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.

A Lonely Piece

Paulina is three and-a-half years old, was abandoned by her parents, and has dark brown hair that is kept in a bowel cut. She walks around the Sisters' home in cute dresses with her arms swinging, head up, and always after something. If her twin sister has a soft, white roll and is enjoying a bite of it, Paulina will grab the bread from her sisters' hand and stuff it into her own mouth. Paulina eats food from unattended plates and grabs books and toys from smaller children. Mostly, she is on the lookout for adults to pick her up and when she sees someone bigger, she approaches them with her arms extended upwards. She'll settle for holding hands, but if she finds another set of open arms to scoop her up, she will let go of the person she has. If I am carrying a crying baby, she tries to pull the baby from my arms, or she points to a crib or baby-seat in an effort to get me to put the child aside and pay attention to her.


My father is in his late 60's, has spent his whole life and Pittsburgh, and has graying hair that is usually covered by his sports cap. He doesn't miss Mass, he rarely misses choir practices, picnics or Steelers games, and he often misses work. He didn't want me to go to Mexico and had lots of ideas of what I should do instead, ranging from running for Congress to tending bar. One of his last suggestions was ''Look, you can live at home and not pay rent. You can do social work at the Senior Center. I'll retire and let you have the Beemer.''

Paulina can't speak but if she could she would be saying what my father was really saying--
''Let's be safe and happy together. Let's not worry about anything else.''

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Then there's Corazon who is nineteen years old, very tiny, and seems to be comprised of a huge smile and baggy clothes. She walks unevenly, with a limp and hunched back. Sometimes she is weeping instead of smiling and then I'll put my arm around her and give her dolls and read her stories until she perks up again. She dances and says a few words, mostly 'Mama' and 'Sister.' When it's time to move the other girls, she helps to push the wheelchairs. Once, when one of the nuns was trying to to force medicine into Edith's mouth, Corozan jumped out of bed to help Sister hold down Ediths' arms.

I am sitting on Corazon's bed, reading her 'Sleeping Beauty' when a new nun walks in and introduces herself. Her name is Sister Maria, she is from Columbia, and she became a nun 28 years ago after her Father died and she went to England and took a pilgremage to Lourdes. She asks me where I am from, what I am doing here, and if I have a boyfriend.

''Praise the Lord,'' she says to my response. ''They'll just hold you back. You need to be free to do your own thing and move around. People say single people are lonely, but married people get lonely too. You have as good a chance of marrying a good husband as you do winning the lottery. Just do good works and do everything for God. If you feel lonely, there are plenty of people to visit, '' she says, as she looks around at the room full of beds of handicapped women. ''And there are even more people in hospitals who need companionship.''

Her thoughts seem valid, but I don't tell her that being at the home often makes me feel lonely than being by myself. I feel out of place, as if I am a clumsy one-woman cheerleader squad. I think that if I did have a boyfriend or family to come home too, it would make things much easier. Of course, back in the United States there's a whole country full of guys I would be able to talk to who used to approach me at parties and work, but I had someone and wasn't interested in them.

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I am trying to figure out why there are so many needy people out there when there are so many people needy people out there. It's like a third of the world fits in a puzzle, and the rest are pieces scattered about, trying to find a place inside, or fit with another random piece.

What if Paulina was my Dad's daughter? Maybe she'd stay with him his whole life and they'd spend sweet Sunday afternoons driving around together. How many couples are desperate for little girls? Meanwhile, Corozan is going to be a little girl forever, calling for Mama. As for me, why didn't I end up with my own family in Pittsburgh....or why can't I be like the nuns and have it be enough do everything for God?

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This is being written as I am home alone on a Friday night, though I could have gone to the Parish where I would have felt welcome. Guillito would try to feed me and he adores me, probably because I remind him of some of the mothers of of the nineteen children he has fathered. The men with mental handicaps like talking with me because I listen to them patiently. I am not there because I know eventually I will feel frustrated and left out if I stay for too long sinceI don't understand what is going on. I'll use this as an excuse to nip at the tequila and since my New Year's resolution is too take better care of myself, I am at home.

The thing is--my thing is people, mostly people who are somehow awkward or different. I notice them, I think of them, I listen to them. The fact that people here so often make me feel lonely and irritable makes me question who I am.

In orientation, we learned that bad spirituality is what happens when people fail to know God and it manifests itself through things like drugs, overeating, greed and violence. I wonder though if maybe those things are the result of a failure to feel close to other people.

But, we are all made in God's image and likeliness. By paying attention to others, we can know God. While I may not always feel at ease around people, my calling my be to share my experiences of others and encourage people to look hard for those that they fit with. As for those times when I retreat inwards and prefer being alone, by coming to know myself, I am knowing God too.