Haiti

I am lying in bed, the sun has set, and the stars have taken their post for the night. The windows are open, yet I am protected from the outdoors by screens. I feel the cool breeze dance across my face. There is no humidity. My sweet, gentle, loving husband is quietly slumbering, preparing to work hard for our family again tomorrow. My children are tucked into their soft and cozy beds. And then I feel it. I feel him. The little being inside my womb that God has so carefully created and sustained thus far. First it is just a little kick, and then all kinds of different sensations take place. Was that an elbow or forearm? Wow! Maybe he is dancing the Konpa in there! A smile comes across my face as I place my hand on the skin that separates me from my child.
Lying there in pure bliss, my mind quickly drifts to a world not far away, but so different from mine. I can see and smell all that is going on, as if I am there. There is a young woman, lying in her bed. The bed is only a thin mat placed on the floor. The stars blaze bright in the sky above. She too feels a breeze come through, but it is warm and sticky and smells of burning trash. There is humidity and heat so thick that it is suffocating. As the sweat runs down her face, this woman lies there alone, no husband by her side. Her three other children are sleeping restlessly on a mat across the room; their bellies ache from hunger. And then she feels it too. She feels the kick, an attention-grabbing jolt in her womb. Her eyes want to fill with tears, but she has cried them all away in the months leading up to tonight. She places her hand on her stomach as well, and her heart is broken.
We have just passed the 8 month anniversary of the earthquake in Haiti. The 12th of each month comes and I seem to be taken back to the first 12th that mattered. January 12th, 2010. It is often easier to connect with someone who has similar circumstances as we do, and maybe that is why my mind has drifted to the pregnant women on Haiti so often.
You see, time has reached an interesting milestone. We are at a point where the babies who are born will be the last of the pre-earthquake conceived batch. Next month, babies who are born will have been conceived after the earthquake. Perhaps that doesn’t seem like a big deal, but to me it is.
I think of the women who are about the give birth. They are all different, and they all have different life stories. Yet my heart breaks for them all.
I can’t help but think about the woman who had a loving husband, one who cared gently for her and respected her. He was a man who kicked the cultural standard, and treated his wife as the Bible called him to. He worked hard whenever he could to provide for his family. He led them to church each week. Perhaps in early January they conceived a child. Then on the 12th, he was killed. His wife is now about to give birth to their child. My mind races with the emotions she must be feeling. This is the last of what was left of her life before everything crumbled. The little face that will soon gaze at her will be the last tangible thing she has to remember her husband by. With the threat of death during childbirth so real for her, I wonder if she is scared. She might worry about her child dying and God taking this last bit of her dream from her. When she feels that precious child kick, as she lays lonely on her mat, I wonder if she reaches out for her husbands hand for him to feel, forgetting for a split second that he is gone. What memories of him will she quietly whisper to her new baby once it is born? Or will it be too overwhelming for her to even mention his name at first? Then her thoughts must go back to reality. She will now have four children to feed with no way to make the money needed to buy the food. She has no house and is living in a tent. Her heart aches and she in unable to drift to sleep.
I also think about another girl. She had no husband prior to the earthquake, and has no one still. She is young. She lost everything, of the little that she had, when the earth shook. Early on the morning of January 1st she was trying to rest as many in her neighborhood were celebrating the New Year and the Independence. She was curled up in a corner near a tall cement wall. As the men passed by her, she grew tense. She knew all too well the dangers of sleeping on the street. Just as she had dozed off she was awoken by a rough man; he smelled and was dirty. She closed her eyes and began to kick him; she knew what was coming. Not nearly as soon as it had started, it was over with. The man was gone, but he left scars on her that would not heal. While the pain from the man was still so real to her, this girl was now on the side of the street as the buildings started to shake. Dust arose, she saw her closest friend dead beneath cement blocks. Her world was shattered again. And now here she is. The sky is dark and there is no breeze. The mosquitoes and other bugs have free reign at her. Her belly stretching further than she ever thought was possible. That evil man had left more behind than he knew at the time. As she lies on the muddy dirt she thinks of her life. She is numb to most of it. And now, she too feels a faint movement in her belly. Her mind travels quickly back to that night. With every movement of the baby she is reminded of what happened to her. Is she mad? Does she cry? Is she scared? She wishes that there was no movement inside her and that she had died with her friend beneath the cement blocks. She is so worn out, weary, and tried that she quickly drifts asleep.
I can imagine that there are a thousand more stories like these two. Each woman having different emotions as they prepare to give birth to their child. Yet they all have something in common. They have a baby that will soon be born into a world that is much different then the one they were conceived in. Yes, it has been 8 months, but not a lot has changed, much is worse. I am so thankful for the blessing of life that God has given me. Every time I feel my son moving, my heart is quickly filled with joy and excitement, yet at the same time, deep inside my heart, I mourn for the women in Haiti who are feeling the same tiny kick that I am.