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That’s when it hit me. If I don’t take seriously the nun’s statement that, “She needs a family,” will that baby still be here when she’s six? Is that okay? What is my responsibility to a child I held for 5 minutes and to a woman, nun or otherwise, I met only minutes ago?
Brooke Wright
“Can I pick her up?” I asked through the translator. “Yes, of course,” replied the petite Spanish nun by my side, “but be warned, she will cry when you put her down.”
She was so tiny. The size of a four-month-old, maybe. She could not have weighed more than ten pounds, and I would later learn that she was actually 13 months old and did in fact weigh only 10 pounds. Her body was cold and frail. The tip of a fresh scar, red and swollen, peeked out the top of her oversized Onesie. Her left leg jutted out awkwardly from her hip, stiff from atrophy. But her eyes shone bright and she begged to be picked up. Her tiny arms reached for me in a desperate plea for human contact. Skin on skin.
When I lifted her she clung to me. And she smiled. Her soft chestnut hair brushed against my cheek. She smelled of antiseptic and fresh linens. She felt brittle like I might crack her slender bones if I held too tight.
We were told that she had just had major heart surgery and was alone in this corner of the otherwise empty corridor of the orphanage to protect her from the germs and potential dangers that lurk everywhere in a home with over a hundred children.
I held her for no more than five minutes. Five short minutes. But those five minutes were long enough to become attached.
When the translator motioned that we needed to move on and continue our tour of the orphanage, I did not want to lay her back in her crib. I did not want to walk away and leave her alone. As promised, she cried when I put her down—a cry of protest, loud and powerful beyond what I thought her tiny body could produce. The nun gave me a knowing look of I told you so. With a slight pause, she tilted her head and said with a grin, “She needs a family. Come back for her in a year. She’ll be ready then.”
A few minutes later, in another part of the building, we stood together asking questions about the orphanage when a young girl came running to the nun’s side and began jabbering in Spanish. She was shushed while our translator listened as the nun told us that this six-year-old girl had the same heart condition as the baby we had held upstairs and had received the same surgery as an infant. This little girl stood hugging the nun, smiling and laughing, healthy—full of joy and so much life.
That’s when it hit me. If I don’t take seriously the nun’s statement that, “She needs a family,” will that baby still be here when she’s six? Is that okay? What is my responsibility to a child I held for 5 minutes and to a woman, nun or otherwise, I met only minutes ago?
That question, “What’s my responsibility?” might have been the kind that lingers with you until you get back to the hotel and then go to dinner and have a few drinks. Maybe it lingers until you get on a plane to come home and the doubts start, or until you get home and the demands of life push it to the corners of your mind. Or maybe, it is THE question. The one you wrestle with, the one that keeps you up at night.
If adopting our boys was the kindling of the fire that is the call upon my life to advocate for the orphan and help people adopt, then that baby, that tiny girl and the questions that came from holding her for 5 minutes—became the spark that lit the fire.
Photo (Flickr CC) by James Southorn
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Brooke Wright
Latest posts by Brooke Wright (see all)
- TimeHop to Now - August 4, 2015
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- Taking the Detour - May 1, 2015
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- Can I Pick Her Up? - April 7, 2015