http://www.streamsofmercy.org/home.html
http://www.streamsofmercy.org/blog/she-was-dying-on-a-sidewalk-in-india/
Thursday, April 30, 2015
Safe Place
It is a safe place. A refuge, similar to a place where a victim of domestic abuse can hide.
Women go there in secret. They disappear to there.
I picture it in a more rural setting, not the heart of the city.
This may or may not be correct.
Women go there in secret. They disappear to there.
I picture it in a more rural setting, not the heart of the city.
This may or may not be correct.
poverty and pregnancy in India
This is an example: Very poor young girls raised on the sidewalk, living with their families (example of what this looks like), raped by the sidewalk owner, resulting in pregnancy, are disowned by their families for being pregnant out of wedlock. Even in this setting pregnancy out of wedlock brings such disgrace on everyone.
They are ostricized, unable to work, banished from their family. Nobody will ever marry them now -- they are the untouchable of the untouchables.
They are left with few options:
suicide
unsafe abortion
http://www.boloji.com/index.cfm?md=Content&sd=Articles&ArticleID=3918
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Dalit-rape-victim-gets-landlord-arrested-in-Himachal-Pradesh/articleshow/17919827.cms
**********************
Even sidewalk dwellers in India have to pay regular fees to someone -- the sidewalk owner, policemen, syndicates.
***************************
They might hide the pregnancy until they can't, waiting until later pregnancy, and then have a third trimester pregnancy abortion. If the child is viable it has a chance to survive. Waiting until late pregnancy has something to do with either Hindu religion or Karma
Is that what I heard? Now I can't remember. How can this be?
Late Pregnancy abortion is not legal in India.
Prematurity is common.
Voluntary premature deliver?
How could this be possible?
The child would likely be abandoned.
Even then she can't return to society if people knew.
************************************
Did I hear or remember this wrong?
I search the internet to try to find validation of such practices. So far I haven't found any.
*****************
But this was probably the mid 1980s I am talking about -- or maybe nothing has changed.
They are ostricized, unable to work, banished from their family. Nobody will ever marry them now -- they are the untouchable of the untouchables.
They are left with few options:
suicide
unsafe abortion
http://www.boloji.com/index.cfm?md=Content&sd=Articles&ArticleID=3918
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Dalit-rape-victim-gets-landlord-arrested-in-Himachal-Pradesh/articleshow/17919827.cms
**********************
Even sidewalk dwellers in India have to pay regular fees to someone -- the sidewalk owner, policemen, syndicates.
***************************
They might hide the pregnancy until they can't, waiting until later pregnancy, and then have a third trimester pregnancy abortion. If the child is viable it has a chance to survive. Waiting until late pregnancy has something to do with either Hindu religion or Karma
Is that what I heard? Now I can't remember. How can this be?
Late Pregnancy abortion is not legal in India.
Prematurity is common.
Voluntary premature deliver?
How could this be possible?
The child would likely be abandoned.
Even then she can't return to society if people knew.
************************************
Did I hear or remember this wrong?
I search the internet to try to find validation of such practices. So far I haven't found any.
*****************
But this was probably the mid 1980s I am talking about -- or maybe nothing has changed.
Wednesday, April 29, 2015
That's not my baby
You arrive to the Indian orphanage, after excruciating months of looking at a stamp sized picture of the son who had already seared his place in your heart, finally coming to receive the baby and take him home. You had memorized every details of his features, including that special little mark on the ear.
But where is the baby? They take you to the basket holding an infant boy.
"That's not my baby", you immediately say.
You know your baby, you have memorized his face, his every characteristic, having studied the stamp sized photo for months.
"Where is my baby?" You move from basket to basket looking for the baby, unable to find him.
Finally, in the back of the room, you find a smaller than expected, limp infant, near death, too weak to cry.
This is him, you know his face, his characteristic ear mark.
The baby you had waited for all of these months is so profoundly ill and not as expected.
"That baby is not going to survive. We'll give you another one", the orphanage staff tries to comfort you.
But you don't want another baby.
You only want YOUR baby.
You know who your baby is, and you are not taking another baby.
You are determined to nurse and comfort the infant you had been anticipating for months.
Your baby.
But where is the baby? They take you to the basket holding an infant boy.
"That's not my baby", you immediately say.
You know your baby, you have memorized his face, his every characteristic, having studied the stamp sized photo for months.
