The Suffering Heart
My last update was placed on this site by Amanda I had intending on writing this journal entire too but there was so many problems with the computers that day that both of these are quite delayed!
This journal writing is from October 31, 2006
Today was a bad day. It seemed that everything that I put my hand to ended up messing up. Spending the day in Jinja from the computers to the market. To top it all off I found out that my visa was denied which leads to me crossing the border to renew it every three months. Quite an inconvenience and more of my budget that was unaccounted for. I’m ready to go back to the island. My friend Robert connected with me in the afternoon and I’m so thankful to not spend the rest of the afternoon alone. Robert is sick though and my needing to run all over town still is not good for his already tired body. He has typhoid. Everyone at home is sick which leads for a sort of sadness that hovers over the island. Illness here is not like the common flu, you never know the outcome and the common cold is usually not found but is replaced by the reality of something potentially serious. Poor Robert not only deals with my illness but my sadness and disappointment of a really bad day. Just when I thought the day couldn’t get worse Robert's phone rings, its Joyce she is crying, her Aunt passed today, a single mother of five kids.
Joyce has been my closest friend during my time here on the islands. She teaches history at the secondary school. The school has only been open for the year and is the primary reason she has moved to the island. She had heard of the position through Robert. Robert has come to know their family well over the years first befriending her sister. Joyce's sister passed two years ago unexpectantly. Last year her Grandfather died and now this. Joyce has already been worried as her younger sister has been ill now for some months. Upon my return home I drop my things and go to check on Joyce. Her room is filled with people coming to comfort her. Joyce holds a mask on her face. I’m fine she reply’s as I ask her how she is... but really how are you she says... Some moments later she excuses her self. I can hear Joyce crying outside her home, the kind of tears that only can come from your belly when you are unsure that the pain will ever leave.
In the past Joyce has been known to go into hyperventilating, crying with her heart being so overwhelmed. Concerned for her state and the fact that she gets so upset that her breathing becomes strained I tell Joyce I will stay with her and go home to prepare for a night with my friend who needs me!
Walking with pillow in hand I pray that God be with me. In moments like these it’s hard to know what to do. Joyces food remains untouched (Robert says he heard she hasn’t eaten all day). I grab the basin and water for her hands. She tries to refuse me but with a little persistence she washes her hands and takes the meal I hand her.
This small mud hut with a tin roof. Her single bed pushed against the wall with a mattress behind it for Petra, a neighbor girl whose Mothers home is too small for al of her children. Joyce gladly shares her home with this young girl at night. I help her settle Petra in on the floor when we are greeted by Justine with radio in hand. (Justine is a beautiful heavy set African she is much older than us and speaks very little English.) She too has decided to stay with Joyce. Another mattress is squeezed on the floor Petra balled up on the small mat in the corner. I am to share Joyce’s bed with her.
The lamp is left on dimly and Justine tries to tune her radio in I have to sleep with noise she says. She finally settles on a Ugandan preacher who speaks with such soul and charisma that it shakes the speakers filling the room with static. I have never cared much for radio evangelists and though I didn’t understand a word this man was saying I think it is safe to say that I didn’t enjoy this man much either. After the radio is set Justine informs Joyce that she sleeps in the nude as she undresses. Joyce laughs and relays the message, I laugh to not really all that surprised by the freedom most Africans possess not being the least bit self conscious. I lay in bed and Joyce grabs my hand with tears she starts praying a prayer of thanksgiving for my friendship, its hard to receive as I know she needs nothing but just what I am offering. After she is done I pray for her, that God would give her peace for what I cannot fix. That he stand beside her and her family in their loss and watch over her as she travels tomorrow. I say good night as I finish and Justine’s naked body sits up, fully confident she kneels and prays for Joyce the way a mother prays for her child. I have to laugh to myself; even in the sadness of this grief watching a large African woman pray in the nude is still somewhat humorous.
Joyce spent the night fairly sleepless. She feels God has abandoned her and her family. She wonders at how fair a God is to continue year after year to see her family suffer. I have no answer for these things, as they are life’s mystery. All I can do is pray for Joyce that somehow through it all the God of peace would find her and comfort what I cannot begin to unfold. I pray for a miracle to come and heal her sister knowing that her lose would be more than they could take. My heart is saddened as I see Joyce go on the boat. I will never understand why we were created to love only to be open to such lose in return, and yet again it is truly the only thing worth living for.
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