April 4, 2013

Up until today there’s been only one from his home in Haiti that he’s listened to on the phone since he had his stroke. That one is his firstborn, his cherished son, Clief. Even today we combat corruption and all the red tape to bring his child-boy here to help him through this time. When I watch my papa listen to the voice of his son on the phone there is a rub. Part of him soaks in deep the love of his son he desperately needs while the other part mourns his inability to reciprocate his own love. These paradoxical emotions weigh on my papa and it looks like the earth is swallowing him up. I sit right near his side, seeing with my own eyes. He wants his family, orphans, church, and village something fierce. I can’t begin to imagine how one fights this sort of battle, a struggle through throbbing anguish. Every other day I ask softly, “papa, do you want to call mama today?”

We both understand clearly the deeper hidden question I’m asking here. You see, God knitted his own heart together with another and forever they became one but after having his stroke he knows to hear the loving voice of his other half will require a force larger than himself. What I really want to know is if he’s built up the courage and strength needed to once again hear this one treasured voice, the voice of his beloved wife. How will he listen to her pour out, filling him up, without the capacity to respond to her affection?

For the last 18 days the answer to this question has been a somber no. Surviving this stroke and then moving into recovery mode is like digging yourself out of the rubble after an earthquake shakes you to the core. No one is prepared for such violent destruction.

This morning I didn’t initiate anything. It was in my papa’s own will that he motioned with his hands for me to bring him my phone. It was time. He was ready. He couldn’t go another second without hearing the voice of his adored wife.

I could hear my heart beating hard as I dialed the number.

Hearing his other half, the love of his heart, changed the tone of his voice. Still only gibberish emerged but there was a passion to the sounds coming from him. With divine courage and everything in him he emptied out and I cried silently.

I don’t care if you’re not the crying kind. If you were in that room when the words of his lovely wife touched his ears and pierced his soul, your tears would have welled up and spilled over. Her words caused my papa to find feelings that he fought to stuff into words but the words never came. I have to believe my mama understood plainly in her spirit exactly what my papa wanted to express. Surely when two hearts beat together as one their souls still share the language of love in the absence of words.