"Where is my baby?" You move from basket to basket looking for the baby, unable to find him.
Finally, in the back of the room, you find a smaller than expected, limp infant, near death, too weak to cry.
This is him, you know his face, his characteristic ear mark.
The baby you had waited for all of these months is so profoundly ill and not as expected.
"That baby is not going to survive. We'll give you another one", the orphanage staff tries to comfort you.
But you don't want another baby.
You only want YOUR baby.
You know who your baby is, and you are not taking another baby.
You are determined to nurse and comfort the infant you had been anticipating for months.
Your baby.
That Sound
"Bring the baby to my mother's house, so he can at least die in a home, rather than in this orphanage", your Indian female physician friend says to you.
*******************************************
"Do you know that sound that dying babies make?" you ask me.
No. I don't know it.
This is a sound you knew from your work in India and from Africa.
You had worked in maternal fetal medicine for years, combating prematurity, promoting prenatal care.
You had seen many hopeless cases before.
*********************************
You sit on the floor in the tiny home of your physician friend's mother. They take the baby to an adjacent closet sized space, where they have an alter. You can hear their utterances, as you sit praying.
You hear that sound come from your infant son, and you are sure he has died.
You sit helplessly on the floor, waiting for them to return.
*************************************
You heard the sound come from the mouth of your own baby, the Indian infant you had been in the process of adopting for months, as you prayed for his life, from the other room. The Hindu women uttered their prayers from their alter nearby.
After a while they returned, baby in their hands, and said "He is going to be OK now".
Miraculously he lived.
You tell me how you would later joke with them about the prayers - asking whose prayers and whose God saved him?
*************************
The Hindu grandmother continues to help to nurse him back to health.
As she does so, she continually tries to reshape to straighten his nose.
**************
He has a beautiful nose today.
*******************************************
"Do you know that sound that dying babies make?" you ask me.
No. I don't know it.
This is a sound you knew from your work in India and from Africa.
You had worked in maternal fetal medicine for years, combating prematurity, promoting prenatal care.
You had seen many hopeless cases before.
*********************************
You sit on the floor in the tiny home of your physician friend's mother. They take the baby to an adjacent closet sized space, where they have an alter. You can hear their utterances, as you sit praying.
You hear that sound come from your infant son, and you are sure he has died.
You sit helplessly on the floor, waiting for them to return.
*************************************
You heard the sound come from the mouth of your own baby, the Indian infant you had been in the process of adopting for months, as you prayed for his life, from the other room. The Hindu women uttered their prayers from their alter nearby.
After a while they returned, baby in their hands, and said "He is going to be OK now".
Miraculously he lived.
You tell me how you would later joke with them about the prayers - asking whose prayers and whose God saved him?
*************************
The Hindu grandmother continues to help to nurse him back to health.
As she does so, she continually tries to reshape to straighten his nose.
**************
He has a beautiful nose today.
Is it my fault?
I told you about my dad and how easy it seemed to be.
The most peaceful death I have ever seen, I said.
It really was.
The pulse got slower as he slept. There was no effort, no gasping, He just simply didn't take another breath.
*******************
Ah, the dialysis fistula. Do you use it or not?
Just because it is there doesn't mean that you have to use it.
***********************************************
I received the death notice from a colleague today - "She decided to only accept comfort care. Many tried to convince her to not stop, but she was firm on it."
******************
Hyperkalemia with peaked T waves --------------
V fib goes to asystole.
The most peaceful death I have ever seen, I said.
It really was.
The pulse got slower as he slept. There was no effort, no gasping, He just simply didn't take another breath.
*******************
Ah, the dialysis fistula. Do you use it or not?
Just because it is there doesn't mean that you have to use it.
***********************************************
I received the death notice from a colleague today - "She decided to only accept comfort care. Many tried to convince her to not stop, but she was firm on it."
******************
Hyperkalemia with peaked T waves --------------
V fib goes to asystole.
old lady across the room
there was a table of older ladies who used to go to the same clubs where I went when I was a college student. There was a common theme at the clubs - there was always live music, reggae, or African, and dancing.
They probably weren't that old at the time, just older than me. Perhaps they were in their mid to late 30s, maybe even as old as in their 40's, but they seemed like they must have been 60, from my vantage point.
