Part 2: The baby without breath

Walter is the latest scabies victim. He’s three years old. He doesn’t speak.

This week he came to school late with his wrist bandaged. One of the sores coating his tiny toddler hands had burst.

When I hold him on my lap his mouth moves, opening and closing like a fish. Without sound. His face is without expression.

He whispers out a “bonjou, good morning” with forceful encouragement. His short arms reach up to scratch his head. A reaction to nerves and head fungus (which plagues many of our boys.)

Walter doesn’t resist being held. He doesn’t respond either, beyond the slight rest of his butterfly hand on my encircling arm.

In the fall Walter's baby brother was in the hospital. One month old with an oxygen tube strapped to his nose. He lay on a pillow on the lap of a family member or friend come to pass the time. Perhaps he had pneumonia.

It’s Saturday afternoon. We’ve eaten and are preparing to rest through the golden hours until twilight cools us.

A man approaches the kitchen door. Walter’s father. Walter, who started school in September. The father comes with hands lifted in supplication.

“Please, will you help?” he asks.

Pastor explains the situation.

“His baby is in the hospital. He’s on oxygen. They need to pay for the tank or they won’t get another.”

The family doesn’t have the money to pay for the oxygen their child needs to breathe. If they can’t pay, the hospital will not provide more. We’ve seen this before with Adeline, our asthmatic miracle.

Children die every day.

Not today.

“You don’t say no to a sick baby,” Beverly and I agree upstairs. We gather some funds and get in the car. We want to see this baby for ourselves. To pray for him.

We drive to the public hospital, just a kilometer or two down the street. We step up to the pediatric ward, another green and white concrete building like all those on the gated hospital campus.

The first baby is at reception. He’s being weighed. We pass the desk. Pass a room of cries. Enter a room of quiet.

What I see most is the eyes. Eyes. Eyes too big for faces. Eyes like wells. Wells deep with all the suffering and loss of the world.

Bodies are shrunken. The floors and walls are bare. The few cribs are shabby. Some folding chairs support slumped figures of the waiting.

No light. There’s no electricity right now, in this golden time before dark.

In the quiet room is Walter’s baby brother. He is impossibly beautiful. He’s rasping.

His mouth opens and closes, his tongue unfurls and curls back in. His brow puckers. He tries to cry. He tries to wriggle out of this breathing tube. Wriggle out of this place.

There are many babies here. Each ones reads a tragedy. Babies are miracles. They are hope and delight. Sick and suffering babies are an abomination. Visible proof of the wretchedness of this world. Shattered pieces of beautiful intention.

Here we are. Beverly, Pastor, Rose, and I. We are the most prosperous visitors this room has seen all day. And perhaps we are the most horrified.

Soon the baby is on my lap. He has woolly black hair, quarter-round ebony eyes, waving fists, unfurling tongue, and breathing tube. The question of why is far heavier than he and his pillow.

We never get his name. Shadows deepen as dusk falls. There is still no light. No electricity to brighten this place. I hold him on my lap, singing softly.

“Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world.” I stare down at him, his brow continuing to crinkle and smooth as he whimpers then nearly smiles. “Jezi renmen tout timoun yo, tout timoun ki sou late….”

The baby’s large green oxygen tank resembles a submarine. A submarine at war with illness as the angels are at war with demons. Here there are demons of despair, of affliction, of death. They take a beating as we sing and pray, the four of us joining hands with the waiting family and friends surrounding the baby on his pillow in my lap.

Then Pastor is at the door although Rose would stay and talk. A woman enters, sweating, bag of food clutched in her hand. This is Mama. She’s been out for supplies.

Beverly says, “Okay, Rachelle. Let go of the baby.” I awkwardly pass him and the pillow to Mama, kiss his minute crinkled forehead one more time.

“Goodbye, Baby.”

Mama takes the baby up, presses him to her shoulder, the oxygen tube snaking around, stuck between them. An unwelcome interference. An abomination.

We leave, trooping out with our privilege. We will return to a place of cleanliness, of food, water, light, and medicine. A place with no sick babies.

We leave the babies with their tragic eyes in the darkened room. Babies, guardians, and congregants remain in uncongenial positions. Perhaps they think if they act like stone long enough they might become like it. Stone doesn’t mourn.

“The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion—to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the LORD to display His splendor.” ~ Isaiah 61:1-3 NIV