Life is not cheap

She was my friend, we used to live together, laugh together. We went shopping, talked about boys, and ate junk food…we did this all together. Now she was lying on that bed lifeless. She just died while I was standing there beside her and I didn’t know what to do. The Sister was there and began to spout off commands. “Somebody needs to call the Mortuary. Somebody needs to call her family and tell them what happened. We can’t just leave her like this, we have to clean her up, cover her, prepare her for the funeral home. You know they won’t take her like this. She is about to leak infectious body fluids.” Death was beginning to sink into my friend’s body and the Sister wanted us to act quickly but I just felt disgusted and angry. Why was she being so bossy? I couldn’t even let the grief welling up inside of my chest have any release. I wanted to cry, to wail, but we needed to prepare the body. We had nothing but a few bolts, some gauze wrap, and some cotton wool. We needed to keep her eyes closed so we placed the bolts over her eyes to keep them closed. We then took the gauze wrap and tied it around her head, from her chin to the top of her head to ensure that her mouth would stay closed. We then took the cotton wool and put it into her nostrils as well as in her ears. This was to ensure that no fluid could make its way out of her body. My friend was positive and I don’t mean her personality. No, she was HIV+ and the virus was still inside of her body. Any fluid excreted would be highly infectious to those around her. We straightened out her arms to make sure they didn’t stiffen in a strange position and then covered her with a blanket. She was gone, my friend was gone and the last image I had of her would be her wrapped in a bandage with bolts on her eyes and cotton up her nose. It was surreal and disturbing. My heart ached, why couldn’t we do any more for my friend? Why did death have to be like this?

“Okay” the Sister said, “Brooke, you can wake up now, you’re alive.” The role-play was over. We returned to our prayer circle with our lighted candle and Brooke joined us again feeling very rested and wishing she could crawl back into that bed. But as I sat there I was left with an overwhelming feeling of sadness and grief. “But why does death have to look like that?” I was disturbed still, thinking of my family in the community who had lost their mother, their father and most recently their 19 year old brother. Did they have to do this for them? Did they have to experience the ugliness of death? Our time in Barberton was bittersweet. We went to a place called St. John’s. It could be called a children’s hospice for all the children who are sent there to die, but it could also be called an orphanage for those children who were supposed to die but are still living, still thriving there and are the most beautiful children you might meet. The mixture of life and death on the campus was startling. On one side there was hope, on the other, comfort for the hopeless.

There was a misunderstanding so we came to play with the children but the Sisters had a workshop prepared for us on “Palliative care and Dying.” Sound depressing? It was. We talked for hours about death and dying. Wait, let me rephrase that. The Sister spent hours talking about death and dying. I wondered if it wasn’t a blessing for her for us to be there as she had so much to say and a flow of information spilled from her lips. A delightful little nun with stories to last a lifetime. She had been in South Africa for over 20 years working on this plot of land. It started out as a youth hostel and evolved over the years into what it is today. She has experienced more death than any of us could imagine. There had been 5 deaths in just the past two weeks on their property. Imagine what that must feel like to care and love for people you know are only in your presence to die. I’m not sure I could do that, but this is her calling and her church placed her there for a reason. She was in her mid to late sixties, originally from the States, Pittsburg to be exact. She played with them, sang with them.

It was such a strange thing…all these kiddos spoke English. Their little black faces, coming from the bush and yet growing up with American nuns had produced English speakers that were natives of South Africa. They called the 7 that had been there for years the magnificent 7. They were all meant to die. All had stories of triumph. One was found a few days old in a plastic bag in the middle of a field. She is a spit-fire. The stories are filled with rape, abuse, and extreme illness. They each have been at death’s door and returned victoriously. The strange thing was looking at these children and trying to comprehend that they were all sick, all with HIV, all on ARV’s, all fragile creatures. They spoke with confidence and joy.

Some of my thoughts while at St. Johns:
“This place feels blessed. The light overflows from the tops of the buildings and creates a fabulous aura. God is here.”
“This supportive group of little ones, forced to grow up fast. Their living is surrounded by dying and it is now normal”
“The pain is too big, too real, so she laughs. Oh Lord, protect her heart, hold it close, because she needs your comfort”
“The reality: these children are dying of AIDS, and they know it”
“Abandoned by death, unnatural to us, but this is their family”
“Is it desperation? Where is the love that leaves when it becomes too difficult? Why is it only important to stick together physically while emotionally they are strangers?”
“I hate death, it is an assault on everything we hold dear, or maybe I hate illness, the unexpected, the indifferent diseases, AIDS, those that rob of life”
“The disappearing children. Deterioration = loss of existence”
“Life is not cheap”