Good Friday Musings

Good Friday morning, I am outside with ten wheelchair-bound girls, aged 18 through 30. It is just me with them and I take them on walks and spin their chairs as they smile and giggle....or, honestly for some of the girls, as they continue to wail and rock back and forth, as my presence does nothing to change the torment in their lives. I am often alone with the girls and I like it because I imagine myself as the oldest sister in charge while parents are out of sight. When I am in their shared sleeping space after they`ve gone to bed, I read stories and tell jokes as if we`re having a secret slumber party even though lights are supposed to be out.


Mariana--one of the girls who weighs about sixty pounds and has a body composed of gnarled limbs--begins crying due to the sun, and I pull her chair into the shade. I leave the group and return to find Mariana sobbing as Corazon and Neddy try to comfort her. Corazon is one of the only girls who can walk, though she does it by quickly pushing her 90-pound frame forward in a clumsy manner that suggests she`ll fall over any minute. She is always eager to help out by pushing wheelchairs and she loves giving and receiving affection. Neddy, who is wheelchair-bound, is one of the few who can talk, though she rarely does it in the presence of visitors like me.

Corazon is hovering over Mariana`s wheelchair while clinging to it for support. Neddy is saying something unintelligible and extending her limp arms toward the chair. It is both beautiful and heartbreaking to see. Despite their own severe handicaps, the two girls posses something within them that makes them love and try to aid others, but they are still helpless. I wheel Edith back inside and she stops crying once she has reached her bed.

I sometimes have doubts about what I am doing in Mexico because I often feel like I am doing acts of charity that bring momentary aid rather than long-term change or relief. That moment with the girls is a reminder of how blessed I am just to be able to make small differences.

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In the afternoon, the church is packed with people and happenings. I attend a reflection on Jesus`s final words on the cross such as when he asks God to forgive His tormentors, His cry of abandonment and His thirst. I see portions of the Passion Play but the church grounds are so crowded that it is overwhelming to try to keep up with the crowds as they move from place to place trying to keep up with different scenes.

I forgo watching the Crucifixion reenactment in order to return to work. The children are alone as, ironically, everyone is attending a Mass about Jesus`s suffering. I try to juggle crying babies around while Vickie (who is six, paralyzed and one of the oldest children) gives me orders about where to put them. I bring her water, attempt to read her stories in Spanish and we count off the numbers in both English and Spanish.

While changing her, I inadvertently cause her pain by tugging on her diaper too hard.

``Bruja,`` she says. (Witch)

``Como?`` I ask.

``Bruja,`` she repeats firmly.

Her pronouncement may have something to do with me dressing in black from head to toe for Good Friday, but it`s funny how perceptions are. At that moment, I view myself as the person who cares about her most in the world, while she sees me as bullying and insensitive. Again it`s a sisterly moment, since as a younger sister, I know that`s how it works sometimes.

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In the evening, I go to another service, only by now I`ve lost track as to what it`s about. It`s packed and I don`t have a seat, so feeling tired and hungry from fasting, I decide to sit outside and read the missal.

``Caro!`` squeals Danni, a pint-sized sixteen year old girl who makes up for it with a loud voice that she utilizes often. She runs toward me and wraps her arms around my waist.

Danni has taken a liking to me and Jess and we get that reaction every time we see her. She likes to hold our hands when Padre takes the church on protest walks and she`ll invite herself to our house or the office while we are working. She once asked me why I don`t play in the streets at night like she does and she`s sported bruises from her fights there. She is usually in the process of chasing someone or being chased while she is at the parish.

Upon seeing me, she finds a missal and sits next to me and reads quietly. For about five minutes. Then she decides we should move to a shadier spot. She shouts out to groups of guys and makes plans with friends. She abandons reading for playing games on her phone. She follows me back to my house and I give her one of my sweatshirts as it`s getting cool and she has on a hot pink strapless shirt. She goes out to play in the street. I join Padre and a group of parishioners who are carrying statues of Jesus`s dead body and a veiled Virgen Maria through the streets as one of the boys beats a drum.

If I were ten years younger and Dani and I were in high school together, I would want to be a lot like her. As I was quite shy and had few friends as a child, I would have sat by myself in study hall reading a book, watching her flirt with boys and trash-talk with friends, and I would wonder how her extroversion comes so easily. Here and now, she finds herself struggling to be calm like me.

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Four days later, after everything has calmed down, I am with the girls during a field-trip to the zoo. I push Edie along and seemingly entertain her by singing songs and reading signs which I try to translate. When she jerks her head when I am paused for too long, I tell her that it`s important to learn.

Really, I am amusing myself and I realize that my solitariness as a child has given me the ability to survive when I feel as if I am on my own here. All those times I felt left out growing up have prepared me for what I am doing now.

When I was in sixth grade, I had a teacher who wanted to fix my quietness and would call on me in class often, saying, ``This is the year that you come out of your shell.``

It wasn`t for about seven more years, through travel, acting lessons, weight loss and a study of college friends, that I harnessed the ability to be more social and outgoing.

However, throughout my adult life, I`ve had all types of friends and I was always going to parties and dinners. I don`t think that others thought of me as the girls who was an outsider as a teen. My decision to do mission work required a certain amount of confidence in myself socially, as I knew I`d be in a foreign environment where I`d know nobody.

Still, I often feel as if I am alone here, be it in actuality or due to communication problems.It is as if God shook me out of the shell I once inhabited and molded me for a new, more durable one. Only now, I pull others in with me and let them rest for a while as I push ahead.