wants to die because living with AIDS and TB is too painful. Her words “I’m 14, I know most 14 year olds here have sex- unprotected sex, but I have never done it. I don’t even have a boyfriend. After my parents died I got sick and I don’t understand how. Why me? Why when I am so good and I try so hard to be nice do I have to hurt inside so much”

She told me she dreams of fairytales where she is the princess, but shes not perfect and shes not living in a big huge castle just a nice home and she is not sick. Amid my tears she told me she’s too sad to cry anymore tears, that her insides are dry.

Hillcrest Respite is a wonderful facility, but unfortunately not equipped to deal with such extreme cases so she was transferred to Don McKenzie. As I was driving her there I asked her if I could get her anything what would she want and she replied “Something warm that I can remember you by”.

A lot of times here I feel like I cant do enough here, more often then that I feel like I cant do anything at all, but with Nokuphiwa I felt like I could give from my abundance. Call it impulsive, call it unsustainable, but I turned the car around and drove to my house. I found her a fleece blanket, two of my warmest long sleeved shirts and scarves to match (she had complimented the scarf I was wearing today and told me she had never seen one before).

There are many times here that I feel like I am wearing the same outfits over and over because I didn’t bring many clothing options with me...just two huge suitcases...looking at my closet today I saw an overabundance of options.

As I exited my room I remembered her telling me her cross had been ripped off of her. At commissioning Mass before the volunteers head to their respective work sites each of us is given a silver St. Augustine pendant. This being my second volunteer year I have two of the exact same pendants. One I wear on a silver chain next to the cross my family gave me and the other hangs on my jewellery holder, untouched.

I placed the necklace on her and told her about St. Augustine she kept saying “eskis”. When I asked her what it meant she said there is no real way to translate it and do it justice, but simplified it means “somewhere in my soul I am so full and complete at this moment”.

As we arrived at the hospital and I tucked her into her bed and reassured her that I would visit and she would get well and that my tears weren’t because I was sad, but because I was so happy to have met her she said something that will stick with me forever

“Maggie" she started, "I don’t have anything. I don’t own anything but what you gave me today. I can’t give you anything but this piece of my tissue. If you use it today your tears will dry, but if you keep it forever your tears will always be dried because I love you.”

I understand now more then ever what Mother Teresa means when she says “I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love”

In the midst of my compassion fatigue and feeling so helpless and so unsure of why I am here, Nokuphiwa reassured me that I was exactly where I was supposed to be for that moment in time. She found and then stole my heart.