Compared to the rest of us they were sedate, usually sitting at their own table, perhaps 3 or 4 to a group. There was a particular blonde, and a particular brunette I remember the most. I thought they had a link to older men in some band, but I never knew this to actually be true. Yet they were connected to the whole scene, parts of the puzzle, just as I was a part of the puzzle.
I didn't like them.
And I had no good reason to not like them
******************************************************
I feel like we met again 20 years later, when I was definitely middle aged, and they were now finally about the age I thought they were in the past.
But I never told either one that I felt like I knew them from the past.
Maybe I did and maybe I didn't, it was all imagined, a similarity to someone else.
**********************************************
The blonde was actually the wife of a patient, an older African man. I think she was a retired nurse.
****************************************
The brunette was also a nurse (were these 2 women the same 2 women, and were they friends 25 years ago or possibly even still today?). She always wore silver bangles. and usually bright green smocks with matching pants - Indian style. She had green eyes and the green clothes with the green eyes and silver bangles created a striking contrast. She used to do African dance for exercise.
Little did I know after 14 years I would weep, for the loss of a profound soul, the day I learned she had decided to stop fighting for this life; and that she had passed away on the Anniversary of my mother's funeral.
They probably weren't that old at the time, just older than me. Perhaps they were in their mid to late 30s, maybe even as old as in their 40's, but they seemed like they must have been 60, from my vantage point.
Compared to the rest of us they were sedate, usually sitting at their own table, perhaps 3 or 4 to a group. There was a particular blonde, and a particular brunette I remember the most. I thought they had a link to older men in some band, but I never knew this to actually be true. Yet they were connected to the whole scene, parts of the puzzle, just as I was a part of the puzzle.
I didn't like them.
And I had no good reason to not like them
******************************************************
I feel like we met again 20 years later, when I was definitely middle aged, and they were now finally about the age I thought they were in the past.
But I never told either one that I felt like I knew them from the past.
Maybe I did and maybe I didn't, it was all imagined, a similarity to someone else.
**********************************************
The blonde was actually the wife of a patient, an older African man. I think she was a retired nurse.
****************************************
The brunette was also a nurse (were these 2 women the same 2 women, and were they friends 25 years ago or possibly even still today?). She always wore silver bangles. and usually bright green smocks with matching pants - Indian style. She had green eyes and the green clothes with the green eyes and silver bangles created a striking contrast. She used to do African dance for exercise.
Little did I know after 14 years I would weep, for the loss of a profound soul, the day I learned she had decided to stop fighting for this life; and that she had passed away on the Anniversary of my mother's funeral.
My India
"The India I know is not what you see in the movies"
***************************************
Circa mid 1980s-- the Indian Caste system -
The American nurse is transporting 2 infants in a basket -The is taking them both back for adoption in the United States
The customs guard takes the passports and throws then across the room - "get those dogs out of here", he says.
She scrambles to pick up the papers, protecting her precious cargo.
Is it possible to be able to look at an infant and to determine that he is of a lower caste?
*******************************
***************************************
Circa mid 1980s-- the Indian Caste system -
The American nurse is transporting 2 infants in a basket -The is taking them both back for adoption in the United States
The customs guard takes the passports and throws then across the room - "get those dogs out of here", he says.
She scrambles to pick up the papers, protecting her precious cargo.
Is it possible to be able to look at an infant and to determine that he is of a lower caste?
*******************************
There is a chapel
There is a chapel with stained glass.
Its called Gabriel's or Michael's Place. I think of the Angel Gabriel, or Michael. There is probably also a St Gabriel or St Michael, which inspires the name.
I can see the stained glass, the shape of the window - its tall and narrow, not rectangular, but coming to an asymmetrical point on the top. Its only a small room with the stained glass.
Its one of several buildings that make up the hospital/ refuge for pregnant, unwed women and their infants. It is a place for the outcasts of society, the lowest of the low- these unwed mothers. Without it, they would have no options.
The chapel/ hospital has an affiliation with catholic descendants of St Thomas.
*****************************************
you make the bricks on site and build the building.
******************
It is a place like this
http://india.tercenim.com/St.Michaels.htm
***************
It is a tribute to your Indian son.
Its called Gabriel's or Michael's Place. I think of the Angel Gabriel, or Michael. There is probably also a St Gabriel or St Michael, which inspires the name.
I can see the stained glass, the shape of the window - its tall and narrow, not rectangular, but coming to an asymmetrical point on the top. Its only a small room with the stained glass.
