one family's tears.

Psalm 3:8 -- "from the LORD comes deliverance."

i've walked into this house hundreds of times before. i know that i can pull up halfway on the curb and still leave plenty of room for people to walk on the sidewalk. i know i must duck quite a bit as i enter the yard in order to avoid knocking my head on the wooden beam atop their fence -- a fence made of slabs of metal and tin, aligned with rotting wooden beams & held together with rusty nails. i know that when it has rained heavily, i must step carefully through the gate because a huge puddle awaits me on the other side.

i know that the piles of wood and rubble and rubbish in the yard move around but nothing really comes of them all. i know that entering the house requires walking up 2 steps, but never requires opening the front door--it's alway open. i know that the children of capricorn find through that open door a woman with an open heart. this woman, auntie margaret, shares her heart with the suffering of the world. she has no job, no flow of income, no human resources department or medical aid, nothing we define as "security". but she's got a heart of gold and the honesty of a true woman of god. and those two traits make her one of the greatest people i've ever met.

auntie m is a high-spirited, fiery force in capricorn. she sees it all. she knows everyone, and everyone knows her as "ma". but lately she hasn't been herself. most days i find her in bed or in tears: her body aches, her lungs hurt, her head throbs, her knees lock. she's coming down with something and it scares her.

she's been in and out of the hospital this past week. diagnosed with asthma, tested for HIV, believed to have tuberculosis--she's still not convinced. waiting for answers is making the whole family more nervous and on edge as they now see their servant-hearted, energetic mother lying in bed day after day as tears gently roll down her deep, dark, worn cheek.

"ashley! come now! auntie margaret is very sick!" i hear this today as i pick up the phone. once i arrived at her house, the pain had reached such a level that she was a nervous wreck: crying, getting angry, screaming to God for help. i sat with her, rubbing the back of a woman so strong but now so weak, feeling the bones protruding from her frail body.i watched as she went in and out of sleep. i rocked her screaming grandson so that there was one less noise in her house.

the ambulance was nothing but skeptical upon arrival (3 hours later). question after disbelieving question tore to the core of auntie m's deteriorating spirit. as she became more and more upset, the attention of the paramedics heightened. she was taken to the local clinic where she would hopefully (but unrealistically hopefully) be sent to a state hospital that could tend to her needs more specifically.

as soon as she left the house, her oldest daughter (stephie) threw the knife and carrot she had been slicing onto the dusty kitchen counter and threw herself on the bed, replacing her mother's cries for help with her own tears and wailing. i sat with stephie and put my hands on her head and back, knowing that a loving human touch in this time of pain would bring a deeper level of the expression of fear and hurt she was trying to hide. she lost it and this 17-year-old mother of two wept into her pillow as i rubbed her back and held her close, listening to the water boiling on the kitchen stove. i thought to myself as i often do, "how long has it been since someone took this girl/mother/child (or whoever it is) and sat with them while they cried? have they EVER actually been loved and held as they wept, or are they used to doing this without any empathy given from others around.

as stephie's crying quietened to a low hum of ache, i noticed a second voice in the room in a similar state of pain. i saw auntie m's next daughter (berry) in the corner attempting to wash her arms and face in a small pail of water. her body shook as she worked, trying to keep herself busy while she cried...unlike her older sister who threw everything aside when her own tears started.

i called berry over and she collapsed at my side, her head falling into my lap. for the next 20 minutes her crying didn't lessen or change: just deep, deep sobs over a life of hardship and a mother whose fate seemed so uncertain to this little girl. with her 13th birthday coming tomorrow, maybe she thought to herself that just having her mom well was the only gift worth wishing for.

time passed and before i knew it, my phone rang. all 7 of us piled into my car and raced to the clinic to fetch "ma". the hospital wouldn't help her. welcome to south africa.

i ask for you to pray for this woman. she's too valuable to loose now. she's too imperative to the well-being of too many people. as she said while we pulled away from the clinic, "i know god has something big in store for me because i stay on his side. i know he is with me."

(auntie m has no carpet in her concrete home. two mattresses for her, her husband, her 5 children, her two grandchildren, and the boy mingo she houses. there are maybe 4 or 5 blankets to go around. she doesn't have a heater and the weather here is unbelievably cold. the warmth of love that might overflow from your hearts as you read about auntie m today can be channeled into a tangible warmth she and her family can feel. if you feel led to help this woman, let me know what is being laid on your heart. god bless you for your warmth.)