Mingled Love

“In all lands love is now mingled with grief . . . . “  Lady Galadriel, Fellowship of the Ring

As the small company of friends flees from great evil, mourning the loss of their leader, with their future uncertain, the wise Lady of the Wood acknowledges the temptation to despair but assures them that love still prevails, but this love is now inextricably intertwined with grief.

Such is the nature of love in a dangerous place.  Tomorrow an 11 year old girl named Kabugho Margaret will set off for Kampala with her father and one of our nursing staff.  Her abdomen is grossly distended with fluid and she winces in pain from a huge and growing mass.  She is dying of cancer, but able to smile in response to questions.  Her pregnant mother is wrapped in a kitengi, her concerned father wears flip flops sitting in my kitubbe today, and when he wracked his brain to think of how he could raise money to get her care he could only think of selling his chicken, worth about six dollars.  That won’t get them far.  Perhaps it is unmerciful to even offer them hope.  I struggled with that all weekend and am still not sure it is right to spend almost all the money we have left in our health account (about $250) to give her a long shot at treatment.  If this is a Burkitt’s Lymphoma it could be curable.  The chances, however, of any ordinary humble inexperienced patient navigating the inept and harsh bureaucracy of the national referral hospital (the only place in the country with chemotherapy) seem slim.  The alternative, remaining here, some tylenol for pain, and before long, death.  Perhaps the most merciful choice, but one I lacked the courage and conviction to make yet.  So she is going.

Closer to home, this morning reminded us of how fragile life is, especially here.  We were in the midst of singing a song at church when Joe ran in and got my attention, saying “my mom and dad say to come quick, something is wrong with Louisa.”  I tapped Scott’s shoulder and ran out after Joe, to see Kevin standing across the way waving us on to come quickly, saying she stopped breathing.  They had been at home watching a video together, when they suddenly became aware that Louisa was drooling, pale, then blue, unresponsive, floppy.  By the time  they piled everyone into the car and drove up to our house she was arousable.  My heart was still pounding, the sense of being on the brink of life before and after a crisis event that could change all our futures.  But this was a recurrence of the febrile convulsions she used to have as a baby, she was pretty out of it for a while after the seizure and her temperature started to rise rapidly.  She tested positive for malaria.  After some treatment and prayer we believed she would be fine, and there was thankfulness all around by the time she could sip a soda and say “Mom, see, I TOLD you I was sick.”   This is a bad malaria season in Bundibugyo. Love and sorrow meet, an awareness of danger for the ones we care about, this time not ending in desperate grief, but a sense of grace.  

Louisa spared, Kabugho we don’t know yet, all trust in One whose love plumbed the depths of grief and came back to save us.