Its one of several buildings that make up the hospital/ refuge for pregnant, unwed women and their infants. It is a place for the outcasts of society, the lowest of the low- these unwed mothers. Without it, they would have no options.
The chapel/ hospital has an affiliation with catholic descendants of St Thomas.
*****************************************
you make the bricks on site and build the building.
******************
It is a place like this
http://india.tercenim.com/St.Michaels.htm
***************
It is a tribute to your Indian son.
Tell the story
If I don't tell the story it will never be told.
***************************
Did you tell me the story so that I would know it and be able to tell it to someone?
*********************************************
Am I able to describe the details to paint the pictures I see in my head?
********************
Or maybe it is arrogant of me to think that I am the only one who has heard the story. Maybe there are many others who could equally tell it, or tell it better than me.
***************************
Did you tell me the story so that I would know it and be able to tell it to someone?
*********************************************
Am I able to describe the details to paint the pictures I see in my head?
********************
Or maybe it is arrogant of me to think that I am the only one who has heard the story. Maybe there are many others who could equally tell it, or tell it better than me.
Dates
Those dates I will never forget
*********************************
It was the 10 year anniversary on Saturday. It was the first time I almost forgot. Still, there was something special about the day, the remembrance.
It was a different kind of special this time. Not a sad remembrance. Almost a comforting special.
***************************************
2 days later, no 4 days later, today, I would learn you'd had enough and left us all.
Peaceful.
I can see it and I feel almost as though I was there.
We all worry about the death experience. But, you got the perfect death for which I prayed for my loved ones.
Once again the same dates are sealed on my heart, but for a different reason.
And I am the least of all important - but for the fact I heard that story that I will never forget and I wonder if I should tell it.
********************************************
As I compose the sympathy card in my head...... it says, "Your mother told me the most beautiful story about how she met you, and her love for you, I will never forget it."
****************************
*********************************
It was the 10 year anniversary on Saturday. It was the first time I almost forgot. Still, there was something special about the day, the remembrance.
It was a different kind of special this time. Not a sad remembrance. Almost a comforting special.
***************************************
2 days later, no 4 days later, today, I would learn you'd had enough and left us all.
Peaceful.
I can see it and I feel almost as though I was there.
We all worry about the death experience. But, you got the perfect death for which I prayed for my loved ones.
Once again the same dates are sealed on my heart, but for a different reason.
And I am the least of all important - but for the fact I heard that story that I will never forget and I wonder if I should tell it.
********************************************
As I compose the sympathy card in my head...... it says, "Your mother told me the most beautiful story about how she met you, and her love for you, I will never forget it."
****************************
remembrances
A friend told me her story and the pictures were so vivid I sat enthralled in it for hours. I have continued to think of it many times since then.
Now I am not sure if I also saw pictures of the places in the story, later, or if the pictures are all in my imagination only.
*********************************************
It was a late afternoon, you were the last patient of the day. What should have been a 15-30 minute appt turned into an almost 2 hour session. I didn't ask for it. It just came. I couldn't stop it. I didn't want to stop it.
**************************************************
I can see the buildings, the road that leads there, the colors, the stained glass.
Did I know where it is and then forget? Why don't I know how to get back there now?
*****************************
did you send me an email and I lost it?
*********************
was it a dream?
***********************************************
I told her she needed to write a book, that her story was a movie.
She knew it was true.
She also had another layer of complexity - her son maybe didn't want to know the whole story yet. She wouldn't force it on him.
I thought of my 2 friends who are film makers . How could I get her together with them?
But she was too sick.
She ran out of time.
Now I am not sure if I also saw pictures of the places in the story, later, or if the pictures are all in my imagination only.
*********************************************
It was a late afternoon, you were the last patient of the day. What should have been a 15-30 minute appt turned into an almost 2 hour session. I didn't ask for it. It just came. I couldn't stop it. I didn't want to stop it.
**************************************************
I can see the buildings, the road that leads there, the colors, the stained glass.
Did I know where it is and then forget? Why don't I know how to get back there now?
*****************************
did you send me an email and I lost it?
*********************
was it a dream?
***********************************************
I told her she needed to write a book, that her story was a movie.
She knew it was true.
She also had another layer of complexity - her son maybe didn't want to know the whole story yet. She wouldn't force it on him.
I thought of my 2 friends who are film makers . How could I get her together with them?
But she was too sick.
She ran out of time.
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